Question: What are the Top 5 board games?
Andrew: I know what you're thinking. Ok, actually I don't. Here are my answers.
1. Chess -- the brainiest of games.Scott: In no particular order...
2. Clue -- Miss Scarlet in the bedroom.
3. Risk -- Canada should belong to the US... to complete the set.
4. Life -- the game about unexpected pregnancies, the risk/rewards of insurance, and lottery winnings.
5. Trivial Pursuit -- the game which gives meaning to the meaningless.
1. Monopoly -- a classic!There you go... the definitive answers. Wait a minute, what about Hungry, Hungry Hippos?
2. Checkers & Chess (tie) -- I never got into chess but I'm always up for a good game of checkers.
3. Scrabble -- when in doubt, you can always use "the".
4. Clue -- Mrs. Peacock in the library.
5. Risk -- hilariously referenced in a Seinfeld episode.
Axis and Allies -- great WW2 strategy game
ReplyDeleteClue
Trivial Pursuit
Scrabble... still addicted
is Cribbage a board game? My grandpa learned it in the UK during WW2 and I still have his board. Screw it -- I'm counting it. Rack it! :-)
1. Monopoly -- the only board game my family played with any regularity, and even then, it wasn't all that often
ReplyDelete2. Trivial Pursuit
3. Scrabble
4. Chess
5. Twister
Floyd, Axis and Allies was a fantastic game! We played it all the time.
ReplyDeleteBackthrow, Twister never worked for me. Maybe we played it wrong?
ReplyDelete1. Chess
ReplyDelete2. Stratego: Military strategy game with Napoleonic style armies, pieces of different values, requiring skill, probability calculation, bluffing and a bit of good old fashioned luck to win. (Hey, we have all toyed with the flag, touching it as if it were a movable piece to throw a determined opponent off the scent.)
3. Monopoly
4. Battleship
5. Avalon Hill's "Midway:" Played on two boards, a search board so the first part of the game is like "Battleship" and then a battle board for the combat.
Quite honestly, Chess is in a class all by itself, easily the most cerebral game ever invented. It took a super computer (Deep Blue) to defeat grandmaster Boris Spaasky (and don't forget Kronstin from FRWL.)
ReplyDeleteWhile domino's, checkers, backgammon, Chinese Checkers, and Monoply are all classics, if I look at the more modern "board games," I'd have to go with:
Risk, then Clue. As a teen, we had epic multi-day Risk games complete with back-stabbing, secret alliances, etc. And how could one not love Clue. Miss Scarlet in the dining room with a candlestick ... there it is.
More recently (but a long time ago by your standards) we loved the 3M bookshelf games (later Avalon Hill took them over.) The very best one was Acquire, although I really also liked Fact in Five.
1. Pictionary -- maybe that's only because I'm good at drawing.
ReplyDelete2. Clue -- Mrs. White in the kitchen. I've got my priorities.
3. Tic-tac-toe -- I prefer the variation with beanbags and the one using washed-up comedians.
4. Monopoly -- I prefer the version with french fries and prizes.
5. Candy Land -- It's a game about candy!
PikeBishop, I remember Stratego. That was entertaining. I don't recall Midway at all though.
ReplyDeleteJed, Chess is absolutely in a class by itself. And Kronstin was our greatest champion. ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I know the 3M games?
tryanmax, LOL! Nice. I totally agree about that version of Monopoly! Good stuff. :)
ReplyDeleteCandy Land was fun as a kid.
Andrew, here is a (non) link to wikipedia. These were aimed at young adults rather than kids so they were a bit before your time (circa 1962-1975) I had Stocks and Bonds, Acquire, Facts in Five, Twixt, and maybe a couple of others. I think my older brother got the Acquire game which was in some ways similar to Monopoly in that the object was to acquire controlling interest in hotel chains. These games were much more cerebral than Monopoly in that strategy and tactics determine the winner rather than roll of the dice. I had a lot of great memories. I bet if some of our other geezers weigh in, they will probably remember them.
