Picking 8 board games among thousands of board games around the world may seem to be a very hard task to accomplish. But if you are going to ask me, here are my choices. You may not agree on some of the games in the list but you have to admit that we share the same interest on most board games. The list includes timeless and relatively new board games, in different game genres (word, abstract, German-style, and more).
Chess The basics of chess can be learned in a matter of days but this is the kind of game that takes years to master. But no matter how good or how bad you play this game or whether you even know how to play chess or not, your collection will never be complete without this 8×8 game board with 32 game pieces around.
Monopoly When someone thinks of board games, the word “monopoly” always comes first. This is not a surprise since monopoly is considered to be one of the most successful board games of all time. The real testament of its success lies in figures. Monopoly has sold more than 500 million units since it was first released at the time of the great depression.
Scrabble This game does not need any words for introduction. The fact that 1 out of every 3 American households has scrabble proves that the game is a masterpiece in all rights. Scrabble, without a doubt, deserves its place in my list.
Settlers of Catan The success of Settlers of Catan lies directly on its game design. Played on random board layouts that ensure that every game is different, Settlers of Catan is a multi-faceted game that requires both skill and luck. If building infrastructures and creating civilization are what you like, you have to give this game a try.
Chutes and Ladders I’m maybe way too old to play this game but Chutes and Ladders has to be on my list. Why? It is fun and brings a lot of memories from my childhood.
Tigris and Euphrates I don’t know about you but if someone speaks of strategic and tactical board game, this has to be on the top of my list. Set between two clashing dynasties at the dawn of civilization, Tigris and Euphrates is a game that builds skills on managing trade, agriculture, government and religion evenly to become the victor. The game has won first prize in the 1998 Deutscher Spiele Preis. But even then, this game is already a winner for me.
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico is set during the age of the Caribbean ascendancy. The primary aim of the game is to accumulate points by building infrastructures or shipping products (such as corn, sugar, coffee, etc.) to the Old World. Economic management is the key to this game while assuming various roles (settler, builder, mayor, craftsman, etc.) in every round.
Zingo Once in a while, I want to play light board games like Zingo. This is very similar to bingo which can be played even if your opponents have not yet learned reading and writing.
There are many excellent board games out there that should be on the list but since there are only 8 slots available, I choose all my favorites. That said, what’s your top 8?
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Ah, the joy of a family night of fun board games played at the dining table! From Chutes and Ladders to Monopoly, through Tripoly and Clue, to Stratego, Risk, and Battleship, board games are just plain fun.
When we were youngsters, our movies were books and our game consoles were stored in boxes on the closet shelves. I recently rediscovered this joy with my seven-year-old granddaughter. We made a decision to watch tv less and spend more time doing things that encouraged conversation and personal interaction. It was a great decision. We spent the summer working puzzles, reading books together, and playing games at the dining room table. I now know which girls in her class giggle too much, which boys will chase you on the playground, and how much homework “they” expect her to get done. I also had the pleasure of watching my really smart, very funny granddaughter become a card shark.
All of this together time took me back to my childhood. We never really had to decide to watch less television. We only got three channels and my father’s interests ran the gamut from the news to football. Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Joe Namath pretty well dominated the airwaves at our house. The Philco belonged to Daddy. So we played outside in the sunshine and played inside when the rains came or nightfall drove us indoors. I can still sense the feeling of sitting around the kitchen table on a cold night with my brothers and sister and sometimes my parents, the smell of goodies cooking, the laughter swelling with the ups and downs of game play. I remember so clearly knowing the warmth and comfort of my place in the family. And all of this is connected in my mind with the delightful fun of board games.
Board Games for Adults can be fun!
Board Games for ADULTS??? Okay, “for Adults” doesn’t have to mean “for Adults,” if you know what I mean.
Seriously, most of us just want to have some good conversation, good company, and good clean fun when we socialize. What better way to enjoy the company of friends than with a peaceable evening spent playing a fun board game or two. Put on a pot of coffee, heat up some banana bread or a coffee cake, and pull out a crowd-pleasing board game.
