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[AstroLad]

i burned out on catan a while ago. kind of started to find it a chore to play. there can be some decent strategy for sure (http://www.settlersofcatan.net/settlers_of_catan_strategy.html), but most of the fun comes from trading with others and the luck element.

even though it's nothing like it, i prefer the 2p card game, recommended earlier, much more now. dsfdf

 

[Donkey Thong]

Can someone suggest a game that will be liked by everyone such as cranium? Not necessarily a similar game but just as accessible.

The games you're looking for are Time's Up or Time's Up Title Recall. They're the best party games I've ever played and about 1231 times more fun than Cranium.

 

[borghe]

Hey Board Game Geeks, answer me this--

Catan always seemed really, really simplistic to me, with basic strategy and a fair amount of luck.

Now, granted I am a game vet going way back, so I tend to suss out the rules/strategies of a game very fast, but am I missing something? Not that it's bad or anything, but so many people swear by it and perhaps it has depth I am missing.

The depth from Catan comes from diplomacy, plain and simple. We've had four player games going that were nail biters right down to the bitter end, partly because of randomness, but partly because we had either 3on1 or 2on2 scenarios where the sides were so evenly matched resource wise (and luck wise) that we seriously couldn't tell exactly which way it was going to go.

not to mention, any major luck portions in the game can partly/mostly be circumvented through wise diplomacy and trading.

 

[FnordChan]

Ignatz, I think borhge nailed the appeal of Catan - the negotiation aspect. There's nothing quite like, say, talking someone who you're in a road war with trade you resources for a road. The luck in the game is a mixed blessing; I've been in games where one player and I had all even numbers and nothing but odd numbers were rolled for twenty, count 'em, twenty turns in a row, at which point we quit. However, it allows newer players or folks who aren't quite as into strategy to stay in the game, so everyone generally has a good time while playing. If you've played Catan and don't really see the appeal, I wouldn't worry too much about it, though you may wish to give the Cities and Knights expansion (which adds a lot more direct shafting and time pressure) a go.

FnordChan

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Any ideas on how to suggest these new games to the people?

Hmm... tricky. The problem with these games (especially the war games you mentioned like Axis and Allies and Risk) is that it really does take someone with an appreciation for nerdy competition. They're not quick, and people who aren't doing well early on can easily feel excluded from any involvement. Furthermore, the limit for these games is usually five - six people, depending on what variation you're playing. So, if you've got a group that's willing to give it a go, my reommendations are to make sure that you instill a sense of pride in everyone's competetive nature, have a lot of alcohol (but make sure people aren't drunk before the rules are understood), and just have at it. It will take a while, so make sure everyone knows that this is NOT a casual game that can be as short as you guys need it to be. For a first go, make sure conversation is lively so that people who aren't immediately taken with the game can still enjoy the festive ambiance.

If that doesn't fly, the only option is to get nerdier friends. These games can be exceedingly difficult to work in, I find. Especially as I've gotten older, it's just tough to find time for both myself, and then to find group of people who are willing to commit an entire weekend evening to a nerdy, strategy-intesnive board game.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Rick is kinda bad for casual people who weren't weaned on games. You can take hours to lose that game and know all along that you are going to lose.

borghe and others-- thanks, I think that explains my experience with the game. Having played all sorts of games with that element, it didn't really grab me. I didn't dislike it, just wondered if I was missing something.

Oh, I thought of another game to recommend-- Citadel. it's a card game, it's a little tricky to learn for casual folks, but one you do, it's heaps of fun.

 

[vicissitudes]

Hey Board Game Geeks, answer me this--

Catan always seemed really, really simplistic to me, with basic strategy and a fair amount of luck.

Now, granted I am a game vet going way back, so I tend to suss out the rules/strategies of a game very fast, but am I missing something? Not that it's bad or anything, but so many people swear by it and perhaps it has depth I am missing.

