What Are Your Favorite Board Games and Card Games?
Mates,
Given that we're on Shelter-in-place status, it seems like this might be a good time to talk about what your favorite board games and card games are. What's good for adults (Hatter, do not suggest strip poker), what would be fun for the kids and/or the family in general. If what you suggest isn't very well known, please give a sentence or two about what the game is about.
As mentioned, the question is: What are your favorite board games and card games?
Be safe everyone, we'll get through this,
XM
Farkle!
I'm a stone cold killer at Settlers of Catan. The universe has to cheat-code to stop me. There's a well-known phenomenon when I play Settlers where, if I place a hut on a 5, then 5's are rolled roughly about as often as 13's. But if I don't place a hut on a 5, they come fast and furious, like downvotes on a Section 1 post. This is documented fact. 5's are straight-up evil.
I usually win regardless.
can you give a brief description of this game that you are so good at? also, is it a family game, more of an adult game?
The board is made of hexagons which are each a resource, grain for example. Each hexagon also has a randomly assigned number from 2 to 12 (excluding 7). You place your huts and eventually cities at points where three hexagons meet and connect them with roads on the borders where two meet. Every roll of the dice gives everyone a resource (or two, for cities) for each hex whose number matches the roll, if they have a hut or city on that hex. (Unless it's a 7, then you move the robber to whatever hex you want - the robber prevents that hex from generating any resources.) You use the resources to build more stuff or to trade for different ones that you need. Huts and cities are worth points, there are other ways to earn points, you win if you're first to 10.
Family game for sure. But, probably difficult for small ones to understand. 8 or 9 and up kind of game.
This is a good summery. I would also include that there are expansion packs worth buying once you have decided you like the game enough. My family enjoys the Cities and Knights expansion.
I agree about the numbers. We once played a game where everyone had an 11 but me and 11 was the most rolled number in the game. I am still not sure how that is possible.
Have you played Cosmic Encounters? Settlers on steroids, our favorite game.
Just One and Pinochle are the games we play most often.
I have admittedly never heard of it. I did used to play a lot of pinochle, my grandma loved that game, but it's been so long I've more or less forgotten how.
I was going to say resurrect the art of pinochle and get the next generation to bring it back, Wahoo beat me to it.
Mexican Train is a great game for all family members. Don't let the name scare you, it has NOTHING to do with heroin, just dominoes. If you have baseball lovers in the household, nerd out and teach them Strat-O-Matic baseball.
Been playing a ton of cribbage and Words with Friends while attempting to teach middle school kids online. It's a daily grind, but we're all going to make it work.
March 31st, 2020 at 10:57 PM ^
Whenever our family plays dominoes, Mexican dominoes is the game of choice. Things get remarkably competitive. People get called names a lot.
I also learned pinochle from my grandparents and have tried to teach my generation but it just doesn't stick. Closest I can get them to play is spades which is still quite fun but definitely an easier game.
Cosmic Encounter is one of the best board games of all time IMO. Every single game will be totally different from the last. I've played hundreds of board games and I've never played a game with more replay value than this one. Not the greatest ever, but it's top 10. Worth a google if you've never heard of it!
Catan has been excellent as well for our family. Cribbage is the preferred card game since the kids won’t buy into Euchre.
I play a lot of Catan with my friends, but my daughter is only almost 8 and I'm afraid too young yet. I look forward to the days when she's old enough for it, and I can kick her and her mothers butt at it too :)
Look for Catan Junior -- your daughter will likely find it very playable. It's still fun. (Of course it is sold out most places now, but keep your eyes peeled and it may pop up.)
I am a nerd. So chess is #1.
But the Coronavirus has been about teaching the kids the old Michigan classic, eucker.
Been having a nightly battle.
There will never be another board game as great as chess. My dad bought me a chess book when I was little & I learned a math lesson. The game could be reduced to numbers & I loved it. Won a tournament when I was 13. My youngest son has beat me every game we have played for the last 8 years. But I will get him.
I'll go with euchre as the best card game also. But the first game I watched (at a redneck bar in Madison Heights), everybody passed, & then passed again, & then all mucked their cards to the middle of the table. I thought it was the dumbest game ever. Screw the dealer is a good rule.
Don't ever move to the South if you like euchre.
March 31st, 2020 at 10:16 PM ^
Oh yeah, it really sucks sitting out on the deck in 75 degrees and sunshine in Feb-Mar playing ... euchre. Either with all the gajillion other northern transplants down here, or just online.
Not that I do that every single day or anything.
I did, it's rough. Their favorite game is: talk shit to the yankee, get offended when you talk shit back.
Do you work for your youngest son now?
He works for me now, but he has his sights set on bigger things. I can see greatness in him.
