Eldrbarry's Game Closet Part 3:
Current Favorites and the Euro Games Revival

Through the years, I have accumulated and played a lot of games in our family game closet. Some have been enduring hits, some had brief moments of glory, some were never played more than once. There is a lot of information on the internet on these various games including variant rules or alternate ways to play, and I am linking that to my games on these pages.
• Introduction to my Game Closet Pages
• Page 1 - Board Game Internet Resources and Current Game Publishers
• Page 2 - The Classic Games and some history of the Game Makers of the Past
• Page 3 - Our New Favorites and The European Board Game Designers who've revived Table Game play.
• Page 4 - Games for Two and Hosting Game Nights
• Page 5 - Some of the Games I Grew Up With, We played as a Family, and those awful Avalon Hill Games
  Eldrbarry's Storytelling Games .. Eldrbarry's Chess Pages .. Eldrbarry's Mancala Page
  .. Eldrbarry's Carcassonne Page .. Eldrbarry's Sudoku Page .. Eldrbarry's Active Group Games Guide

Current New Favorite Games



Of particular interest are the new European style board games. My son, Paul was introduced to them by fellow interns at IBM. Many of these are being published in English by companies like Rio Grande Games or Mayfair Games. Once J. Allen Frog got word of them a couple of Christmas' ago, the family was soon hooked! Expansions and other games are being added. And we are having fun introducing them to friends as well. I have more on the European designers in Part 3.

• Settlers of Catan (5-6 Player Expansion (Wiki - Geek) The modern "Monopoly" - this popular board game requires some cooperation as players compete for and trade the resources necesary to colonize an island and build cities and roads. The board is made up of hexagonal tiles, so it may be different every time. There are numerous expansions - Seafarers of Catan, Cities and Knights of Catan, and spin offs like Starfarers of Catan, etc. as well as a number of card versions. My Catan set was the 3rd edition - they changed their artwork for the 4th - so when I got Seafarers, alas, it turned out to be the new one! I scanned in the hex tiles from the old and made stickers for these Seafarer tiles. The Adapter Kit will help too. Ford Craftsman Studios has plastic frames for the various Catan games. University of Catan. . Scenarios . . Catan Online Official page

• Carcassonne This tile laying game with "meeples" is always fun. We usually play from hands of three tiles. The Inns and Cathedrals (which adds players) and Builders and Traders expand the basic game, as does the the River II tiles. For a more aggressive game with more people add the Princess and Dragon or the Tower expansions. See my Carcassonne page for much more information on expansions and varients.

  

• Bohnanza (Geek) This Bean Trading Card Game keeps everyone busy even when it is someone else's turn. Be sure and get the Player's Mat (Print up 7) and Help Sheet (Print up 4) playing aids from Board Game Geek, they are helpful in getting new players into the game. Probably the most popular game at our game nights - everyone we introduce to it goes and gets it!

  If you want to move beyond the bean trading of Bohnanza, you might consider Chinatown (Geek) - a board game where everything you have -- Lots, buildings, and money -- can negotiated with and traded in building up businesses in New York's Chinatown in the 1960's. However, another game in which negotiation is the mechanic of play, but because you have nothing to negotiate with turns into backstabbing and "every man for himself" voting is Lifeboats.

• Ticket to Ride (Geek) (Get the T2R 1910 Expansion for the larger cards) Players collect sets of cards of train cars to claim railway routes on the board. T2R has a board map of North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Ticket to Ride has spun out several expansions: T2R Europe -- it also has a T2R Europa 1912 expansion coming out -- and T2R Macklin (Germany). T2R Switzerland, and T2R Nordic Countries are designed for 2-3 players.

• Thurn and Taxis (Geek) and Power Grid (see below) also use Route and Network Building as a play mechanic.

• Ten Days in Africa (Geek) Out of the Box's "10 Days" Series is a good light filler game for 2 to 4, and very educational as well. Play consists on getting ten tiles representing countries and modes of transportation in a correct order on the racks - the board is used only for reference. There are games for the USA, Europe and Asia available.

• Acquire (Wiki - Geek) Designed by Sid Sackson in 1962; and produced first as an 3-M bookshelf game, then an Avalon Hill game, then by Hasbro, it will again be available after a number of years out of print in June, 2008. The game involves playing tiles on the board to create, build or merge hotel chains, and buying and selling stocks in these chains to acquire the most money at the end of the game. Written by an American, some consider this the first "Euro" Game!

  

• Pegs and Jokers is usually played husbands against wives, and usually played on home-made boards. It uses three standard decks of playing cards shuffled together for peg movement. Jokers and Pegs or Pegs and Jokers sell boards.

