Favorite Board Games: Family Fun with Dominos, Settlers of Catan, Risk & More

[bigfooted]

A very old (medieval) game is Rithmomachy, the war of the numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rithmomachy

It was very popular among students back then, until it got replaced by a much easier game called chess. I have to admit that I still find chess quite challenging, but at least you don't have to master Boethian number theory to be able to play it. When I made my game, I used roman numerals because that was the standard in the 13th century. It made playing the game even more challenging.

For my more normal friends, I have Settlers with extension sets, Carcassonne, and Roborally. But I also like Axis and Allies, Munchkin, cluedo, werewolf... I used to play AD&D and Magic when I was a student, also lots of fun.

 

[symbolipoint]

I do not know if these count as "board games" or not; but the people used to like the computer game, "Bejeweled", and I liked "Oktagon". Both of these were computerized games. Another fun one was "Ice Breaker".

 

[bland]

I am amazed and perplexed in equal measure that Go has not been mentioned yet, especially in light of the recent publicity surrounding Lee Sedol and Alpha Go. All the pieces are the same, the board has no preferred orientation, there are three basic rules and pieces do not move. Yet it is infinitely deeper than chess which in comparison is more like a battle rather than a war.

Go instils good attitudes to life and engages ones intuition to a large extent, which is why Alpha Go's victories were surprising.

Unlike chess a good player can play a weaker player by adding some handicap stones and this does not fundamentally alter the characteristic of the game. A full board is 19x19 but it can be played on a 13x13 board again not fundamentally altering the underlying principals. It can even be played on a 9x9 board for a game that is good for learning fundamentals principals or just to play a 5 minute match.

It has an unparalleled online community from 9 dan professionals to beginners and robots. http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/pandanet all entirely free.