Pictionary is a terrific game. I have a friend who guesses the picture from a straight line. Honest. I have trouble identifying a photograph, so they wait until I’m out of the room to choose teams. I’m much better at Scattergories. And Trivial Pursuit. I am a font of useless knowledge.
How about you? Are you a brain? Maybe Cranium or Scrabble are to your liking. If your ability lies in strategy you may prefer Chess or Mastermind. Backgammon and Yahtzee both utilize a combination of strategy and fortune. There’s always Clue if you’re a sneaky son-of-a-gun or if you harbor suspicions and conspiracy theories. Old reliable Monopoly lets you practice getting wiped out financially. And for all of you would-be Kings of the World, it’s hard to beat Risk for world domination.
There are lots more. Pick a favorite board game or two and call the crew. The adult crew. Adults – grown-ups – having fun just playing some board games. Hanging out. You know you want to. It’s been too long since the last get-together.
Teens want to have a little board game fun, too.
Fun board games for teens just sounds like you’re trying too hard. Really. But you’re not. Young people are just people. They have friends. They like to do things with the people they like. They get tired of trying to say the right thing, wear the right clothes, hang with the right crowd. Heck, they get tired of just trying to figure out what all of that is. They need some easy-going time with no big consequences – just a chance to slow down a bit now and then. Offer them a board game party.
Risk, Yahtzee, Pictionary, Scattergories, Trivial Pursuit – all of these lend themselves to team play. Trivial Pursuit comes in a number of variations, so if they’re big Lord of the Rings fans, go with that one.
They will, however, play with a different intensity than their parents. “Soorrryyy” could take on a whole new meaning at your house. Player pieces may well be slapped around the board with more energy than one might expect. The Game of Life could be assigned choices not listed in the rules. Scene It will cause them to monopolize the television while Monopoly will give them time to take over the refrigerator. Who cares? They’re home, at your house, laughing like crazy and having more fun than they ever thought. No keggers, no missing parents, no car trouble – just friends and food and fun. Even teens have fun with board games.
And how about the children? Do they have any fun playing board games? Mayybeee.
The foundation of board games: children’s board games. I’m talking heart of childhood, elementary school, make a game out of everything age group. They make their own board games. They play board games at school when the weather is bad. They play board games all summer long in the floor, usually in the doorway to the kitchen. They just play. So what do they play?
Old stand-bys are still loved. Checkers and Chess are easily obtained and only take two people. Monopoly can take an entire afternoon and even then may not end with a clear winner. There’s a Monopoly Jr. now that is perfect for beginning readers and only takes about thirty minutes to play.
Sorry and Trouble, with it’s great Pop-O-Matic dice tumbler, remain crowd favorites. The Game of Life has become pretty convoluted, but kids still like to play it. Mouse Trap is fun to build and has the added value of a half hour of trapping mice once the game is done. Upper grade levels have a great time with Clue and Colonel Mustard and the Library – with the candlestick. Then there are cartoon-based games (think Spongebob) and Junior versions of Trivial Pursuit and Cranium. And Chinese Checkers and Parcheesi and Operation and Tri-Bond and Mancala and Aggravation and Backgammon and Scrabble and – oh, you get the idea. The list of children’s board games is as long as your imagination.
Don’t leave out preschoolers. Board games are not just fun. They’re useful.
We don’t always think about board games for preschoolers when we think about their play. Little ones run and jump and fall and get up and do it again. We sometimes limit their calm time to television – cartoons and children’s movies are quite good when Mom and Dad need some quiet time. Still, we miss out on some important training for small ones, as well as missing time spent together in an atmosphere of calm. More and more, children are losing the art of polite conversation and civilized interaction with adults. One solution? Bring out the games!