It is pretty simplistic, but that's why it's popular. Also the luck aspect sucks sometimes. Occasionally you'd get a 11, 12, and 2 for Ore and then no one can build cities for an hour.

EDIT: I second Apples to Apples. Not exactly a board game though.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Rick is kinda bad for casual people who weren't weaned on games. You can take hours to lose that game and know all along that you are going to lose.

Yes. This is why you either need people who have appreciation for these types of games already, or you need to make sure that the game itself is just there to facilitate a sense of involvement amongst the party, where friendly chatting and copious drinking are the centerpiece of the evening. If you try to be the taskmaster who keeps attention focused strictly on world domination ("all right people, less idle chit-chat and more dice rolling!"), prepare to have a group of people who want to leave early and never, ever play the game again.

 

[distantmantra]

Ignatz, I think borhge nailed the appeal of Catan - the negotiation aspect. There's nothing quite like, say, talking someone who you're in a road war with trade you resources for a road. The luck in the game is a mixed blessing; I've been in games where one player and I had all even numbers and nothing but odd numbers were rolled for twenty, count 'em, twenty turns in a row, at which point we quit. However, it allows newer players or folks who aren't quite as into strategy to stay in the game, so everyone generally has a good time while playing. If you've played Catan and don't really see the appeal, I wouldn't worry too much about it, though you may wish to give the Cities and Knights expansion (which adds a lot more direct shafting and time pressure) a go.

FnordChan

My wife love Catan due to the whole negotiation/power struggle aspect of the game. More complex strategy games bore her (and myself) to death, but massive Catan games are a regular occurrence amongst our group of friends. Catan is very easy to learn, and lots of fun to play.

Has anyone else made up variations of Catan? A friend of mine created Settlers of Washingcatan, which is the state of Washington made up of hexagons. Mount St. Helens is part of the board, and can either reward you or punish if you settle around it, depending on the direction it erupts. We also take two Catan games and an expansion pack to play Indonesia rules, which is full of islands and oceans. You're allowed to build bridges to expand your empire.

 

[FnordChan]

A few more casual game recommendations:

Bang! - While the cards are now in English rather than Italian, this is still the Spaghetti Western card game to the hilt. In a full game you have a Sheriff backed up by a couple of Vices who try to keep the Outlaws and a Renegade from taking over. The catch is that everyone plays with their roles hidden except the Sheriff, which leaves everyone deciding who they're going to shoot and when they're going to reveal their true colors. It's fast paced, fun, and plays beautifully well with as many as seven players. The basic set (which is all you want, as the expansions only serve to slow the game down) is due to be reprinted sometime this month.

I'm The Boss - This is a game of pure negotiation, where three to six players all try to make deals that will get them the most money and deprive their opponents of as much of the take as possible. However, thanks to cards that allow you to send folks off on vacations, bring out their identical-twin cousins to make deals, and declare yourself to be The Boss, the deals are wild, frantic affairs, with cards flying left and right as players counter each other and try to wind up on top. It's a hoot, it can be learned in a few moments, and it's great fun using all the chutzpah at your disposal for wheeling and dealing - and when that doesn't work, saying to hell with it and making yourself The Boss anyway. Distantmantra, your wife should really give this one a shot.

The Big Idea - This is another silly card game built around words ala Apples to Apples. The concept is that you're an inventor and you're pitching your new product to investors. Everyone gets a hand full of adjectives (flying, bouncy, radioactive) and nouns (beer, sheep, car), and you combine them to create the dream product ("Radioactive beer! You'll love that refreshing, tingling feeling with every swallow! Save on light bulbs!") that the world desperately needs. Then there's a bidding round and whoever gets the most cash (read: spare change) wins. It's fast paced, silly, and a bit more structured than Apples to Apples. In addition, once you've played the game you'll want to create all manner of new cards, which an be thrown in very easily.

FnordChan

 

[AstroLad]

I grew up on Risk too, but like most "mainstream" games it just takes too damn long and has a dreadfully boring endgame. Great for breaking up families and friends though.

