Another vote for Bananagrams from me - we love it, especially with a glass of something! Very good fun, more so than Scrabble I think, and great for encouraging flexible thinking. It comes on travels with us as it is so portable.
We are about to start a game right now - just waiting for the bartender (my other half) to make me a drink
Other regular favourites are backgammon (I made a portable set using a cloth and small counters that also travels with us in a small drawstring pouch, ready to spread out on a tabletop anywhere) and Yahtzee, again, highly portable.
I was in Rottingdean near Brighton England last year where my parents were married in St Margarets and my motherâs family lived. In the Rottingdean museum (Iâve been many times before), I discovered that Cluedo had been invented in the Tudor Close Hotel behind St Margarets, 20 m from where my parents were married. Cluedo was originally Murder at Tudor Close and run as weekend parties there.
Tudor Close is now private residences. You can see a picture of the back of the church from Tudor Close garden.
Just beyond the church is Rudyard Kiplingâs house where he live for only a short two years since he was too much of a tourist attraction.
Next to Kiplingâs house is the green where I saw Vera Lynn open the village fete in 1999, the same fete my grandfather used to organise.
The church gained some fame from my grandfatherâs partner G.H Eliiott when they removed his original tombstone since the wording resulted in complaints. There is a folder at the back of the church explaining the story.
I spoke to the minister Anthony Moore (my cousin Tony Moore lived in Saltdean, but not the same person) and said they had done the right thing. He said he was listening to Harry Enfield on the radio who had complaints about black face and Harry had said âno one was complaining about G.H. Elliottâ. That seemed to start the whole thing off.
No one here has so far mentioned modern board games (often called eurogames) except for Karuba. There are 1000âs of them and much more interesting than the old standards like Monopoly. There are themes for almost everything, easy and difficult games, push your luck games, strategy games (not talking about wargames here).
Be a bean farmer (Bohnanza), build gardens for a panda (Takenoko), rule domains (Dominion, El Grande & many others), trade goods, compete to build train lines across europe (Ticket to Ride Europe), travel around Africa collecting artifacts (Africana), Race to build the most colonies in space (Alien Frontiers), Compete to restore a fresco in a cathedral (Fresco) make the best morning tea (Elevenses)
Also co-operative games -rescue people from a burning fire before the house collapses (Flashpoint Fire Rescue) or help each other escape from a sinking island (Forbidden Island)
Try some, even Kmart is starting to sell some of these. The only problem is that buying new games can become addictive!
I just looked on Booktopia for Board Games and there are 100âs if not 1,000s. A lot are Pathfinder or Starfinder, or Bingo style. Wish I had someone interested in playing.
Agree, we buy one every month or two, and catch up with friends about once a month. Over coming weeks, I will post some of the games we play.
A simple yet fun tile game is âHey, Thatâs my Fishâ:
It is another game to take travelling as the tiles and tokens can fit into small bag. The principle of the game is to move around the placed tiles (ice floats), collecting fish (tiles) as one moves. Strategy is needed and it it is best to avoid being stuck in a corner. The game is suitable for familes, and children older than 4 to 5 should be able to grasp the rules of the game.
Yes, love Hey Thatâs My Fish, I would have loved to be able to afford the deluxe version that the WA Boardgaming Association has with the beautiful large penguins but couldnât justify the expense when you could buy the travel version for about $20
Iâve played a few of the other versions - good way to learn geography of different countries, you can now buy a simplified version called Ticket to Ride London for $25 in Kmart which takes 10-30 minutes to play.
Depending on where you live, there are boardgaming groups. In Western Australia, we have the WA Boardgaming association who run games days on a Saturday twice a month. I live in a smallish country town and started a games group. I used to host games days regularly once a month to start it off. Now we just have a facebook message group where we organise a game at peopleâs houses.
You could try posting in community noticeboards or on something like facebook groups in your area to find likeminded people. We started with getting the local community newspaper to write it up.
