(Jump back to Part 1 here)
17. MR. JACK
Competitive Strategy Game (30 minutes, 2 players)
Nerd Factor: 2
This was a great two-player game that employs tricky strategy more than thematic immersion. One player is Jack the Ripper, the other is the detective trying to catch him before he flees the scene. The board is a hex-grid of Whitechapel (definitely not drawn from any real maps of the district--it's very cartoony) containing a slew of characters. Jack and the detective can use the characters in various ways, trying to elude or catch the other. If only catching Jack the Ripper had been as easy in actual history as it is in this game. The odds seem to pile in favor of the detective, my biggest complaint about Mr. Jack. I hear there are expansions and an alternate version, New York. These probably make the game more complex and thus more enjoyable. Playing it once didn't reveal as much intrigue as I would have liked. I've heard Letters from Whitechapel does the job better, but as long as it's out of print and expensive, I guess Mr. Jack will do.
16. SUMMONER WARS
Competitive Deck-Building/Tactical Combat Game (30-50 minutes, 2-4 players)
Nerd Factor: 7
This game, like Dominion below, is a self-contained deck-building game. In it you're collecting spells and armies--something like Magic: the Gathering. The unique element of Summoner Wars is how the cards are played. The board contains a grid, on which you play summoned armies and creatures, who can then move around and fight in tactical combat. It's an interesting blend, and the mechanics are simple. Not really worth it, though, unless you delve into expansions. The game comes with the board and two sets of cards (two different races). You can buy more races to fill out the experience, which is the only intelligent thing to do if you really want to play this game.
Rather than buy the physical game myself, I resorted to the free iPad app, which is disappointingly limited without in-app purchases of expansion material, but satisfied me until I lost interest. I'd play it again, for sure, but I don't think I'd buy it.
15. MANSIONS OF MADNESS
Cooperative Exploration/Mystery Game (2-3 hours, 2-5 players)
Nerd Factor: 7
This is a game from Fantasy Flight, my personal favorite board game company. It's a spin-off of Arkham Horror (see number 1 below) that takes the game to closer quarters. In Mansions of Madness, your investigators are exploring a building (or wilderness, if you get the Call of the Wild expansion), trying to resolve one of many pre-written mystery scenarios. Sometimes you fight monsters, most of the time you wander the house trying to get to the next clue before the Keeper kills you. The stories are based on the mythos developed by the Horror writer H.P. Lovecraft.
At first glance, the game looks a lot like Dungeons & Dragons. One player acts as "Keeper," playing the evil forces that your investigators face. It should have a Nerd Factor of 9, except that for some inexplicable reason, some of my less nerdy family members like this game a lot, especially the women. My guess is that it's less about fighting monsters, so it appeals to a broader range of players. It isn't fantasy, which helps limit the nerd factor, and you don't speak in character, which helps even more.
There are two reasons why this isn't higher on my list: 1) the written scenarios aren't very interesting or well written, especially compared to Lovecraft's own writing, which is mostly phenomenal; and 2) Unless you're the Keeper, very little happens during the game considering the playtime. In Arkham Horror, you're facing similar threats, but on a citywide scale. The stakes are higher and every turn's encounter is like an entire game of Mansions.
What Mansions has going for it is that the complex rules are all placed in the hands of the Keeper. The other players need keep track of very little, which is great for playing with newer, less nerdy friends or family. Arkham Horror, on the other hand, is complex for everyone.
Considering what I think of the writing in the game, I would never drop the $80 for it (it comes with a whole army of plastic miniatures, cards, map, and tokens), especially when you realize the limited scope it has. There are only two handfuls of scenarios to play in the base game, which means that for 80 bucks you get ten or so evenings of gaming. And that's it until you buy an expansion, which is similarly limited. I just don't like that business model.
14. BOHNANZA
Competitive Economic Card Game (20-40 minutes, 2-7 players)
Nerd Factor: 2
Bohnanza is the epitome of a bartering game. You lay down cards that represents bean crops, and spend the game haggling and bartering for your particular brand of bean. Its gameplay is tightly designed around forcing you to make choices that help or hinder one another. This isn't one to play with a full group of passive players. They can slow things down and make it frustrating, but having one or two in the game actually makes it more interesting.