 

[platypotamus]

My favorite ultra casual game has always been Scattegories.

- List of categories.
- Random letter.
- Come up with answers for the categories beginning with the letter
- no points if someone else has the same answer.
- Reward clever thinking.


Also, if Cranium was a hit, there are a lot of Cranium spin-offs and variants that are WAY better than the original. My favorite one is Hoopla. It's got the same challenges as Cranium, but the way it works is it gives you a single clue. One team that rates the five categories in terms of difficulty (so something that would be really hard to sculpt gets rated a five, and if it's really easy to sing it's rated a 1 for singing). The "performer" than looks at the clue, and chooses the challenge that they want to tackle based upon the point value and how hard they think it will be. Then their team mates guess. I like it a lot better than regular cranium because you don't get stuck having to hum a song you don't know, or something equally frustrating.

 

[distantmantra]

Anyone played Hex Hex? I played it at a bachelor party over the summer, and thought it was a blast.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

I grew up on Risk too, but like most "mainstream" games it just takes too damn long and has a dreadfully boring endgame. Great for breaking up families and friends though.

Which is why it's one of my perennial "once a year" type games. When you haven't played it in a while, are bored, and can get a hold of a few other people who are just as bored, it SEEMS like a theoretically great way to kill an evening. Invariably, though, just about everyone is ready for it to be over long before it ends, and we all swear off of it until enough time passes, and once again, some genius has the brainchild to think "hey, you know what would be fun to play again? Risk!"

Just for that alone, though, it will always hold a place in my heart.

 

[AstroLad]

Risk is a good one. For my money though, there is no better "hey this might be fun!" interminable casual game than Trivial Pursuit. Monopoly might be close, but after about age ten most people stop thinking "hey this might be fun" about that game.

 

[Scribble]

Wow, it's like a whole other world.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Risk is a good one. For my money though, there is no "hey this might be fun!" interminable casual game than Trivial Pursuit. Monopoly might be close, but after about age ten most people stop thinking "hey this might be fun" about that game.

It's tough, but I can still be roped into Monopoly once every few years. However, that was mainly relegated to nights when I was still in college and drinking with the same people for the fourth night that week. "Well, there's gotta be SOMETHING we can do to distinguish this night from every other night this week, and there's still that case of beer to drink here. Wait, you've got Monopoly in the closet, right? Break that shit out!"

Alas, once the pieces had been chosen ("I call the thimble!", "I call tophat!"), it was all downhill from there.

 

[AstroLad]

It's tough, but I can still be roped into Monopoly once every few years. However, that was mainly relegated to nights when I was still in college and drinking with the same people for the fourth night that week. "Well, there's gotta be SOMETHING we can do to distinguish this night from every other night this week, and there's still that case of beer to drink here. Wait, you've got Monopoly in the closet, right? Break that shit out!"

Absent shortcuts and quitting, how many of those games did you actually finish? Make no mistake, the first hour or so of Monopoly, even though almost purely luck, can be somewhat fun in a goofy way. Too bad that's about 15-20% of the game.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Absent shortcuts and quitting, how many of those games did you actually finish? Make no mistake, the first hour or so of Monopoly, even though almost purely luck, can be somewhat fun in a goofy way. Too bad that's about 15-20% of the game.

Without quitting? Probably not a single one. At least, I personally didn't finish. I've got a couple of friends though who are gluttons for punishment, and I'm pretty sure that at least once or twice, they'd stay up 'til 4 in the morning until the game was legitimately over.

At least, that's what they would tell me. I'm a trooper, but I don't have THAT much patience.

 

[FnordChan]

For my money though, there is no better "hey this might be fun!" interminable casual game than Trivial Pursuit.

Trivial Pursuit is fine if you play it as a team game with no more than 2-3 teams. There aren't as many questions to completely hang people up and it goes quickly enough that you don't want to cut yourself afterwards.