Pre-school board games help children to develop skills they will need in reading. They learn to match colors, count, recognize letters and their sounds, think sequentially, win graciously and lose gracefully. These are pretty important concepts. Candyland and Chutes and Ladders will wear you out, because your youngster will want to play again and again. There are all kinds of dominos (I know – not strictly a board game) that allow children to match cartoon characters rather than dots. There are games that let them match picture cards arranged on a grid and games that require fine motor skills. You’ll find that all of them are great fun for your four-year old.
Take the plunge. Board games with your preschooler. How much fun can you cram into one day?
WHOOHOO! Most fun section. Vintage board games.
Yep, fun board games of time gone by, making them vintage. Nice word for old. Well, maybe not all that old. Remember these?
Tripoly. We played this one with the neighbors. I don’t remember much about it except we used poker chips. There was a big green mat. And it was pokerish. And rummyish, too, I think. That’s it. That’s all I remember. Probably because I had a crush on the neighbor.
Then there was the Game of the States: VERY educational.
I’m pretty sure this one was a gift from my aunt. Very sure. Really. Aunt Helen. She was always the best at finding “educational” stuff that was pretty fun. Thanks, Aunt Helen. I miss you.
We really did learn all kinds of things about the states. We learned capitals, state birds, agricultural products, population – none of which I remember now. Not that much of it would be the same, anyway.
Now let’s talk about the REAL fun we had with board games. How about Tycoon? You had to be money-grubbing and free of conscience. My brothers slaughtered me. What are some others? Stratego. Mystery Date! Now there’s a great game for a sleep-over. Surfer dude. Hmmm. Remember him? Clue, Monopoly, Scrabble, Rook, Payday, Stock Market – all great games. I wish I still had all of them. But there was one we played ALL THE TIME:
Square Mile. This was the game with plastic roads and bridges. There was a railroad and a swamp. There were these little bitty buildings – houses, a school, a church, factories, apartment buildings, a shopping center. This was a cool game. Square Mile was the best for a rainy day.
Board games are amazing fun. I recommend their resurrection even if you just pull out the Monopoly game for an evening. Step away from the x-box, look your children in the eye and say,
“That’s Boardwalk with four houses. You owe me 00.”
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There are a number of board games available to the public that focus much attention on both words and vocabulary. Playing one of these games is easier for someone with a large vocabulary, yes, but should be recommended to anyone, for they have been shown to help improve verbal skills for people of all ages and educations. Some of the games available focus specifically on the verbal, speaking side of a good vocabulary. The better one can speak and enunciate their language, the better they will perform. Other games focus more on the words and the knowledge of a vocabulary, testing and helping players with this area of words.
Taboo and Mad Gab are two games that focus more on the speaking side of a good vocabulary. Taboo functions under making teammates guess a specific word without using a list of certain banned words. These certain words are considered “taboo.” If a player can think of enough specific words or terms to use in order to lead teammates to the conclusion of the highlighted word in question, points are earned. Knowing a large number of alternate words which can communicate similar ideas is a great help to any players participating in the round. Taboo requires a lot of quick thinking in order to accomplish its goals. Mad Gab, on the other hand, focuses its energy on enunciation skills. Players are given a phrase that, in actuality, is written out phoenetically. Figuring out exactly what the phrase reads, however, can be quite tricky and the player who knows how to use enunciation skills the best will do well in this game.
Other games, however, are more concerned with the words actually required for a good vocabulary. The more of these words which are known, the better a player can do. Speed Scrabble, for example, is an exciting variation on the classic game of Scrabble that allows players to think and act quickly while still giving the chance for creativity that players of the classic game have come to love. The concept behind the game is simple and its execution is quick. Players are never forced to wait for another to finish their turn and never have to deal adjusting their strategy because someone stole the spot they had in mind for their next turn.
