boardgamegeek - all things boardgame site

[mouser]

nice site all about board games:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/

from monkeyfilter.com

[mouser]

I originally posted this almost 3 years ago, and after recently spending a lot of time on the site exploring games i felt it needed a follow up post.

This is a fantastic site for anyone who wants to try to discover a new board game or read reviews, etc.  I spent a couple of hours on it researching games before settling on a couple to try, and it was invaluable.

I should say i'm not much of a game player and even less of a board or card game player but i was very curious to see if i couldn't find something fun to play with guests.

I discovered in my journeys a fun game that we used to play with my mom called Challenge Yahtzee, -- and when i saw that there was a version on ebay endorsed by jack klugman and tony randall from the Odd Couple, i knew it had to be mine.  I find this game fun because i like the non-confrontational interaction with other players:


But the biggest discovery was this super super cool game called Heroscape; it just hit all the right notes in terms of ease of play, fun, variety, emotional involvement, etc.  We couldn't stop talking about how cool and fun it was.  If you have youngish kids who like dragons and stuff like that, i cannot say enough good things about how accessible and cool this game was on a lot of levels; if you just like to play with figures you'll enjoy it, if you like strategy you'll enjoy it, if you like just horsing around and having fun and not having to read 100 pages of instructions just to play a quick game, you'll enjoy it.  Here's della me and gothic playing during a new years visit; on the very first game we were just thrilled and all saying "wow that's so cool!" over and over as we learned how to play:



The one failure i had in choosing games was a roleplaying card game called Munchkin, which i absolutely hated -- much too complicated and confusing, and no fun at all in my opinion.

I also want to give a plug to a cool video blog site called "Board Games With Scott", where scott reviews a great variety of video games on camera; was very useful to me in verifying that most of the cool looking games i found were just too complicated for my tastes:

[mouser]

By the way my friend zack has invented a game if you are more interested in pure strategy / logic board games: Crumble.

And let's not forget the game created by our own DC member Ampa, which is actually already on boardgamegeek: Monkey Dash.

I'd like to see more people on the site creating new games.

[Deozaan]

This isn't actually a boardgame, but instead a card game that p3lb0x pointed out a few days ago in the IRC channel. It's called 1000 Blank White Cards. I had a chance to play it a couple of times and everyone who played really enjoyed it.

Basically, when you start the game, you have a lot of blank cards and you create your own cards by drawing on them. Of course, the first time you play, they are all blank since you don't have a stockpile from previous games to use. But the anatomy of a card is basically made up of 3 parts:

1) The title of the card.
2) A drawing. (artistic ability is optional)
3) What the card does. This can be plus or minus points, traditional card game instructions (draw again, skip a turn, etc.), or anything you want (i.e. "This card must be eaten." or "Bring me some snacks to eat.")

You can play a card on a specific person (including yourself) or in the middle which means it affects everybody (including yourself). When the game is over you add up all your points (it is possible to have a negative score) and whoever has the most points wins.

It's important to point out that winning really isn't the purpose of the game and aggressive play doesn't really work. You could easily create a card to give yourself 15 bazillion points, but that would just cause someone else to create a card to somehow turn it against you or nullify it. The real purpose of the game is to draw silly pictures and just have fun. There's a Wikipedia page on 1000 Blank White Cards^w but since I read the instructions from Riff Conner's site first, those are the guidelines I followed when I played.

Here's an example card from Riff Conner:

[attachimg=#]

(Approximately the actual size of a card)

Be sure to check out the site for a more thorough explanation of how to play (you don't really have 1000 cards when you play) and some more card examples at Riff Conner's site. Some of the card examples there may be considered "Not Safe For Work" but they are actually fairly clean compared to some other card examples I've found while researching this game.

EDIT: I just found 1000 Blank White Cards on the BoardGameGeek website.

[Edvard]

Excellent site, Mouser. A good place to stop by when considering further board game purchases.

My absolute favorite game has to be Othello (Reversi in some circles...)

I just wish it was easier to buy replacement tokens...

No other game IMHO has been topped it, although I have enjoyed teaching my son the finer points of Risk and Battleship, and we plan to acquire a Stratego set soon.

...And don't forget the ever-overwhelming Game-It-Yourself site, which has BoardGameGeek links for many of their games.

[Nod5]

Good sites, both.

A very simple yet strangely addictive card game is SET. Highly recommended! Children can play it at suprisingly young ages. If the complexity is too high for some child then just remove one or more layers of pattern for the time being.
http://www.setgame.com/set/
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/10/25/set-geeky-cardgame-t.html

[rjbull]

Maybe some people might like Tantrix?
UK site: Tantrix UK

[mouser]

Tantrix looks cool.

[Deozaan]

Tantrix looks cool.

GoldToken.com has a similar game called Trax. It uses square pieces instead of hexagonal pieces and only uses two colors. It was created by David Smith (also in New Zealand) 8 years before Tantrix. See the Trax Official Website.

[mouser]

I thought that i should also add that BoardGameGeek has a very active used-game marketplace where users can sell games to each other -- seems to work very well, and prices can be significantly less than buying new; similar to ebay. 

[wraith808]

I'm on there a lot as wraith808 also.  Very lively community, and I've been introduced to a lot of board games.  I've also sold on the marketplace, and it is a very good place to sell, though not as well traveled as eBay of course.

[mouser]

If you want to review board games, i just saw this post at a good site -- so if you are interested in becoming a board game reviewer..

"In a June 2009 column on my approach to writing game reviews, I mentioned that I have stacks of comped games waiting to be reviewed. Rather than have those games sit forever and a day until I have time to play them all, I thought it best to solicit reviewers who would be willing to tackle one or more of these games as well as future releases. What am I looking for in a game reviewer? "

http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/comments/from_the_editor_looking_for_game_reviewers/

[Emma Morales]

Hey guys, you have some neat info for board games.
Just a little correction: 1000 Blank White Cards change their website, now its http://1000bwc.org

Since Geocities is down, this one is not in use anymore:
http://www.geocities.com/nconner23/bwcards.html

[parkint]

"The Geek" is an excellent site.
I have been a member for a long time (have my entire collection of games logged on the site) and use it as a resource each time I consider purchasing a new game to add to the pile.
For those other 'serious gamers' the best prices for new boardgames is at CoolStuffInc dot com.
I have the luxury of being able to drive down the their immense warehouse and 'browse'.  But even with shipping you will not find better prices anywhere on the Internet!  And, they have a 'customer loyalty' program that beats FunAgainGames; each time you make a purchase the dollar amount affects a tiered scale of discount percentage on future purchases.

[wraith808]

But even with shipping you will not find better prices anywhere on the Internet!  

http://www.thoughthammer.com

They don't have a loyalty bonus or anything, but their prices are lower, and free shipping on purchases over $125.  Not lower *all* the time, but most of the time, IME.

Some distributors (FRED frex) will be more... I'm not sure how they do it.  But the regular distributors are usually less.