Board game suggestions?

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loobylou
Posts: 2032
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2014 5:04 pm

Board game suggestions?

Post by loobylou »

Apologies if there has been another thread on this - I have done a search and can't find one.

We are a big board game family but many people don't seem to have heard of the games we love - and I'm sure there are lots out there that we don't know of.

Our favourites are Takenoko, Forbidden Island, The Lord of the Rings (well that one is more dh than the rest of us!) and Callisto. Ds loves Escape from Colditz which I find terribly long and tedious - same with Risk....

Any other suggestions that are strategic and good fun?
J50
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 10:35 am

Re: Board game suggestions?

Post by J50 »

Blimey I remember playing Escape from Colditz umpteen years ago as a child and loving it. Saw a brief programme the other day about board games and the Europeans especially the Germans are apparently very keen on them (ok maybe not the Colditz one :D ). The only one I remember them mentioning was CATAN which you might want to look into - sorry I don't remember anything else about it.
Yamin151
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Joined: Fri Aug 30, 2013 8:30 am

Re: Board game suggestions?

Post by Yamin151 »

Love this thread, we have loads. At work but will fill in later. We ahve Forbidden Island too and are huge fans of the non-monopoly board games! Watch this space but to start you off, check out Ticket to Ride (board game original America)
Tolstoy
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:25 pm

Re: Board game suggestions?

Post by Tolstoy »

Our favourite as a family is Apples to Apples. It isn't a game of strategy but a word game that all ours love and were introduced to at a Thanksgiving meal. All the DC there loved it. In our family we like to vary the rules, enlightening that certain family members completely missed the irony gene despite thinking otherwise :lol:

Unfortunately it is an American game so some of the famous people are not so famous here.

We also realised rather late on the day that it is an excellent vocab building tool.

Personally I love Cluedo and cards , always have, always will. :)
Stokers
Posts: 358
Joined: Tue Aug 21, 2012 9:48 pm

Re: Board game suggestions?

Post by Stokers »

What age range is your family, loobylou? Our DCs start at 5 and go up to 13 and we love King of Tokyo and PicPicNic (all together) and Dominion (older ones). There's also a good Dr Who The Card Game, if you are fans (good game without being a fan, too!).
There was a really good article in guardian recently - sorry, rubbish at links but if you search within The Guardian site under 'best board games', it will come up.
Will look out for Forbidden Island. Can feel a gaming weekend coming on!
loobylou
Posts: 2032
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2014 5:04 pm

Re: Board game suggestions?

Post by loobylou »

Stokers wrote:What age range is your family, loobylou? Our DCs start at 5 and go up to 13 and we love King of Tokyo and PicPicNic (all together) and Dominion (older ones). There's also a good Dr Who The Card Game, if you are fans (good game without being a fan, too!).
There was a really good article in guardian recently - sorry, rubbish at links but if you search within The Guardian site under 'best board games', it will come up.
Will look out for Forbidden Island. Can feel a gaming weekend coming on!

They're 10 and 12 Stokers - so more or less adult in terms of games. Hope you like Forbidden Island. We thought the other day we must introduce the children to Mahjong but we haven't played it ourselves for a few years. Canasta is another favourite of ours that we haven't introduced them to yet...
Minesatea
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Joined: Sat Oct 31, 2009 12:08 am

Re: Board game suggestions?

Post by Minesatea »

My favourite board game is Hare and Tortoise. I dont have the patience for monopoly, but we play the card game, monopoly deal alot on holidays as it is fairly quick and very portable. This thread has made me realise that I havent taught my youngest to play backgammon yet.
onebigdilemma
Posts: 232
Joined: Wed Dec 18, 2013 4:58 pm

Re: Board game suggestions?

Post by onebigdilemma »

We like Balderdash!!
Mine have loved monopoly from an early age.....not sure why??!!
They also love Risk
Love card games, like phase 10 and uno always fun on holiday and yahtzee quick and easy when travelling
Last edited by onebigdilemma on Sun Oct 04, 2015 10:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
booellesmum
Posts: 611
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 7:44 am

Re: Board game suggestions?