• Puerto Rico (Geek) (3-5 players) is a very popular Economic Development game. There are rules for two players, on line; and by purchasing a second set, Puerto Rico can be adapted to six players. Extra Pirate and Politician Role Cards can be added to that. I have some Playing Aids: a Setup Chart and a Summary Page of Roles and Buildings See Adam Skelding's helpful Game Flow Chart. A PC Version is now available. San Juan, the card version is playable by two to five.

  Allow me a brief rant: Do all Game designers have odd numbers of friends over? Five Player Games don't work well for our game nights when we usualy have 6-8 people!

There quite a few good "Filler Games" - Games that are short, simple and fun to play before or between other more intricate games....

• Incan Gold [2-8 Players] (Geek) An Indiana Jones laugh riot as players descend a shaft "pushing their luck" as they find both treasures and hazards. Do you stay or do you go?

• EXcape Geek [3-6] A new twist on a "press your luck" dice-rolling race game, designed by Reiner Knizia. Sid Sackson's Can't Stop Geek - Wiki [2-4] is another classic dice game from 1980, which could easily be homemade. Both games have simple rules, a fun blend of luck and strategy, and a degree of excitement and tension.

New Card Games abound! Many make good fillers.



• Rat-a-Tat-Cat! (Geek) Is a fun game for 3-6. Try to get the best hand of cats and get rid of the rats - without knowing all the cards you hold.

• Fluxx [2-6 Players] (Geek) Kind of a different sort of game - light and somewhat unpredictable as the rules are constantly changing as does the way to win. There are a variety of themed versions of Fluxx available including "Family, Eco-, Monty Python, Zombie" and "Martian" Fluxx

• Guillotine [2-5 Players] (Geek) This irreverent and humorous card game takes place during the French Revolution. Rival guillotine operators ving for the best collection of noble heads over three rounds.Each round, twelve nobles are lined up for the guillotine. The nobles are worth varying points, depending on their notoriety. During your turn, you play action cards to change the order of the line so you can collect the best nobles. Surprisingly fun considering the theme.

• Loot [2-8 Players) (Geek) Also called Pirat or Korsar. A card game. Send a trading ship of value on a voyage in which it must survive a round of attacks from other player's pirate ships. You defend your traders with your own pirates while collect the spoils of your attacks on the ships of others.

• Coloretto [3-5 Players] Like a Chameleon, a player may change his color many times during the game. Draw a card to play to a row, or take a row -- it's that easy! You score points for collecting cards of the same color.

• Auction Card Games make good fillers too. For Sale [Geek] (3-6 Players) and Turn the Tide [Geek] (3-5 Players) are two popular card games where auctions and bidding take on a prominent role in the play - both are good filler games - simple, short and fun. For slightly serious auction games there are Reiner Knizia's "flaught your wealth" High Society (3-5 Players), "Egyptian themed" RA [Geek] (2-5 Players) and Modern Art [Geek] (3-5 Players).

Two New Card Games are:
• Bang! The Bullet! (Geek) This "spagetti western" card game and its' several expansions is a great card game and playable with groups up to eleven. The identity of the sheriff is known, but whom among the rest are outlaws? Deputies? or Renegades? Useful info and downloads in various languages are found on BGG and on Bang! CZ; and Wiki and the RPG Review are useful.

  

• Dominion [2-4 players] (Geek) is a "deck building" game with a medieval theme. Starting with just a few, players buy and play additional cards, shuffling those into their deck for play, or to add victory points. The game comes with roughly 500 cards, but not all are used in a particular game. Only 10 of the 25 Kingdom card types included are used in any given game -- leading to immense variety. Dominion: Intrigue - a stand-alone which expands the game with 25 additional sets of Kingdom cards can be combined with Dominion for 2-6 players or two tables of 2-4 players. An additional expansion Dominion: Seaside is in the works, and two promo packs are also available. Published in 2008, it has received numerous awards! As the cards are frequently shuffled, cards sleeves might be a good addition. Here is a Dominion Card Randomizer. I also have made up a New Player Hints Card and a New Player Playing Mat.

Tile-based Games are plentiful in the new Euro games.

• Fjords [2 Players] A Tile laying game, first building a map of Fjords, then competing for territory.

• Hey! That's my Fish! [2-4 Players] Penguins move over hex shaped tiles competing for fish on a collapsing ice flow.

• Taluva [2-4 Players] (Geek) Building huts, towers and Temples on an island changing as active volcanoes erupt, played with Tiles.