I haven't played in years, but the thing I remember about Monopoly is that it's not too bad so long as you don't use any house rules. The moment someone suggests adding money to Free Parking, slap them, as they want to double or triple the length of the game.

FnordChan

 

[Drey1082]

Can someone suggest a game that will be liked by everyone such as cranium? Not necessarily a similar game but just as accessible.

I've seen that some people have said apples to apples, which i completely agree with.

Outburst is also a lot of fun. Played that at thanksgiving with the family.

Catch Phrase is also really, really fun. It was definitely a favorite of my college friends.

 

[distantmantra]

I've seen that some people have said apples to apples, which i completely agree with.

Outburst is also a lot of fun. Played that at thanksgiving with the family.

Catch Phrase is also really, really fun. It was definitely a favorite of my college friends.

Apples to Apples and Catch Phrase are great party games. Scategories is great fun, too.

 

[Flynn]

What about the learning curve?

Galaxy Trucker is all learning curve. There's a lot of failure in the game, but once you kinda embrace those lessons it's pretty fun.

The assembly phase is kinda harried and even if you do remember all the rules for part connections you're still going to make a mistake or two.

There's a moment between phases where everybody inspects the other ships. You almost always find a error that requires removing one or more piece. That's part of the nature of the game.

Then there's a sort of secondary thing that pops up. During assembly you forgot to attach the proper life support, or guns, or power -- there are lots of details to remember and the fun of the game is trying to keep all those in mind while rushing to put the ship together.

Then there's the race. Expect to crash and burn. It was rare in our multiple plays that even one player made it to the finish. Never did everyone make it through in once piece.

So a big part of the game is knowing when to pull out of the race and cut your losses.

Still, it's kinda fun to watch your ship get picked apart by asteroids and enemies.

So yeah, there is a curve, but engaging and digesting that curve is, I'd argue, a big part of the game.

Still, you're going to want to have one person who has the rules down pretty fast. There are a lot of details to remember with regards to what attacks go off when, how they're dealt with, etc.

 

[radjago]

Apples to Apples has been the #1 casual game among people I know for the longest time....
The real skill is in guessing how the choosing player will react to your choice.

So true. Reading your fellow players is key.

 

[Flynn]

I think auction games like Modern Art or even better For Sale could have lots of appeal to casual crowds. People understand the bidding mechanic fairly naturally.

 

[AstroLad]

Galaxy Trucker is all learning curve. There's a lot of failure in the game, but once you kinda embrace those lessons it's pretty fun.

The assembly phase is kinda harried and even if you do remember all the rules for part connections you're still going to make a mistake or two.

There's a moment between phases where everybody inspects the other ships. You almost always find a error that requires removing one or more piece. That's part of the nature of the game.

Then there's a sort of secondary thing that pops up. During assembly you forgot to attach the proper life support, or guns, or power -- there are lots of details to remember and the fun of the game is trying to keep all those in mind while rushing to put the ship together.

Then there's the race. Expect to crash and burn. It was rare in our multiple plays that even one player made it to the finish. Never did everyone make it through in once piece.

So a big part of the game is knowing when to pull out of the race and cut your losses.

Still, it's kinda fun to watch your ship get picked apart by asteroids and enemies.

So yeah, there is a curve, but engaging and digesting that curve is, I'd argue, a big part of the game.

Still, you're going to want to have one person who has the rules down pretty fast. There are a lot of details to remember with regards to what attacks go off when, how they're dealt with, etc.

Damn, that sounds like great fun but I just have too much of a backlog right now, including Agricola (still) and FREAKING ANTIQUITY.

 

[FnordChan]

Damn, that sounds like great fun but I just have too much of a backlog right now, including Agricola (still) and FREAKING ANTIQUITY.

Antiquity. Woo boy. I played half a game once and, yeah, it's impressive as all hell and is probably far more strategy than I'm really up for. I'm hoping to play through a full game sometime over the holidays, but I expect we'll all find ourselves looking down the barrel of death spirals again, wondering where everything went wrong.