Post by booellesmum »

Minesatea wrote:My favourite board game is Hare and Tortoise. I dont have the patience for monopoly, but we play the card game, monopoly deal alot on holidays as it is fairly quick and very portable. This thread has made me realise that I havent taught my youngest to play backgammon yet.
Love the Hare and Tortoise game! Hadn't heard of it until DD2 received for birthday last year. Definitely recommend.
Yamin151
Posts: 2405
Joined: Fri Aug 30, 2013 8:30 am

Re: Board game suggestions?

Post by Yamin151 »

Hi

My boys do like Monopoly si I'll play it, but I've hated it for years. Goes on for ever and so repetitive, with often a clear winner who flies ahead from early on and it ends up being boring for everyone else.
However, I married a man who spent most of his teens (and ALL, I say ALL - 12 hours) last monday playing a hex based paper war game with his school mate of old (I know!) - but the less extreme form of that has been his keen-ness to find us games we can all enjoy as a family, that are not so predictable. I'd urge you first of all to check out

The Dice Tower - its a review site run by Tom Vassel with top tens on all sorts of games - he has yet to send us a wrong recommendation. The other idea I'd give you, should you have time and inclination next year, is to visit The Games Expo at the NEC - a whole hotel devoted for two days (pop in for one) to showcasing all kinds of board games, with whole tables devoted to showing people how to play and trying out prototypes, competitions, all sorts.

So, knowing you are already on our wavelength in liking Forbidden Island, and with boys a similar age (ours are both 12), I'd urge you to check put The Dice Tower reviews for the following games (ooh, also, searching Youtube for "game play ***" is a great way of shortcutting boring rule reading!! These games are sometimes pretty expensive, but the quality is great and they will last indefinitely, and are not at the vagaries of fashion. All can be played and enjoyed by our children since they were 8 or 9, though best now they are older.

1. Carcassonne - My favourite of ALL - lots of expansion packs as you get used to the original

2. Pandemic - another co-operative game like Forbidden Island where you ahve to try and save the world from a marauding set of diseases.

3. Ticket to Ride, I mentioned before. We have 8 different versions!! ( :oops: I know!) - this is such a classic family game where you compete to complete train routes across a country or countries, by collecting relevant coloured train cards. Points are awarded for station to station claims, and then also for completing whole routes, but no one knows your routes or if you have completed them until the end, so you cannot know before then if you are winning or not. The different versions have different elements to them. We love them all. Start with America as thats most straightforward and everyone should have it. Not complicated. Can't recommend more highly.

4. Formula D - cars racing - boys love this one

5. Memoir 44 - hex based WW2 board game. Soldiers, tanks and artiillery on landscapes representing key battles of WW2. You make decisions and move according to selected cards and dice rolls. Has taught me a bit about key battles and boys know a LOT now, but far more family friendly than dhs war games. Expansion packs available.

6. Wings of Glory - ww2 or ww1, scale models of real warplanes and you do dog fights moving your planes around the table.

7. King of Tokyo - Mean!!!!

8. Dixit - beautiful illustrations, you have to make a word or phrase to describe a card mised in with others, if you make it too obvious and everyone guesses, no points, too obscure and no one gets it, no points, so have to pitch it so that one or two people guess which card you played. Clever, good for imaginative thought and beautiful.

9. Some quickie ones that you could do in an airport, car etc
Bang - Wild west based, dice roll - sheriff needs to survive, others try to kill him off
Zombie Dice - great fun, dice roll, risk more dice throws to get more brains to eat but might get killed by a grenade instead
River Crossing - more cerebral, cute little game testing your powers of problem solving to move planks around in restricted ways to get across a river.
Story Dice - box of 9 dice, throw each one and build a story based on what you get.
Dobble - Fast and furious, find which picture of 8 on a round card matches with one of 8 on opponents card, shout it out and offload the card, winner first to have no cards. Frustrating, so so easy and you would swear sometimes there is NO match (but there always is!)


There. That should keep you going for a while. ANy other questions let me know, hope you find something in there. Don't forget, Dice Tower and Youtube!

Happy playing (oh, by the way, we tip all these into careful bags to we can take them all on holiday - no screens!)
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