ReplyDeletePike Bishop, I really enjoyed Stratego, although it was kind of a poor man's chess in many ways.
ReplyDeleteAndrew - as I recall, Facts in Five was a commercial version of a popular parlor game called Categories, which could be played with index cards and a pencil. It was not unlike Jeopardy. Essentially, five categories are drawn at random from a group (e.g. car models no longer made, or varieties of birds.) They are placed along one axis of a grid. Then, five letters are drawn at random. A small hour glass is used as a timer (about three minutes) and each player must fill in the corresponding square with an acceptable answer. If one of the letters chosen is, for example "I" the square for "I" and the categories I used could include "Imperial" for the car category, and "indigo Bunting" for birds.
oops; forgot the non-link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M_bookshelf_game_series
ReplyDeleteClue - I was always Miss Scarlet! (and I generally did not win)
ReplyDeleteTrivial Pursuit
Mastermind [when I was a little kid (4ish), I could beat my aunts and uncle (9+ years older)!]
Othello
I hate Monopoly. I am trying (slowly) to learn chess.
Modern: Cranium - AWESOME interactive game (and I usually end up on the winning team)
Jed, Interesting! It doesn't ring a bell though. So maybe they were before my time?
ReplyDeleteHere's the link: LINK
rlaWTX, I remember Mastermind! Good game.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I remember Othello. It rings a bell, but not a loud one.
I used to enjoy chess. My husband and I got into an epic game back when we were dating. We played for several hours and I finally had to take a break. I was holding my own against him, but once we took the break it was over in just a few moves. I don't really enjoy having to think that hard anymore.
ReplyDeleteI loved to play Monopoly as a kid, but my husband despises it. Chinese Checkers was also a favorite when I was younger.
Trivial Pursuit is one of my favorites and we still have the game I got back in the 80's. Boy is it really dated now.
My whole family loves Sorry and even though it's not a board game, we really love to play Uno.
While I enjoyed those few board games, I was really more into playing cards: Poker, Blackjack, Gin Rummy, Crazy 8's, etc.
TJ, Sorry was fun, so was Uno. I love playing chess, but I don't play it as much as I used to because of the time commitment. Plus, the computer program I used to use died. I should probably start that again to get my brain working.
ReplyDeleteTrivial Pursuit was a great idea and I loved it for years, but at this point, I know all the answers to all the questions.
I'm not big into board games since it takes time away from more important stuff like sharing my vast storehouse of random drivel on the internet.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I did have a friend who was a big "Go" fanatic, which is huge in asia. He was all excited since he had independently come up with a mathematical solution for the Go endgame scenario and had it verified by by an advanced book on the subject. Go, unlike chess, has some many options during the middle of the game that it is near impossible for a machine to emulate a decent player.
In no particular order...
ReplyDelete1. Electronic Battleship (first time I could program a game)
2. Stratego
3. Sorry! (the title says it all)
4. Mouse Trap (all hail Rube Goldberg!)*
5. Risk
Special Mention: Power Barons. This one's a little more obscure. Think of it as 'Risk,' only featuring tycoons instead of armies. You basically challenge each other (in card games that gave it a casino-like feel) for the right to expand your empire into somebody else's territory. First one to set up shop in everyone else's territory wins. My cousin and I played this all the time when we were kids. Here's some more info and pictures.
-Rustbelt
*- Heck, this one's so popular, it's been played IN SPACE!!! (You'll have to fast forward to 23:55 to see what I mean. I think the location is right up your alley, Andrew.)
Sorry, Andrew, it's been one of those days again!
ReplyDeleteI can safely say I haven't even heard of many of the games mentioned. Even in my own answer, I've played Risk once and Clue... I think I played it for 15 minutes in elementary school and that's it. I have more knowledge of the movie!
Backthrow -
ReplyDeleteTwister was fun... I'd be too afraid to play it now!
Floyd -
ReplyDeleteNever heard of Cribbage.
