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
I just ordered Exploding Kittens on Amazon. My kids and wife will LOVE it. Thanks for the heads up! Go Blue!
So many...
- Terraforming Mars - GOAT. Great game, tons of replay ability, and beautifully rendered.
- Viticulture - Best worker placement game.
- Star Realms - technically a card game. Great two player game.
- Puerto Rico - Old game, but still excellent.
- Concordia - Fun game with lots of elements.
- Orleans - Great game that’s easy to pick up and hard to master.
- Just One - Probably my favorite party game
- The Mind - Another great group game.
- Pinochle - favorite card game
I hear Terraforming Mars is great. My friends and I are going to give it a shot via Steam pretty soon since we can't try it in-person. Never played a board game (or any game) on Steam before last night.
Ever played Wingspan? I'd put that as my favorite at the moment. Puerto Rico is second.
You're right that Terraforming Mars is great. I'd put it in my top 10.
I also enjoy Viticulture and Orleans.
Wingspan is another good one!
Amazon is out of stock of Terraforming Mars right now and I'm absolutely kicking myself.
Is Terraforming Mars a game that school-aged kids can play? Mine are 9th (girl, not an avid gamer but will compete for the sake of beating her brothers), 6th (boy, loves to game) and 2nd (boy, wants to be like his big brother, but doesn't have the skills to take on more advanced games).
I would say the 9th and 6th grader could play. Not quite the 2nd grader.
Horse/pepper is euchre-like game with less randomness from buried cards
Chess/Euchre
i'll put a plug in for the card game hearts. some of you will know what i'm talking about, a card game where you either try to give points (which are bad) to all the other players in the form of having them take hearts or the dreaded queen of spades. in the alternative, you do what's called 'shoot the moon', meaning you take all the hearts and the queen of spades, thus giving all three other players 26 points.
we played that a bunch in college, after dinner and before heading to the ugli.
Played lots of hearts. We played where you had to pass 3 cards before the hand the started. There’s a fair amount of strategy in that game. Shooting the moon is quite difficult, I’ve only seen it happen once.
we were pretty sophisticated in our games, and indeed, one of my all time favorite players is a lurker here. it was pass left, pass right, pass across, and every fourth hand was a 'keep'. whoever you passed to, you had the obligation to stop their shoot. and the way we played, unless your hand was a metric ton of crud, you tried to shoot the moon every hand. counting cards was key.
Is there any other way? Exact way we would play. We'd have the entire floor into it.
most people have a tendency to play what i call 'duck'em hearts', meaning their only strategy is to not take any hearts, not think ahead, and not count cards. it is a pleasure to play with people that are on top of their game. it has been years since i have, but its fun.
Counting the cards is integral no matter what strategy one is using. It’s far to easy to block someone who routinely attempts to shoot the moon, “duck em” hearts is easily the best strategy in my opinion.
i would respectfully disagree. and the great part about shooting the moon, and being good at it, is that you also have one or two ways to 'bail' on the shoot before you take too many points in an unsuccessful attempt. and if everyone thinks you are trying to shoot, you can bait them into some imprudent leads.
+1 Used to love hearts. Haven't really played it since undergrad or occasionally while deployed in the military.
totally off-topic, but what is your avatar picture? every time i see it i think its an aircraft carrier pointing at me, possibly in downtown san diego. i'm sure that's wrong though.
USS Midway, yes it's an aircraft carrier, CV-41. I was stationed on her and we were homeported in Yokosuka, Japan, back during the Golf War. I believe this was taken while we were anchored off Hong Kong.
i can't believe i guessed that one correctly. we used to swing by the midway in S. D. bay back in the day, on our way in/out to the ocean. and if you were in the gulf war, you flew a whole lot of planes off of her deck, yes?
Oh yes. Lots of flight ops. We were almost continually deployed. As we were homeported in a forward station we became the "first response carrier" and would relieve other carrier battle groups as they left or came on station. We didn't go for as long but we went continually. It was great as a single guy as I got to see many places and experiences. It was tougher on the married guys as they would get home and then deploy again within 3 months. She's now Naval Aviation Museum in downtown S.D. I have a condo in San Clemente and whenever I am there I am a docent on the Midway. Amazing that she still feels somewhat like home to me.