Best place to buy are dedicated board game shops like Games Empire, Good Games, Tactics, The Dice Club. Some of them also run open games days.
I also like AD&D (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons), great game choices there. You can play it on self designed maps, purchased maps, playing without maps, with miniatures and without them, by telephone. over the net, in face to face groups, the adventures are only limited by imagination. So sort of board games and also played without actual boards.
First of all, itâs worth saying that Eurogames arenât really EUROgames, theyâre called that by the vast American market, because they came from Europeâs general direction. They actually originated in Germany and the genre more accurately can be known as German-style games.
Almost entirely, this style of games rose out of West Germany after the end of World War 2. For fairly obvious reasons, there was a massively decreased appetite for conflict and war-based games in Germany at the time.
German culture underwent a massive shift as togetherness, the family unit, and avoidance of conflict were all prioritised, and as a result board gaming became not what itâs still like in the rest of the world â something you do when itâs raining â but rather a mainstream established part of family life. They were reviewed in major papers, and Germany was even the birthplace of gaming awards like the Spiel des Jahres which provided incentives for designers to try daring new ideas. Also, this idea that gaming was a benchmark of German familial culture meant an emphasis on games that made sure the group playing stayed involved throughout, which led to two other key features of GOOD board games. Players should not be eliminated, and the player whoâs actually winning should be obscured for as much of the game as possible so everyone stays engaged.
For decades Germany quietly mastered the art of board game design while the rest of the world largely stuck to established âclassicsâ like Monopoly.
Regardless of your personal preference, Eurogames are a big deal. It was their migration to the global market and their sudden influence on modern board game design that caused this huge boom of tabletop gaming that weâve been in for more than a decade nowâŚyouâre gonna have to accept that by introducing exponentially more gameplay variety into the hobby, Eurogames have fundamentally changed board gaming for the better.
Note my wife and I play and own a lot of games, mainly âEuroâ style games.
Our favourite for the last few years has been Terraforming Mars. I am also a big fan of Power Grid and Die Macher.
The theme of the first two I mentioned should be reasonably obvious, Die Macher is a game about German Elelctions. 4-5 hours for five players, pre-pandemic a group of us used to get together at a games convention in Albury and our Saturday morning game was always Die Macher.
There are a lot of board games on computer. I play MS Solitaire in idle moments and MS Jigsaw with my own photos.
Thereâs traditional ones like Monopoly and a range of games that keep getting advertised to me, but I have never played. Like building an island kingdom, war gaming, role playing, memory / matching etc. I suspect some are supported by the ads you have to watch, and some have in-game purchases or you can upgrade to the full version for a price.
To solve my problem of âno one to play withâ there might be some on-line board games that will let me participate with others in real time. I donât know.
Iâm sure thereâd be some. 50 or so years ago I knew people whoâd play chess by post! These days you could play chess (or other board game) with someone on the other side of the world pretty much in real time. Allowing for timezone differences, of course!
In general board games on the computer are simulations. Two player games like chess, draughts, one plays against the computer opponent.
In games that really need more than two players, like monopoly and risk, the computer acts as multiple players. Each acting independently. And one can generally set the skill level of the other players. Not nice being blown out of the game quickly by a bunch of expert virtual players.
My brother had Sqatter as a child. (mayâve been something to do with being the son of a son of a son of a son of a son of woolgrowers - just a guess). He is now a wool grower with his son.
It is becoming more available and there are different base sets and game extensions. We have the standard/original game. The game involves placing tiles and claiming roads, cities, monasteries etc. Points are awarded based on the size of the captured feature (or completion of the feature).
We have played other sets (derivations) which friends who collect game. We have also played with game extensions to change the games.
Each game takes about 30+ minutes depending on how fast players make them moves and what set/extensions are used.
I have played the game âSecret Hitlerâ a number of times . Really intriguing to play . Bluffing is the name of the game in this one . " Secret Trump " expansion has also been released but I have not played it .
Allowing for timezone differences, of course!