My parents have the old navy blue box of Trivial Pursuit from 30 years ago somewhere in a cabinet. As a Millennial, much as I'm loathe to admit it, I would need an updated version to play!
I'm sorry but I just don't know who Calvin Coolidge's VP was! :-)
Pike -
ReplyDeleteNever heard of Midway. I think my brother owned Stratego but it was one of those birthday gifts from a relative that, shall we say, stayed in the closet on the top shelf.
Jed -
ReplyDeleteAn uncle tried showing me how to play chess many years ago but it was too much for me at the time. Maybe some day in the future.
Man, I haven't played Chinese Checkers in years, but I remember enjoying it. And dominoes... when you're a kid, they're fun to line up and knock down. Hard to believe there was a real game to play. :-)
tryanmax -
ReplyDeleteWe had Monopoly Jr... the amounts were much smaller and we had kid-friendly pieces to play with. I just remember my brother used to cheat so we stopped playing it.
And the setting of the game was, I think, much smaller. It wasn't a city, it was an amusement park.
rla -
ReplyDeleteI've never played Cranium but it always gets my attention when I see it on the shelf at the bookstore!
TJ -
ReplyDeleteI love Uno!! They've come out with a lot of useless accessories for the game in recent years, like a card shuffler. But I don't even think it shuffles cards - you place the cards in a slot and push a button to spit one out. It's faster to do it by hand. :-)
K -
ReplyDeleteThe trick is to find that balance. I've got plenty of drivel to spew on the Internet but I still find the time to read a good book now and then. :-)
Rustbelt -
ReplyDeleteSorry and Mousetrap - two childhood favorites! (And yeah, balancing the trap was the hardest part of that game.)
Scott, that was always the frustrating part about Mouse Trap. But when that thing worked, it WORKED!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Calvin Coolidge's VP was Charles G. Dawes. (Yeah, I had to look him up!)
But don't worry about it. Nobody remembers VP's. You see...
"A woman had two sons- one went to sea and the other became vice president- she hasn't heard from either one since."
-Alben Barkley, VP under Harry Truman, 1949- 1953
-Rustbelt
So, Scott, what I take away from that Monopoly Jr. story is that there were no french fries, correct?
ReplyDeletetryanmax, Very nice and to the point. :)
ReplyDeleteK, Go sounds familiar, but I don't think I've ever played it.
ReplyDeleteRustbelt, I used to have that game and it almost never worked for us either. Nice link! I didn't know anyone had put that many complete episodes online.
ReplyDeleteScott, I'm sensing you led a sheltered life?
ReplyDeletetryanmax -
ReplyDeleteI don't remember! If you're referring to the game pieces, a cursory Google search reveals that they were actually little plastic cars.
Scott,.... McNopoloy
ReplyDeleteAndrew -
ReplyDeleteYes, but that has nothing to do with it! :-)
We played our share of board games, including many of the ones mentioned in this thread... perhaps I was exaggerating when I said I hadn't heard of most of them.
We didn't play a lot of the strategy/military games, though.
I was a reader, though even then I read mostly non-fiction (and the occasional movie making-of book). And at age 9, a certain sci-fi franchise entered my life and the rest is history. :-D
Andrew and tryanmax -
ReplyDeleteOh... that Monopoly!
That's what you get for talking to Burger King fan. :-)
I was never really into board games but I love trivia so I would have played Trivial Pursuit the most while I didn't win all the time it's the game I did best in. I also played a bit of Monopoly and Clue growing up, enjoying Clue the most. I like card games, mostly Uno and our made up game of slops.
ReplyDeleteI think I grew up in a time where computers and game platforms were more the thing then board games. And now I don't play that many computer
games anymore, I read more books and watch movies.
Scott.
Scott -
ReplyDeleteI was totally in the same boat. As an 80s child, I grew up right around the time computer games were becoming the "thing" (think Oregon Trail), not to mention Nintendo.
And today, funnily enough, I play neither!
What about Operation?
ReplyDelete