good board games

i've recently become intrigued by board games again. some games are just great as ice breakers at parties. here is my favorite:

cranium - it's like a mix of pictionary, trivia pursuit, and charades. players are on teams and the problems to solve are in 4 categories. sometimes you are making your team guess by drawing, other times by humming or manipulating play-doh.

i also like axis and allies, but that's a geek game for boys to pretend they are generals. if risk is getting boring it means you've graduated to this. but it's not much of an ice breaker, specially with most women who just smile and nod and opt to watch.

any suggestions out there for cool games?

Coolest board game by far is Talisman. I don't think it's being made any more, and it's hard to find a copy. Think dumbed down D&D as a board game. Good times.

And for the non-geeks out there, check out Who, What, Where? It's a game where you have to draw a Specific Person doing Something at Some Place, and the other people need to guess what it all is. It's surprisingly fun.

There is a whole WORLD of Board-Games out there that kick butt. However, if you're in the USA you've probably never heard of them. I didn't, until I fell in with a certain crowd.

Many are put out by German / European countries; and are great because they depend on a good mix of both luck AND quality decision-making skills. There are classics like "Carcassonne" and "Settlers of Catan", that are good for first timers - but there are literally HUNDREDS of titles out there, ranging from really simple, to games that take 8 hours to play!

www.funagain.com (more family oriented) , www.boardgamegeek.com (covers every game ever made - kinda like "IMDB" for board-games and card-games), and www.boardsandbits.com are three excellent websites to find games to buy/play. Once you're familiar with them, the German-language "Brettspielwelt" portal is a fun online place to play some of these games - although the language barrier can be tough sometimes. I'm hoping to translate some into SL over the coming months.

Feel free to email me or find me in SecondLife for more info - don't have time to wax poetic here, but I've worked in the computer & board-game industries both at the development and at the retail level... I am always happy to answer questions or help!

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)
[email]noel_wade@hotmail.com[/email]

P.S. You can often find local gaming stores in your area (if you live in a suburban / metro area) that have gaming nights. They're usually good places to meet folks and try new games.

We played Cranium on Christmas at Mom's

We also play Balderdash. That game gets downright crazy, especially if people are tossing back a few beers or cocktails. I highly recommend it. It's a bluffing game invovling rare and archaic words which you make up definitions for and try to convince others that yours is the correct one. Taboo is also a blast.

Axis and Allies is an old favorite and I play it both on the PC and the original boardgame. If you lik eit you may want to try Risk, if you haven't already.

Oh, BTW:

If you want some of my quality recommendations for games, you can see a list of the ones I own on www.boardgamegeek.com

My account is "NWade". The site is not super-easy to navigate, but you should be able to look at my collection. This link may or may not work:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewcollection.php3?username=NWade&dir=&orderby=&startletter=&own=1

BGG has reviews, comments, tips, etc. Its almost TOO MUCH info at the site; but like I said, contact me and I'll be happy to distill my knowledge down to bite-sized chunks.

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

I have always wanted to play balderdash but never been able too. I think I would really enjoy that one. For parties and ice breaking, Trivial Pursuit and Pictionary (not really a board game) are fun to play. Scrabble is pretty fun, but its sometimes hard to find a group willing to play.

Balderdash, Scrabble, Scattegories, Tribond.