13. BANANAGRAMS
Competitive Tile-Placement Game (10-40 minutes, 2-8 players)
Nerd Factor: 1
If you haven't played Bananagrams, do it. It's like speed Scrabble, but you're only making the crossword with yourself. There are no points, the victory just goes to whoever can use up all their letters in a legal crossword first. Great for kids and adults alike, although 7-year-olds are unlikely to stand a chance against adults. The game's cheap and the heavy plastic tiles slide nicely over most surfaces. I fell in love with this game when I realized Bethany would play it with me and often beat me (as opposed to Scrabble).
12. LORDS OF WATERDEEP
Competitive Economic (kind of thematic) Game (30 minutes to an hour, 2-5 players)
Nerd Factor: 5
This game should have a Nerd Factor of 3, but it was made by Wizards of the Coast, and uses the intellectual property of Dungeons & Dragons, and so gets an automatic boost to 5. I've considered taping something over the D&D title on the bottom of the box there, just so I can play it with more people.
It's very reminiscent of Euro-style economic games like Puerto Rico and Caylus, but where those games lack any kind of setting or story, Lords of Waterdeep piles on far more setting than is necessary. If you're familiar with the world of the Forgotten Realms, or with dark elves and adventuring parties, that knowledge will do nothing for your chances of winning the game, but it will make you like this game a lot more. My chief complaint is that (unlike the best thematic games) none of the story elements affect the game very much. It's a classic re-skin.
That having been said, the game itself is fun and simple. You're a Lord of Waterdeep (don't get lost, now) trying to make your faction the most powerful in the city. To do so, you build buildings and send adventurers on quests as if they were resources. The more quests you complete and buildings you build, the more victory points you get. Very simple.
The board, die-cut cards, and pieces are gorgeously designed, but probably the best part of the game for me is the use of a Euro-style system where you send your agents (all Carcarssonne-like) to claim buildings in the city to use for your glory-building purposes. Since each building grants you different resources and benefits, every turn's a race to grab the best or most appropriate buildings in town. It makes the game run smoothly and increases player interaction. I just think that for $35 I could have bought a little more heft. Similar Euro games are ten or fifteen bucks cheaper, but I guess they don't have all the lavish (read: pointless) art.
11. PANDEMIC
Cooperative Euro-style Strategy Game (1 hour, 2-5 players)
Nerd Factor: 3
Pandemic is a blast. It's scary, fun, and you're in it together, which always makes for a change of pace. In it, each player takes the role of a specialist fighting the outbreak of several global pandemics. The specialist you choose determines the role you'll play in the game, because you'll have a vital signature ability that can make or break your team. Watching the colored tokens of each disease pile up on cities across the world gets your blood pumping, and the game never lets up until the dramatic conclusion, where you either vaccinate and prevent every pandemic, or you get overrun and lose as a team.
This game looks and feels thematic, but conducts itself like a clever Euro game. Its only flaw is that the difficulty increases with additional players, so it's not necessarily the game you'll want to whip out when you have four new players coming over. I lost my first game in that exact scenario. This is a weakness in the mechanics of the game, but I wouldn't change them, because their operation is exactly what makes the game what it is. And in the end, a loss for everyone can still be fun.
10. DOMINION
Competitive Deck-Building/Economic Card Game (30 minutes to an hour, 2-4 players)
Nerd Factor: 5
I have extremely mixed feelings about this game, but in the end it's very fun, which is, I guess, the best measure. First of all, it features some of the worst graphic design I've ever seen in a game, not only because the title art is lame, but because it makes it look like a little kid's game, which it isn't. The box recommends ages 10 and up, but I think it appeals more to older players (teen or young adult). The rulebook would be extremely useful to any graphic design class as an example of what to never do. It's an abomination. The cards, however, are pretty good looking, and their art is great. It's like the box and rulebook are from a different game than the cards are.
As a deck-building game, Dominion has every player creating his own deck, from which you draw cards to play. On your turn you can buy more cards to put in your deck (increasing the likelihood that you'll draw them later in the game) or play attacks against your opponents. If it sounds like Magic: the Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh, that's because it involves a lot of the same ideas. What's really intelligent about Dominion, though, is that it puts all of the fun of buying cards to assemble your deck right into the game itself. And all of the cards come with the game, so you don't need to spend money on booster packs. The whole idea of creating a custom deck every game is interesting, and makes the game unique every time. There are 25 card sets in the base game of Dominion, and you only play with 10 available in each game, so there's a lot of replay value here.