The game begins with a basic Scrabble set. The board for the game is placed to the side and ignored. All 100 of the letter tiles are placed, face down, in the center of the table and shuffled around. Each player then randomly chooses 7 tiles and places them in front of themselves, still face down. A player is then designated as the first “Go-sayer” and when every player is ready, this person will shout, “Go!” All players then flip their 7 tiles and proceed to use all of the tiles to make words in the form of a basic crossword. All the tiles must be used and all of the words must intersect each other, much as one would find on a classic Scrabble game with the exception that the player builds only on their own words. Players are challenged with this game to think creatively, outside the box, building on their own vocabularies to benefit more than other players. All of these games, however, help to encourage verbal skills in any player interested in learning.
A List of Board Games That Have Become All Time Favorites
Selecting the top, most sought after board games to play online can be a difficult task. But if we take some time to ask around, popular titles begin to show higher than others. Although some people may find some of the titles in the list unappealing, this article attempts to show how the majority feels. There are timeless classics that practically define the word “board games’, as well as some newer titles in different game genres (word, abstract, German-style, and more).
Chess
Learning to play chess online can be relatively simple, if you are only interested in the basics. However, moving up the ranks can take a lifetime. Regardless of your preferences for playing chess online, the game is both entertaining and challenging. It has survived the ages to become an all time favorite.
Monopoly
This game has become a synonym for the word Board Game. This should not come as a shock, since monopoly is considered to be one of the most successful games of the genre. The real testament of its success lies in figures. Monopoly has sold more than 500 million units since it was first released at the time of the great depression.
Scrabble
Scrabble is a game that needs little to no introduction. Statistics show that thirty percent of Americans keep a game of scrabble in their home. This should be proof enough of the established presence of this board game. Thus, by popular demand, scrabble has made is place in the list of all time favorites.
Settlers of Catan
Most of the success of this board game is basically due to its design. The game features random settings for each event, requiring that participants have a great deal of skill and luck. If you are the kind of person who enjoys strategy games, building and conquering territories, than this is the game for you.
Chutes and Ladders
This is an all time favorite for kids. Adults seem to enjoy it as well for the nostalgia, bringing back happy memories of their childhood..
Tigris and Euphrates
This is another favorite for strategy game lovers. Starts in a setting that resembles the dawn of civilization between two clashing dynasties, where players start off to build their empire. The features skills on managing trade, agriculture, government and religion evenly to become the victor. The game has won first prize in the 1998 Deutscher Spiele Preis. But even then, this game is already a winner for me.
Puerto Rico
A building game set in the colonial era of the Caribbean. The object aim of the game is to gather points by building infrastructures or shipping products (such as corn, sugar, coffee, etc.) to the Old World. Strategic management is the key to this game while assuming various roles (settler, builder, mayor, craftsman, etc.) in every round.
Zingo
This is a lighter board game, similar to bingo. This is an all time favorite everyone can enjoy since it does not require that the players know how to read and write.
So that makes up the list as I see it. You are welcome to find the board games you like the most, depending on the genre of your choice.
Its the same board you know and love on the big iPad screen. But with iPad technology, SCRABBLE becomes a whole new game. Shake to shuffle tiles. Touch to zoom in and out on the board. And drag and drop to lay down letters. All you have to do is put words together — and iPad even helps you do that by giving you a hint for the best word. Play the way you want with customizable game rules and multiple difficulty levels. And follow your progress with game and score stats tracking.
Here’s gaming over the last half-century: Baby-boomers played board games on boards, and liked it. They were saddened to see Generation X sucked up into newfangled video games and computer games, playing board games to make their parents happy, then disappearing to play Airborne on the computer all alone for hours on end. A few year after that, computers were all connected and if a game wasn’t multiplayer, it wasn’t worth playing. “Millennials” might be best summed up by E.M. Forster’s famous exhortation, “Only Connect.” And that brings us back to the original board games. They’re back, they’re on your iPhone, and we know the 5 best!
Conquest, Sean O’Connor; .99. Predictably, a RISK clone is on our list. Less predictably, it’s not the popular .99 app Lux. Conquest plays faster, is designed to look and feel like the classic board game, and gives you scads of maps and options to choose from. After playing Conquest, Lux and other RISK clones look like kludges.
