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.

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. 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. 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.

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 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.