FnordChan

 

[Flynn]

Antiquity. Woo boy. I played half a game once and, yeah, it's impressive as all hell and is probably far more strategy than I'm really up for. I'm hoping to play through a full game sometime over the holidays, but I expect we'll all find ourselves looking down the barrel of death spirals again, wondering where everything went wrong.

FnordChan

I've never finished a game of Antiquity. Not sure if I ever will.

 

[AstroLad]

antiquity is messed up

 

[Flynn]

Last night I played La Havre, the latest game by Uwe Rosenberg, the creator of Agricola. And, yeah, the guy knocked it out of the park again.

La Havre share a lot of similarities with Agricola. It's a game, essentially, about worker placement. Players collect raw goods, improve them, sell them or convert them into food by placing their single (never do you get more than one) work on a building. Players can buy buildings and ships (required for shipping goods). If another player uses one of your buildings they usually have to pay you a small cost.

Like Argricola there's a food engine that must be tended to. At the end of every round players must feed their employees. And the amount of food ramps up as the game progresses. If you don't get a handle on this it can dominate your strategy by game end. Sound familiar?

But La Havre is significantly lighter and more straight-forward than Agricola. There's no abstract scoring and no negatives for imbalanced assets. The value of your property and the amount of Franks you have is your score. Nothing is obscured.

There's even a parallel to begging card by way of "debt." If you can't afford the food costs at the end of the round you can take a loan, which you pay off later. If you carry the debt you have to pay interest once per round. This mechanic looks like something better players will learn to manage smartly, whereas begging cards in Agricola are to be avoided except for very special circumstances.

Anyway, I had great fun playing even though I lost miserably (I always seem to screw the pooch my first go round on these kinds of games).

We played the short game which starts players off with a nice foundation of resources. The longer version goes for eight or so more rounds and starts players off with minimal goods. It also uses an additional stack of special buildings. Can't wait to try the long game.

There's also a cool/infuriating turn order mechanic. Because of the length of the shipping channel, which players move down during the course of each round, there will always be one or more players that one gets one turn per round (the others will get two). The game rotates the turn order fairly and predictably so everyone gets the same amount of moves in the end. So it's never unfair. Just another potential obstacle when the time comes for you to get the shaft.

Anyway, this game's a buy for me. A great companion to Agricola. There's no US edition, so you have to buy the Australian version.

Funagain has the game for $60 bucks so I'll probably grab it there and pick up the Agricola vegi-meeples while I'm at it.

 

[Evlar]

Hey Board Game Geeks, answer me this--

Catan always seemed really, really simplistic to me, with basic strategy and a fair amount of luck.

Now, granted I am a game vet going way back, so I tend to suss out the rules/strategies of a game very fast, but am I missing something? Not that it's bad or anything, but so many people swear by it and perhaps it has depth I am missing.

If you want to add depth of strategy to Catan buy the Cities and Knights expansion. It adds all kinds of interesting gameplay options.

 

[AstroLad]

Flynn:

Going to try to play Agricola at tonight's get-together. Know of any good player guides?

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I finally got around to playing Wings of War again-- not a boardgame, but a miniature WWI flying combat game-- and I have to say, it's fun but I haven't found the depth yet. Fast play helps with that quite a bit, though.

 

[echoshifting]

So I ended up playing a 5-person game of Arkham Horror last weekend. I was the only one who knew the rules and I hadn't played in awhile so we messed up a couple of things but wow that game really bogs down with that many people.

On the other hand, we actually managed to kill Yig; never gotten to that phase of the game and won before...it's always seemed like if you don't achieve the gate objective you're screwed, so I guess that part of the game is a bit easier with so many people.

 

[Raistlin]

I too recommend Apples to Apples and Cranium as great party game. As a matter of fact, probably playing some A2A tomorrow. Some Trivial Persuit and Outburst always hit the spot as well.