Monopoly, Electronic Arts; .99. There is no amazing animated sequence of a guy in a top hat and monocle taking down Godzilla, and there is no 3-D camera tracking the progress of a housing development under construction. There is no flashing screen urging “Finish Him!” when you foreclose on a property. It’s Monopoly, just like you remember it. This is a good thing.
Scrabble, Electronic Arts; .99. Confession time: Scrabble makes the list because bad Scrabble is better than good Chutes and Ladders, or a variety of other choices. But EA has dumbed the game down to the point where more competitive Scrabblers will be frustrated at their inability to challenge and be challenged, and it suggests words to make you smarter than you are. If you don’t know that Xi is a Greek letter and Xu is a currency, Scrabble has no business telling you. That said, if you’re not a purist, it works great and looks like the real thing
Shredder Chess, Shredderchess.com; .99. If you’re a casual fan of the game, get one of the many free apps available. Shredderchess is for serious chess buffs. It offers a variety of pleasing board/playing piece graphics, and more importantly has the strongest chess algorithm on the app market. But don’t be scared; it scales back to any playing strength. It tracks your rating and allows you to set the engine appropriately, provides for coaching options, and includes virtually endless chess puzzles to solve. Worth the price whether you’re serious about chess or about learning chess.
The Game of Life, Electronic Arts; .99. EA has updated life for the iPhone, tweaking it to play faster and adding a lot of 3-D perspective in the movement. What the heck, it’s a video game now, right? But just like the original, you and your friends or family will be amused and entertained by this classic until it kills your battery (the usual way a “Life” session ends.)
Whether you played the original board games during your “wonder years,” or are just discovering the naked aggression of Risk or the cold heartless capitalism of Monopoly, these apps give you a way to play them at a safe distance from family members or friends-a feature that may have come in handy for some families the first time through.
Free Online Games Downloads are Becoming Hugely Popular
free online games downloadsare becoming hugely popular these days. With a fast internet connection, you can actually enter into the amazing world of games to get the unlimited pleasure. Through this world, you can actually involve into many kinds of mental puzzles and mind enhancing activities. Word games are one of the most popular games that have created a value from a long time now. In this article, we’ll discuss few word games that are really popular in today’s world: How to Play Literati: If you find difficulty in finding the suitable Scrabble partner, this game can partner with you to provide the real fun. Bookworm: In this game, a player has to form words by linking letter tiles in any direction, very simple to play and easy to understand.
AARP Games: Popular word games include crosswords, jigsaw puzzles, word search, and many more. One of the most striking features of these games is that everyday game changes and players can enjoy equally.
Letterbox Word Game: In this game, a player has to compete with the computer to form words on a 4×4 board, using random letters that appear one at a time.
Planet Spogg: The multiplayer game has a lot to offer for every enthusiast player. It includes several good word games, a racing game, and a multiplayer version of Tetris.
Scrabble Solver: Typically a Scrabble game, Scrabble Solver helps you to solve every English word you can spell with them.
WordBall: This game is a daily series of challenges in games that can be played on individual basis or can be played in competition. In this gaming activity, you can complete five word-oriented tasks in a particular time limit, in an effort to achieve the highest score.
Word Resources: A variety of useful tools for people interested in words, including an online crossword puzzle solver and Scrabble descrambler.
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How Online Games Have Included Boggle To Their Games Roster
With so much online games available on the web today, who would ever thought that Boggle would not be among them? Mind and educational games are a worthy pastime for people today. While others are looking for the usual arcade or role playing games, there are some who also look for these logical and witty games today. And mind you, it is addicting!
Boggle is a word game played by two or more players. Points are earned for finding words in a 4×4 grid of letters.
Play starts by randomly displaying 16 letter cubes, arranged in a 4×4 grid. A 3-minute timer is started and then each player simultaneously, secretly, writes down all the words he or she finds of three or more letters in length. Words are formed from letters that adjoin horizontally, vertically or diagonally to the immediate left, right, or up-and-down. No letter may be used more than once within a single word.
