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

[Greg Bernhardt]

When I think of holidays I think of "board" games. My family always plays one after dinner. Lately we play a lot of dominos, but for board games we like Settlers of Catan, Risk, Sorry and the classic Trival Pursuit. What are you go to board games? I'm hoping to get Dead of Winter and King of Tokyo for xmas!

 

[phinds]

Scrabble and Boggle. We also played a lot of Risk when the kids were young.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Scrabble

My wife likes Scrabble and Bananagrams. She wins every time!

 

[Helios]

Microshogi is my favorite game. Shogi is Japanese chess and Microshogi (AKA Poppy Chess) is a variant of shogi. It's a great game and yet no one seems interested in it. I would think it would appeal to PF people. Because of its miniature size, I would think it would be a perfect app for the Iphone but no one has pursued this.

 

[ISamson]

Chess.

 

[lekh2003]

Monopoly is best. Monopoly is life.

 

[nitsuj]

stratego! <- link is to wikipedia

 

[Bandersnatch]

A Game of Thrones is a very fine (war)game in its own right, and a great one for fans of the series.
Similarly, Battlestar Galactica is a must for fans, and a well-constructed mafia-style game otherwise.

For a few laughs, and a shorter session, one of the many iterations of Munchkin always does a good job. While the original's humour is geared towards people who play games a lot, there is also e.g. Star Wars-themed version.

 

[cobalt124]

One of the kids getting Risk from Santa so hopefully will be playing that. Also Mahjong, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Pictionary in the main but generally love playing board games and have loads of them.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

For a few laughs, and a shorter session, one of the many iterations of Munchkin always does a good job.

Only problem with Munchkin is that it requires at least 3 people. I am buying my brother in law Sheriff of Nottingham for xmas.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

Scrabble and Boggle. We also played a lot of Risk when the kids were young.

My family plays a variant we call Scrapple. Same game, but any meat products are triple word score.

Chess and Go are my go-to games to kill a few minutes on my phone. Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Stratego, and Risk for favorites in my house growing up though.

 

[Bystander]

but any meat products are triple word score.

? Spent some time in/near Philly; "cereal by-products?"

Edit:
NUMBLE, from the SCRABBLE folks; don't know whether it's still available.

 

[PetSounds]

Pandemic is a fantastic, lesser-known cooperative board game with a link to science. I highly recommend board game fans check it out. Clue (aka Cluedo) is another all-time favourite.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Pandemic is a fantastic

I have it, but sometimes co-op games are frustrating because there is usually one person in the group making all the decisions.

 

[PetSounds]

I have it, but sometimes co-op games are frustrating because there is usually one person in the group making all the decisions.

That's true. The rule we generally go by is that whoever's turn it is has the final say.

 

[Fig Neutron]

My top three are Monopoly, Stratego, and Chess, but Stratego is definitely my favorite.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Stratego

Looks fun! Chess meets risk meets capture the flag?

 

[Orodruin]

In general, it depends on the occasion and the company. Here is a small selection, roughly in order of increasing complexity:
One Night Ultimate Werewolf (casual, voting, role playing)
Citadels (city building, variable roles, bluffing)
Roll Through the Ages (dice, resource management)
Star Realms (deck building)
San Juan (role selection, hand management)
Roll for the Galaxy (economy, dice)
[URL='https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28143/race-galaxy']Race for the Galaxy[/URL] (role selection, hand management)
Stone Age (economy, dice, limited resources)
Dominion (deck building)
Puerto Rico (economy, farming, role selection)
RoboRally (programming, chaos)

 

[Integral]

Lots of good games out there. I like Merchants and Marauders, Tiny Epic Galaxies is a lot of fun. Also Fury of Dracula. I played those games at my son's ,I also enjoy Battlefield Commander Napoleon I started playing wargames of the turn based on a hex grid map on board ship in 1972.

 

[cobalt124]

One of the kids getting Risk from Santa so hopefully will be playing that. Also Mahjong, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Pictionary in the main but generally love playing board games and have loads of them.

Utterly defeated by kids playing Risk Europe. A combination of poor tactics and being ganged upon.

 

[Khashishi]

Orodruin has a good list. I don't know about favorite, but yall should check out Carcassonne, Terraforming Mars, Betrayal at the House on the Hill, Dixit, Pandemic, and Terra Mystica.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I'm hoping to get Dead of Winter and King of Tokyo for xmas!

FYI I got these for xmas and can't wait to try them out. Played some CodeName over the holidays, pretty fun!

 

[paulo84]

I guess chess. Recently I have given up on trying to emulate a supercomputer in terms of thinking ahead, and play tactically, generally only considering a move or 2 in advance, but considering quite thoroughly. It has proven surprisingly effective.

Drafts is also far more intricate than would appear at first. I can't even

 

[opus]

Munchkin and Scrabble for me.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Munchkin

I got that for xmas last year. Wish you could play a 2 person game.

 

[paulo84]

BTW, it's possible to play noughts and crosses in such a way that you are guaranteed to never lose. I imagine the same principle must apply to chess and drafts, it's just soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo difficult to work out.

 

[opus]

I got that for xmas last year. Wish you could play a 2 person game.

That's true. Although I think most games are much more fun when you have more people, it's nice to have the option.
If I have company over and want to play a game, I'll go with Scrabble if its just two of us, and Munchkin with a group. If alcohol is involved, we usually go with Mortal Kombat X for Xbox One

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Played "sheriff of nottingham" last night and it was a lot of fun. It's a bluffing game. You try and smuggle contraband past whoever plays the sheriff.

 

[dRic2]

How come nobody mentioned Jenga?? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenga)

 

[Stephenk53]

Chess all the way, I used to be really good at it but I haven't played in so long I no longer am

 

[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.