Catan is really fun and easy to get into if you're looking for something in the strategy genre.



For 1 on 1, nothing beats the classics. Chess and Go are still the two greatest games ever devised.

 

[AstroLad]

So I ended up playing a 5-person game of Arkham Horror last weekend. I was the only one who knew the rules and I hadn't played in awhile so we messed up a couple of things but wow that game really bogs down with that many people.

On the other hand, we actually managed to kill Yig; never gotten to that phase of the game and won before...it's always seemed like if you don't achieve the gate objective you're screwed, so I guess that part of the game is a bit easier with so many people.

It's actually easier to close gates with more people and defeat the boss with fewer people.

 

[echoshifting]

It's actually easier to close gates with more people and defeat the boss with fewer people.

What makes you say that? The problem I found with that many people was that gates were opening sooooo quickly and I guess I didn't emphasize the importance of closing them strongly enough to my group (while overemphasizing the importance of sealing them; everyone was very reluctant to attempt to shut a gate without the requisite tools to seal it). With five people you only need 6 gates to open to awaken the Ancient One; considering that it takes a few turns to do if anyone on gate duty gets tripped up you're kinda screwed.

Conversely, with only a couple of people playing if one person gets devoured it's more or less over but with a bunch of people playing when you lose that one person you still have a shot.

Anyway, Yig feels like one of the easier Ancient Ones to deal with in combat, so maybe it wasn't a good test either way.

 

[Flynn]

Flynn:

Going to try to play Agricola at tonight's get-together. Know of any good player guides?

I haven't used any, but we've found the instructions to be pretty helpful while learning the game. Are you playing with experienced gamers? Our group skipped over "family."

Some tips: Pay close attention to the configuration of your board, make sure you're setting up for the right amount of players and using the right cards.

Make sure you've got you Improvement and Occupation cards sorted for the right number of players.

Pay close attention to those cards with turn order and scoring on them. After a couple rounds you'll get the hang of it.

 

[FnordChan]

What makes you say that? The problem I found with that many people was that gates were opening sooooo quickly and I guess I didn't emphasize the importance of closing them strongly enough to my group (while overemphasizing the importance of sealing them; everyone was very reluctant to attempt to shut a gate without the requisite tools to seal it). With five people you only need 6 gates to open to awaken the Ancient One; considering that it takes a few turns to do if anyone on gate duty gets tripped up you're kinda screwed.

With a large number of players, the number of open gates does become enough of a problem that you'll sometimes have to send someone in to just close 'em, lest the ancient one awaken. That said, like AstroLad says, with a lot of players it can be easier to get a gate close victory. I've played in a lot of eight-player games and unless all hell broke loose we generally were able to close six gates to win.

Unfortunately, five players is the worst number to have in a game of Arkham, giving you the penalties for having over four players without any of the benefits. A friend of mine who has played a whole helluva lot of Arkham now advocates playing with no more than four, which I've come around to agreeing with. Alternately, a six person game works out reasonably well as long as everyone knows what they're doing. Unfortunately, seven and eight person games drag on long enough that folks tend to get bored and distracted between rounds. If everyone's just hanging out and chatting, hey, that's fine, but I once played an eight player game at a party where folks were extra distracted and it took six hours. Yeah.

AstroLad, my group wound up learning Agricola cold without any guides or whatnot to help us along. The instructions got a bit confusing in places, but we were able to get going without too much difficulty; shortly after the game starts there's a certain level of "Oh, that's how that works!" and suddenly everyone knows what they're doing. One of the problems is that the box is crammed full of stuff, so there was an awful lot of sorting and trying to figure out what we really needed.

FnordChan

 

[AstroLad]

Thanks guys. Agricola here we come (unless Race for the Galaxy or Pandemic distract us too much).

 

[Flynn]

Thanks guys. Agricola here we come (unless Race for the Galaxy or Pandemic distract us too much).