9. TICKET TO RIDE
Competitive Economic Game (1-2 hours, 2-5 players)
Nerd Factor: 3
This is a really popular game, so I won't say much about it. I like it quite a bit, but I wish it were shorter. See Transamerica in Part 1 for a similar, shorter (but less interesting) game. The iOS version goes a long way to improving the pace, but I find it also makes returning to the physical game less fun. I like the European Map best, since it offers more of a challenge. Germany (I think it's the original?) is really interesting, and the most unique of the various maps I've played.
8. SPADES
Competitive Card Game (30 minutes, 4 players)
I can't believe I've never played this game until this year. I guess my family didn't play a lot of different card games (Cribbage kind of dominated that scene). In any case, I played this on New Year's Eve and fell in love. By far the most intriguing thing about the game for me is that you need to figure out the best moment to lose a trick. It's a unique element of the game that really grabbed my attention. I did pretty well my first game, I might add.
7. SCRABBLE
Competitive Tile-Placement Game (1-4 hours, 2-4 players)
Nerd Factor: 4
I love Scrabble. So do a lot of other people. The only reason I put the Nerd Factor at 4 is that there are conventions and professional leagues. Also you'd be amazed how hard it is to convince someone to sit down with me to a game of Scrabble. I've been driven to Words With Friends on my iPad, which is too easy, and out of vogue now too.
6. CRIBBAGE
Competitive Card Game (30 minutes to an hour, 2-6 players)
Nerd Factor: 2
I don't know when I first played Cribbage, since it's been in my mom's family for as long as her parents can remember. I do, however, recall in detail the first time I beat my juggernaut of a grandfather. He was very gracious.
For those under the age of 60, Cribbage is a card game in which you play three phases every turn with the same hand, then count your points on the peg board. It's about getting combinations of 15, doubles, runs, and the like. Very fun, and very good for learning to perform single-digit arithmetic at the bat of an eye. I'll play it with anyone, any time. In fact you can play without the pegs and board if you have a way to keep score (you'll never manage it in your head). Here are the rules. You can play with 2-6 players, but one-on-one is the best.
My favorite thing about Cribbage is that there's an informal jargon to which serious players conform, including the order and phrasing of claiming your points. The above hand is "15 two, 15 four, 15 six, 15 eight, 15 ten, 15 twelve, 15 fourteen, 15 sixteen, four are 28, and one for his nob." At 29 points, it's the highest-scoring hand you can get in the game. You'd be surprised how long you can stare at five cards trying to figure out if they work out to give you any points. It's a lot more interesting than scoring poker.
5. ACQUIRE
Competitive Investment/Tile Placement Game (40 min to an hour, 3-6 players)
Nerd Factor: 2
Josh Tumblin exposed me to Acquire, which apparently has been around forever. He pitched it as "Monopoly, except fun." I instantly fell in love with it, and Bethany got it for me for my birthday. The goal of the game is to build hotel chains and come out with the most money. You do it by placing tiles on a grid to enlarge the hotel chains, then buying stock (which appreciates in value as the hotels get bigger). When hotels on the grid touch, the larger hotel buys out the smaller one, and the primary and secondary shareholders get a big bonus. So you do a lot of card counting as your opponents load up on stock in the various companies on the board, hoping for a big payoff.
This game does a great job of simulating investment without trying to replicating it with complex rules. You never know what company's going to grow, or in which direction, but if you play your (literal) cards right, you'll get on top of the market.
I don't have any complaints about this game, but it's quiet, and that might bother some people who like to barter or socialize during play. I've never played it with less than four people, but I imagine it's a much simpler game if you do it with only three players. It would be really easy to keep track of their stock, so there would be less mystery or guesswork as to who's got the most in what companies. But it's a game I can play with my friends who like money, and the nerd factor's low, so to me it's one of the centerpieces of my collection.
4. TWILIGHT IMPERIUM
Competitive Thematic Game (3-4 hours, 2-6 players)
Nerd Factor: 7
Bethany got this for me for Christmas. It's kind of a blend of lots of different game types. Certain elements are very Euro, but the battle mechanic is pretty much like Axis & Allies. Every game you make a unique galaxy map made of hexagonal tiles. You pick one of the 10 races (space lions!) and try to take the imperial throne through whichever means suit you best: war, politics, trade, exploration, or a little of all four. It's pretty straightforward in terms of the goal. Get 10 points and you win.
In our first game, I played the Naalu Collective, a nation of psychic snake-women who get to go first every turn as their special ability (there are ways for other players to counteract this). I won the game without really fighting a single significant battle against the other players. I was sold.