When the allotted time is up (three minutes, but players may agree beforehand to allow for more time) all players stop writing. Each player in turn then reads his/her list aloud. Any word that appears in more than one players list is crossed off ALL lists — NO ONE gets credit for it.
The winner is the player who earns the most points after a predetermined number of rounds or when a predetermined score has been reached.
Individuals who are good at solving anagram-type puzzles will find themselves right at home with Boggle.
Note that the better Boggle player is not necessarily the one with the larger vocabulary (although a large vocabulary can never hurt) but is the one who is simply better at anagramming words from a mess of jumbled letters. Compare this difference to Scrabble. A large vocabulary and the ability to anagram words is also important in Scrabble, but playing Scrabble forces me to make decisions on what words to play.
The highest scoring play you can find in Scrabble is often NOT your best play, especially if it leaves you with an undesirable combination of letters in your rack, or opens up a potential higher scoring play for your opponent. Thus, in Scrabble, often your second highest scoring play may actually be best. Also, there are many other decisions in Scrabble: Should I pass, should I should play a known phoney, should I play a potential phoney, should I challenge a potential phoney, should I pass my turn and go fishing for a certain letter or letters, etc. As mentioned above, none of these decisions exist in Boggle.
In ‘Boggle’, one of the drawbacks of other word games (e.g. Scrabble) is resolved : there is no downtime. All players are simultaneously playing. The other great thing about Boggle is that no matter how long you stare at the grid, another players has always found a word, you didn’t see.
’Boggle’ is a fun word game. Due to the time element and the simultaneous play, it is nothing like the well-known Scrabble. This makes Boggle a short filler, that can be played in almost any group, even with people that normally don’t like word games. But don’t expect any tactics or strategy.
Sometimes, when dedicated fans play a beloved game over and over again, they may start to grow a little weary of the same, traditional rules. They often look for new ways to play the game, either little ways to twist the rules, or a completely new approach to an already enjoyable game. Some of these alternate rules end up becoming rather popular and can give players completely new insights into the games that they already love.
One such game that was built out of alternate rules is Speed Scrabble. Abandoning the traditional board, Speed Scrabble plays out using all of the tiles from a traditional Scrabble set and works on the principle of players needing to use all of their tiles to build words as quickly as they can. 4 or 5 players are the ideal number for a Speed Scrabble game, for when it is considered that there are 100 tiles in a traditional Scrabble set, the number of tiles works out exactly so that each player will always have an equal number of tiles.
The rules of Speed Scrabble are the same as traditional Scrabble – only English words are allowed that are not proper nouns, abbreviations, or slang. Words in question must be voted upon by the group, unless a traditional Scrabble dictionary is handy. Blanks are allowed, but must represent the same letter for every word that it is a part of. One of the advantages of Speed Scrabble, however, is that at any point during the game, one can take all of the letters they have used so far and rearrange their entire board to make new words using the same letters. This often proves to be a winning strategy in the game. Speed Scrabble has proven itself to be a unique twist on the classic intelligence game and players looking for a change to their normal routine should consider giving this a try!
Other alternate rules for different board games are not always so extreme. Risk is a game that is often adapted to any certain player’s needs. While a popular game, Risk does draw some complaints, often from the lengthy period of time in which it takes to not only set up the board, but for each player to complete their turn.
One version of Risk does away with the lengthy set up time frame by making each player’s starting countries end up completely random. Another version removes the use of dice from the game and proposes a 1 to 1 exchange rate for armies. By sacrificing one of your own armies, you destroy one of your opponent’s. This allows no player to be the victim of simple bad luck and provides for an even more strategic approach to the game. This version also places more importance on the cards drawn during the game, allowing them to be redeemed immediately instead of having to wait for a set to be drawn. This allows players to be even more aggressive in their approach to their respective strategies.
By simply taking any game and applying alternate rules, the game can almost be completely re-invented and provide a fun, new experience for everyone involved.
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