I hope you guys like it. It's really a great game. It can be punishing and a bit of a brain burner, but man is it satisfying.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Flynn:

Going to try to play Agricola at tonight's get-together. Know of any good player guides?

Dunno about any guides per se (just go float around BGG for a bit), but here's a few beginner tips:

* Focus your early rounds on getting your food production identified and up and running. This will most often be dictated by your cards, but if other players are competing for similar resources due to their cards, you'll need a backup plan. Later on you'll have a lot less rounds inbetween harvests so you don't want to spend too many actions at that point on collecting food, hence the early focus.
* If playing the full version, don't try to get all your cards into play. You'll have a handful that'll work together, so focus on those.
* Beyond getting your food engine going, you'll then want to focus on expanding your family as quickly as possible (your food engine should be slowly growing throughout the game to handle the expanded food need). Getting more actions per round earlier than other players will help you tremendously.
* Don't be afraid to take the Starting Player action frequently if you need first dibs on resources, just be sure to have a minor improvement to use along with it so it's a more efficient use of the space.

 

[Flynn]

Dunno about any guides per se (just go float around BGG for a bit), but here's a few beginner tips:

* Focus your early rounds on getting your food production identified and up and running. This will most often be dictated by your cards, but if other players are competing for similar resources due to their cards, you'll need a backup plan. Later on you'll have a lot less rounds inbetween harvests so you don't want to spend too many actions at that point on collecting food, hence the early focus.
* If playing the full version, don't try to get all your cards into play. You'll have a handful that'll work together, so focus on those.
* Beyond getting your food engine going, you'll then want to focus on expanding your family as quickly as possible (your food engine should be slowly growing throughout the game to handle the expanded food need). Getting more actions per round earlier than other players will help you tremendously.
* Don't be afraid to take the Starting Player action frequently if you need first dibs on resources, just be sure to have a minor improvement to use along with it so it's a more efficient use of the space.

Great advice here. Can't stress how important the food engine is to the game.

 

[TheExodu5]

I think I may pick up Catan to try it. Never been into board games much, but it sounds like fun.

As for party games, one I tried that I really liked was Balderdash. Basically, you're given a word (which usually noone knows what it means), and you have to make up a definition for it. Everyone writes down their definitions, and they're mixed in with the real definition. Someone reads them out, and everyone chooses the definition they think is right. You get a point for picking the right definition, and people get points for having their definitions picked. Lots of fun.

 

[slayn]

its time I bought a new game and I'm looking for suggestions. It should support a decent number people, say 5-7. And we aren't really big on games that are economy based.

Games which, themactically, are more about horror/violence/action have been much more accepted. Games which also have some sort of co-operative effort also seem to stand out.

current games we have that are popular in our group are: arkham horror, fury of dracula, betrayel at house on the hill, roborally, and descent (although we never play descent because it takes too long). Other games we also sometimes play are kill doctor lucky, munchkin/similar, drakkon, and risk.

another requirement is that no single run of the game should take more than ~2.5-3hours at a maximum. If the game takes more than 3 hours we will just stop playing and pack everything away and probably not be eagre to pull it out again.

Currently, I'm eyeing the doom board game in hopes that it is like descent but faster paced and much shorter. Any other suggestions based on those requirements?

 

[Eric P]

maybe android? but that's not out yet, i don't think,

i am looking forward to getting my mitts on Red November. it sounds like a blast

 

[slayn]

the brief description on board game geek of android sounds... awesome. I'll have to look into that.

 

[Flynn]

Five to seven people is going to drag out many games and break some of them.

If you have seven and you're looking to keep the length down you should split to a group of 3 and 4.

 

[AstroLad]

formula d!

 

[XiaNaphryz]

formula d!

I have the older version (Formula De), and races can last anywhere between an hour to 4 hours depending on the number of players and what ruleset you use (laps for the race, weather, qualifying, etc).