Board Game Break
As I have mentioned, I’m really getting back into boardgames. I have two distinctly different groups that I play games with — my buddies — guys that I have known for a long, long time who are serious gamers, and my wife Mary, who isn’t.
I’ll talk about the gaming group games later but I wanted to mention some stuff I am playing with Mary atm. I wanted to get stuff for Mary and I to play because we’re starting to get into a rut. Mary gets home around 6, we eat, play with Ashley, watch mindless TV, she goes to bed around 10, rinse, repeat.
I wanted us to do stuff together that doesn’t involve Blockbuster, a movie theater, food, the computer, or the TV.
Boardgames seemed a logical choice. She’d play basketball with me but after three ACL operations…that’s a no go, too.
Anyway, after doing some research and finding a sale at the local mall, I picked up a train game called Ticket to Ride. Check out that link to get a ton of info on it, but it’s basically a train game that can be learned in a matter of minutes — the rulebook is literally 4 pages long. It’s easy, highly accessible, strangely additive, and a wonderful game to cut a new player’s teeth on. Mary has asked to play it the past two nights with no prodding from me. I think I have created a monster.
I’m waiting on a few online orders to show up including:
- A card game caled Guillotine (I love this game but we’ll see what Mary says)
- A more hardcore game for the game group called Runebound 2nd Edition with 4 “card expansions” (Sorry Dan, I couldn’t resist…I found it on sale…I have no willpower
- Carcassonne, which I hear is another very good 2-player game that is easy to learn.
- And finally Shadows over Camelot, a game from the same company (not the same designer) of Ticket to Ride. This is a Co-Op game from what I understand that sounds really cool.
January 20th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Not a 2 person game but a good one for 3 people or a GREAT game once you get 5+ people is “Apples to Apples”. It has won many awards and with good reason. Simple to learn, no stress and always gets you laughing. I can not recommend it enough.
January 20th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
May I recommend Avalon Hill’s “Dispatcher”. Oh my gawd, I have never seen so many tiny pieces in a board game. It’s a train dispatcher.
January 21st, 2006 at 3:20 am
Carcassone is best with more than 2 players.
One of the best 2 player games is Lost Cities.
I STRONGLY recommend it.