• Uptown [2-5 Players]- a Tile laying game. The goal of the game is to try to connect your tiles together into as few groups as possible.

• Tigris and Euphrates [2-4 Players] A Tile placement game set in the ancient Near East as players build competing civilizations. Considered one of Reiner Knizia's best games. A card version Euphrates and Tigris is available.

  

• Alhambra (2-6 Players) This Tile laying game of building a beautiful spanish palace has several expansions.

• O Zoo le Mio (2-4 Players) Competing to put together the best Zoo!

• Rummikub (Geek) An Israeli tile rummy game. (Some Isreali varients)

• The New Dominoes (Wiki) There are quite a variety of Domino Games including our favorites: Mexican Train and Chickenfoot.

There are quite a variety of other play mechanics of the new "Euro" board games such as :

• Auction mechanics are a part of games like Power Grid (Geek) (2-6 Players) - which has map expansions for Central Europe and Powerplant Expansion Cards. El Grande{below], The Princes of Florence [Geek] (3-5 Players) and Goa [Geek] (2-4 Players).

• Area Control - Not just the province of Risk (now in many newer versions), but also games like the "Spanish" El Grande [Geek] (2-5 Players) and its expansions, the "fantasy race themed" Small World [Geek] (2-5 Players), Rise of Empires [Geek] and others like Bridges of Shangri La (Geek]

• Worker Placement - such as Pillars of the Earth (Geek) (2-4 Players). Other popular Worker Placement Games include the very popular Agricola, [Geek] (1-5 Players), "castle building" Caylus [Geek] (2-5 Players) and "medieval military-economic" Kingsburg [Geek] (2-5 Players)



European Designer Board Games and the Revival of Board Gaming

Beginning with Settlers of Catan (and its expansions: Knights and Cities, Stone Age and Seafarers), and contining with other fresh approaches to board gaming as Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico and numerous other games; and card games such as Bohnanza, San Juan, or Lost Cities - German designers such as Klaus Teuber, Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, Reiner Knizia, Andreas Seyfarth, Wolfgang Kramer and others, have introduced a lot of increasingly popular games in the United States.These games are published in the U.S. primarily by Mayfair and Rio Grande Games.

European designer games are characterized by such features as simple rules, attractive components, relatively abstract designs, and a lack of direct conflict. Great care is taken with the look and feel of the game. They commonly have wooden pieces. These games have contributed to a revival of game playing by young adults. German games are usually multiplayer (though seldom for more than six players - and for this, sometimes expansions are needed) and can be learned easily and played in a relatively short time, perhaps multiple times in a single session. A certain amount of socializing and "table talk" might typically be expected during game play - players often get to "play" during other player's turns. A wide variety of often innovative mechanics are used, and familiar mechanics like rolling dice and moving, capture, or trick taking are avoided. They are usually designed around themes, but generally they are neither combatative nor attempting to create simulations. Most of these games are designed to keep all players in the game as long as possible, so it is rare to be certain of victory or defeat until relatively late in the game. Some of the mechanics, like hidden scoring or scoring at the end of the game, are also designed around this avoidance of player elimination. Playing time varies from a half hour to a couple of hours, with around an hour being typical.

• European Style Board Games (Wikipedia)
• Are European Designer Board Games about to Tip?
• What is a Game, Really? and What makes a Game? by Wolfgang Kramer
• Prototype... Prototype... Protospiel by Kes Sampanthar
• Joseph Huber's Game Designer Reviews
• The New Paradigm: Games that are a Hybrid of European and American Design
• Rediscovering friendships through games people play
• The Finer points of Teaching Rules by Mario T. Lanza
• The Games Journal Archives A large collection of articles on gaming from a now defunct webzine. Well worth your browsing!

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Some Current Euro Game Publishers

• Rio Grande Games US publisher of German designer games including Puerto Rico, Bohnanza, and lots, lots more. Look for English versions of Kosmos, Queen, Amigo Spiele, Tilsit, and Hans im Gluck games here.
• Mayfair Games US publisher of the Settlers of Catan series of games. They have some Catan variants. Mayfair does English versions of Phalanx and da Vinci Games.
• Phalanx Games (Netherlands)
• da Vinci Games (It) Bang! Card game and many more
• Days of Wonder Among their games are the Ticket to Ride series, Memoir '44 series and Cleopatra.
• Queen Games Among their games are the Alhambra series and Wallenstein.
• Gryphon Games A nice series of reprints and other games.
• Tenkigames An Italian Company with several new games
• Ragnar Brothers UK
More Current Games Publishers
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