People always ask me, “hey, what board games should I play?” Not really, but my friends and I have aquired quite a number of games that I feel are far above and beyond the likes of trivial pursuit, life, monopoly and the like. And I felt I should share them with all of you. If you are looking for some more interesting games to play with friends, check these out. Especially if you have a kid… these games take some thought! I think all of these are German designed games; most good thinking games seem to come from Germany for some reason. If you’d like to buy these games, check out online stores like FunAgain.

1. Carcassonne - My personal favorite. Place tiles together in turns to make a picture of a medieval town. The way you place your tiles and pieces will affect your score. Build cities, roads, monasteries, and more. Place your knights, farmers and builders on the city you are creating, piece by piece. Start with the basic game. There are many expansions, but I only recommend “Traders and Builders” as well as “Inns and Cathedrals” These two expansions really enhance the core game without making things a hellish nightmare of complexity. The rules can be a touch confusing the first time, but there are many great web sites with clarification available.

2. Settlers of Catan - A great game that is easy to learn. I can also recommend the cities and knights expansion which adds some interesting elements after you’ve mastered the basic game. This game is about building settlements and cities on an island nation for points. You can either make a pre-discovered map or allow exploration and discovery of tiles as roads are built towards them. A wonderful game with many ways to play… enjoyed by everyone we have played it with.

3. Puerto Rico - This is a fairly simple game to learn where you take different roles such as builder, prospector, trader, captain, etc each turn to produce crops and construct buildings. This is a great game with a lot of strategic management. Each player’s turn directly affects you, so the game stays lively. Grow sugar, corn, indigo and coffee and then ship them out for points or money in order to be the fastest to settle Puerto Rico! There are 3 ways to win the game and the strategy element is sharp. This game is uncluttered by tons of expansions like some of the others.

Try these out if you’re looking for something new and deeper than traditional American board games.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 10:48 pm and is filed under Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.