Been Playing Board Games Recently

[Commodore 64]

A friend of mine who is going to grad school in Colorado was in town for the past month. We spent a lot of time with he and his fiance. He has been playing board games, so we got the opportunity to play a couple. The first one is called: Puerto Rico. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_(board_game))


Puerto Rico is a German board game designed by Andreas Seyfarth, and published in 2002 by Alea in German, by Rio Grande Games in English and by Κάισσα in Greek.[1] Players assume the roles of colonial governors on the island of Puerto Rico during the age of Caribbean ascendancy.[2] The aim of the game is to amass victory points by shipping goods to the Old World or by constructing buildings.[2]

It is pretty fun. We went out and bought the recently released anniversary addition and have played it with my mother inlaw, sister in law, and 8 year old daughter. It's a little above my 8 year old daughter, but she still seems to enjoy it. My sister and her husband are coming over this Friday to play it with us too.

The other game I played was called Twilight Struggle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Struggle). This is a pretty intense 2 Player game. It was quite fun, but we blew about 5 hours on a Saturday playing it. Definitely a rainy day game.

Anyways, I hadn't really been playing any board games in the past few years, so I thought this might make an interesting open mic topic.

[Eric]

I love board games. I play them more than computer games, video games, and TV watching combined (unless there's football on). Settlers of Catan is now probably almost the classic rock of board games, but I think that was the first one that really spawned the new era of settlement/conquest games. Bananagrams is also a great Scrabble take-off where you each get your own board, points don't matter, and you race against the other players.

Those two that I probably play the most, particularly Bananagrams, but there are tons of other good ones. I just played Hoopla (by the Cranium people) again for the first time in a long time and that's pretty good.

[Commodore 64]

I have Settlers of Cataan, but have not played it yet.

[R_of_G]

I don't really play the style of games you guys are talking about, at least not since the days of Diplomacy when I was a teenager. However, backgammon is a very big game in my circle of friends. There are long-standing rivalries and quite a good deal of trash-talking as well depending on who's playing at any given time. Two friends have a rivalry that encompasses hundreds of games. Ask either one at any time and they know the exact current tally. It's also a great game to just sit around the house and casually play while music is on, a far better alternative to television.

[Photomike666]

Played Top Gear board game with my kids last week, play scrabble on the iPhone with friends.

On an aside, Slash is the Top Gear star in a reasonably priced car next season. Should be good to watch

[bcdon]

I have a lot of board games and really enjoy playing Ticket to Ride (http://www.daysofwonder.com/tickettoride/en/). Check out http://boardgamegeek.com/ for lots of great board game reviews.

[Eric]

I have a lot of board games and really enjoy playing Ticket to Ride (http://www.daysofwonder.com/tickettoride/en/).
I've played that and I think I liked it, but I can't remember it now and am too lazy to check the link. Care to explain it? I feel like it had a Risk-ish setup, but I could be wrong about that.

[Commodore 64]

Ticket to Ride will be my next purchase.

[bcdon]

Ticket to Ride will be my next purchase.

I think you'll like it. There are loads of versions, the classic is USA, but they also have Europe and other places. One thing, I'd get the expansion pack (http://www.amazon.com/Ticket-To-Ride-1910-Expansion/dp/B000K8FYAS) because the stock cards are too small. This is a really fun game and can be played with only two players, which is what I play the majority of time. They also have a card only version (no board) that my wife and I take with us on vacation and play at pubs.