Every turn each player chooses one of the eight Strategy Cards that give you a special ability, and therefore a specific focus for your actions that turn. It drives the game forward with a steady momentum and makes this more interesting along the way. Every turn you look forward to which card(s) you'll pick, hoping no one else nabs them first. Players form a Galactic Council, and at different points of the game vote on rules changes or other "political" decisions that affect how things will proceed to the end. It really succeeds in making the thematic elements of the game come alive, despite its macro scale of galactic war.
The only thing that disappointed me was the complexity of the rules. It has a steep learning curve. Some of the misunderstandings that happened during the setup of the board ended up determining the winner, which, although it worked to my advantage, was unfair and interfered with our fun. Next time won't be so easy for me.
The biggest problem with conquest games like Risk, Diplomacy, and A&A is that you have to slowly eliminate other players through battling them a single territory at a time. Not in Twilight Imperium. In this game warfare is a means to an end (victory points), not the end in and of itself. Very smart design choice. It makes the game shorter and more interesting in its own right. It doesn't feel like space Risk, which was my biggest fear.
3. CARCASSONNE
Competitive Tile Placement Game (20-30 minutes, 2-5 players)
Nerd Factor: 3
Carcassonne is a Euro-style game that might look like it's for kids. Don't be fooled. It's simple enough to teach to a kid, but its strategic complexity is mind-blowing. I've seen it on shelves since I was in high school, but the art and design didn't draw me. Recently I noticed its presence on just about every list of top board games out there. Still suspicious, I put it off and decided not to believe the hype. I was a fool!
In the game, you place tiles on a table. The tiles have roads, cities, cloisters, or a combination of these structures on them. As you connect your tiles to the others, the roads, cities, and cloisters grow in size. To get points, you claim structures by placing little follower tokens on them. As the structures grow, your potential payoff increases. Once a structure you've claimed is finished, you get the points based on its size, and you get your token back to claim something else. So simple. So addictive. I've played it probably more than 40 times in the last 4 months (see below).
If you're still suspicious, there's a beautiful iPad app for $10 (the physical game is around $25), which has the full game, with pass-and-play, online multiplayer, and (intelligent) computer opponents so you can play by yourself.
NOTE: The name is pronounced car-cuh-SON, as in the place in France, not car-CA-sun-ee. Good gracious.
2. CHESS
Competitive Strategy Game (as long as you want, 2 players)
Nerd Factor: 4
Love it. Nothing more to say.
1. ARKHAM HORROR
Cooperative Thematic Game (1-4 hours, 1-8 players)
Nerd Level: 6
This is a game for 1-8 players (yes, you can play it by yourself, and it's still fun) in which a group of 1930s characters race around a New England city cooperatively trying to stop an alien god from rising and destroying the earth. I flirted with buying it for about nine months before I caved. It has nothing to do with Batman, which is the question I get from everyone I tell about it. And my comic book friends all regularly call it Arkham Asylum by mistake.
It's based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, a genius who's associated with some of the most nerdy fans you'll ever meet. Lovecraft is like the Stephen King of the 20s. His fiction (mostly short stories) is considered to be the foundation of the American horror genre. If you've heard of Cthulhu, he comes from Lovecraft. And in this game you can punch him in the face.
The game's not entirely concerned with making a perfect, balanced, quick experience. It's more about the story that unfolds through encounter cards that are read aloud to each player as they visit the various locations around the city of Arkham, collect clues, weapons, occult spells, and fight monsters. I've played it with a lot of people (gamers and otherwise), and most love it. Someone with trouble learning rules may not take to it: the rulebook's over 20 pages.
The complicated rules are the biggest contributor to the playtime. With a few friends who really know the rules, I've played in 40 minutes. With new players, however, the game more often took between 2 and 4 hours. This is ironic, because the people who have trouble learning the rules are the ones who get antsy about the playtime, but they're the ones that make it take so long. I've had to be judicious about who to suggest this game to. But 9 out of 10 have liked it, so if you like a game with ambiance and a cooperative goal, and if you don't mind spending a couple hours on a game, go for Arkham Horror.
There are lots of pieces and cards (all high quality and beautifully designed), so its $40 price tag is well worth the size of the game, but the box comes with no way to package everything. I bought one of these at Wal-Mart.
The large box expansions for the game make it significantly better, if a little more complex. I particularly recommend the Dunwich Horror Expansion.
Added Note: I played a solo game of Arkham Horror last night and was not able to punch Cthulhu. I got my butt handed to me, and it was still a blast.