Were you Navy also?
i was merely a civilian.
If people like card games and you have younger kids, a great game is called Egyptian Rat Screw. I call it Egyptian Rescue around my young ones.
The game is relatively simple. The goal is to collect all the cards. Turns are taken clockwise. If a number card is played, it is the next players turn. If a person plays an ace, the next player lays down one card at a time up to 4 cards to play another face card. If a king is played, the next person has 3 tries. A queen is 2 tries, and a jack the next person only plays 1. If no face cards are played by the next person, the player who layed down the face card gets the piled of played card. If another face card is played, then the next player repeats the process.
However, if two of the same card is played at anytime, reguardless of suit, anybody can slap the pile of cards. The first one with their hand down wins. Even if those who have lost all of their cards or are not in the game yet can "slap in" to the game. I have played games that have lasted hours. My 4 year old likes to play with his oversived PJ Masks deck.
Scythe, love it. Single or multiplayer board game which makes it worth buying. Not a kid game, but only because of its complexity. Faction based territory control/mission game.
Favorite card game is Setback. Not sure if it has a different name but it’s a lot like euchre with a slightly different objectives. It can be played with a teammate or cutthroat style.
My buddies and I went on a 4 day cruise out of Mobile, AL, last summer and we called it the "Scythe Cruise". We were playing through the campaign (I think it's an expansion) and we saved the last 3 games of it for this cruise. Good game! It's fun to see the all the folks stopping to see what this game's all about as we're playing in the Lido deck restaraunt.
Splendor is a game of chip-collecting and card development. It plays around 30 minutes. 2-4 players. Lots of strategy!
Top 5 game for sure! My strategy: Go for the level 3 card with the most points for the fewest total gems. Buy a few level 1s and then basically skip the level 2s and go straight for this one. Then pick off others when you can. :-) It works.... well, sometimes.
There is a card game called Oh Hell, it's sort of a cross between Euchre and Spades where you have bid tricks you will take each hand and amount of cards in each hand changes. It's great for most ages and works with up to 6-7 people. I have attached a link to rules. Oh Hell Rules
Another game for most all ages is 31. You get 3 cards and have knock when you believe you don't have lowest hand. 31 Rules
If I am just with another person I enjoy Cribbage and a board game called Mastermind,
I love this game! Outside of my family I have never met anyone who knows how to play.
March 31st, 2020 at 10:26 PM ^
We call that Oh, Pshaw! or Up and Down the River.
Yes, have heard it called that also.
The Cones of Dunshire.
It's a sign of how old I am that I'm the first to mention Monopoly.
don, be candid. you were part of one of the original viking hordes that swept down on western europe. monopoly is a child's game for you.
Vikings? Pfft. I was in the original wave of EEMH invading Europe ~40,000 years ago, taking a route along the Balkans from Asia.
March 31st, 2020 at 11:03 PM ^
Holy shit, we found the dude who discovered Europe
That’s because monopoly is a very poorly game that very few people like.
Stratego and chess will always be my favorites. The tactics you can deploy for each one make them so much fun.
Twilight Struggle.
Two players. Especially fun when played between Cold War survivors.
There is one board game that is like the One Ring in its trancendance and diabolical nature: Diplomacy.
can you give it a brief description?
It's a game designed around persuading others, making alliances and then stabbing your allies in the back at the appropriate time. Was supposedly the Kennedy family's favorite game. Maybe not safe for most normal families.
NO ONE said Magic the Gathering yet?
Most of us have had sex before
(Oh come on, it's funny)
Settlers and Rook, in my opinion.
Not really big on board games.
Cards - Spades and Euchre are in a dead heat for me.
Rail Barron was popular with my kids.
If you like euchre you should learn to play bridge.
did play bridge in college, but never since then. used to sit in the back of finance class with the freep sport section in my lap and read the bridge hands.
March 31st, 2020 at 10:43 PM ^
I love Euchre and Oh Hell!, but Bridge is the pinnacle of Whist-based card games. I live in a neighborhood on Chicago's far south side where there's a nice little resurgence of the game going on. Players aged 30 to 100+. Once you get the hang of it, the game pairs incredibly well with hefty Scotch pours.