I adore the game of euchre. Been playing for over 30 years. I would consider myself a 12th degree black belt : )
March 31st, 2020 at 11:22 PM ^
I fucking suck at euchre. I play like it’s poker without understand the trump...always play drunk and laugh my ass off watching the other team lose their shit
I also suck at euchre, for the simple reason that while I can remember the rules, I can't seem to understand the strategy. So the trick is to play with three other people who also suck. Somebody will fuck up, they will realize their mistake with an anguished cry of "Oh shit, why did I do that!", and the rest of the table will berate them mercilessly for their stupidity. Then we all have another beer.
It's very similar to the way I play golf. I'll never be good at it, so the important thing is to have fun.
My best euchre story: Years ago we were playing with a married couple who would constantly talk trash to each other. (I think it was their version of foreplay.) During the game. Wife made a particularly inept move which cost them the trick. Husband said to her, "Honey, it's not that you suck at this game ... it's that you suck so bad!"
Without missing a beat she replied, "Yeah, and that'll be the last thing I'll be sucking for a while."
I laughed so hard I almost snarfed my beer all over the table. Good times, man.
Tunneler, if you like Euchre and Chess you’d love Bridge
A game that’s both cards and board that’s a ton of fun is sequence.
I swear this is not a joke: pandemic is a great game.
Let’s play the online version
Plus 1 for hilarious
Pandemic: Legacy is the best game I've ever played. I was 2/3 of the way through a second playthrough with a new group before the social distancing hit. Now we're indefinitely on pause.
Going to try Scythe via Steam with some friends as I hear that game is awesome.
Scythe is easily our most played game. It truly is a great game to get onto then table. Best with 4, in our opinion. However would love to get all 7 in one sitting.
I have Pandemic Iberia. Good game!
Pandemic is well-designed, but as a co-op game it is vulnerable to alpha-gamers, people who have a tendency to think they know what other people should do. Enjoyed pulling it out a couple of weeks ago, though.
I played it for the first time several years ago with my sister-in-law who at the time was working for the CDC chasing down epidemics. Very fun game, but it is definitely vulnerable to alpha-gamers. Ironically, that was not her--even as the only one of us five who had played it before and as the clear expert in the room, she did a great job letting us decide on strategy. However, as someone who wants to solve the challenge myself, I prefer to just play the iPad version on my own, as all the people.
well i'm going to guess its your dear wife rocking the michigan sweat shirt.
That’s correct, but don’t tell her she’s in the pic.
I’m unbeatable at connect four in a best of 7 format.
I enjoy chess but I’m terrible at it.
my kids are loving “don’t step in it”. But I imagine it’s going to get old soon.
Cards Against Humanity should have some timely surprises. You can edit out any extreme cards for a PG13 version
So you’re saying you enjoy Apples to Apples then, no?
Edit: I will agree it was awkward explaining to my father what pixelated bukkake was. I’d like to forget that family game night...
Just imagine how awkward it was for him to sit there, thinking what a shit job you were doing of explaining "bukkake," wondering whether to tell you it was just the "pixellated" part he didn't understand.
Checkers and Clue-Board Games
Kings on the corner, War, Slap Jack-Card games
The card games I played when I was a kid with my Grandma mostly and I don't really know how to tell you how to play. I hope this link helps with the rules.
Cribbage and cabin fever = peas and carrots
I play a lot of cribbage with my wife. It's a fun game that can be played with 2 people. If we have four people, which we don't during this quarintine time, we play a lot of euchre.
Chess and Risk.
Also, despite the fact I grew up in the age of video gaming, the Avalon-Hill bookcase WWII games were amazing. I had Panzer Leader, Panzer Blitz, Afrika Corps, at least one or two others. The problem was finding someone to play against who liked wargaming as much as I did.
Eventually the strategy computer games caught up, but there was something so fun about moving all those little chits around a map that was irreplaceable in a computer sim.
Taught my boys Risk and they are 9, 6 & 6. Interesting to see their individual game play especially the differences in risk taking and strategies between the twins. It’s a classic. Love stratego too. In about 4 years they’ll all be ready for Axis & Allies.
Sammamish Rules Euchre
- Hybrid Canadian and Michigan developed over a couple decades and through endless arguing. Played just east of Seattle.
how does it differ from our michigan euchre? metric face cards?
March 31st, 2020 at 11:57 PM ^
Hard to say since it can depend where in Michigan you’ve played. We tried to make the game harder. Dealer must go alone if they pick it up. No three 9s three 10s or ace no face. Must have natural to call. To some those are standard. The game I learned in high school we used all of the tricks to make it more interesting. Also reneging and stealing the deal in HS was common but in Sammamish it could result in a fist fight.
My kids and I have already played Clue, Uno, Exploding Kittens, and Stratego during the past couple weeks. Exploding Kittens is a relatively new card game; the others are classic games from my childhood.
+1 for the Boob Wizard