Board games are not the biggest players in the entertainment sector anymore. That title goes to video games. But, here are some great examples of why you should put the controller down for a few seconds.
A product overview from Wizards of the Coast Games:
In the Temple of Elemental Evil board game, you play as a heroic adventurer. With amazing abilities, spells and magic weapons, you must explore the dungeons beneath the Sword Coast where you will fight monsters, overcome hazards and find treasure. Are you ready for adventure?
[It] features multiple scenarios, challenging quests and cooperative game play designed for 1-5 players. The contents can also be combined with other D&D Adventure System Cooperative play board games, including The Legend of Drizzt and Castle Ravenloft.
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Wikipedia states:
Players assume the roles of settlers, each attempting to build and develop holdings while trading and acquiring resources.
The players in the game represent settlers establishing colonies on the island of Catan. Players build settlements, cities, and roads to connect them as they settle the island. The game board, which represents the island, is composed of hexagonal tiles (hexes) of different land types, which are laid out randomly at the beginning of each game.
Players build by spending resources (brick, lumber, wool, grain, and ore), represented by resource cards; each land type, with the exception of the unproductive desert, produces a specific resource.
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Many people have been victimized by this game. No one reads the rules. Fights ensue. No one is the same afterward. Monopoly has released so many alternate editions that it’s hard to keep up with whether the game is just New-Coke-ing it or what’s going on.
Some people might not know who Dane Cook is now, but he has a joke specifically about monopoly and how “Nanna is a cheating whore.” I’ve dated myself just now, and it feels…bittersweet, outliving other Dereks.
The rules of Monopoly can be found here. The best way to get everyone to follow the rules is to teach everyone the rules because no one knows what the rules are. Of all the board games, this one is the most popular donnybrook-inducing device.
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Wikipedia states that “Operation includes two sets of cards: The Specialist cards are dealt out evenly amongst the players at the beginning of the game.” It’s a game that’s normally fun to play. It’s all about trying not to hit the buzzer and it somehow creates this kind of tension, like you’re trying to defuse a bomb. No matter how steady you are, at the last second, you’ll take a hard left into the buzzer.
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You’re going to have to discuss politics with this game. Wikipedia states:
Risk is a strategy board game of diplomacy, conflict and conquest for two to six players. The standard version is played on a board depicting a political map of Earth, divided into forty-two territories, which are grouped into six continents.
Turn[s] rotates [sic] among players who control armies of playing pieces with which they attempt to capture territories from other players, with results determined by dice rolls. Players may form and dissolve alliances during the course of the game. The goal of the game is to occupy every territory on the board and in doing so, eliminate the other players.
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Wikipedia states:
Each player controls a clan of mythological Vikings seeking glory as Ragnarok approaches. Played in three ages or rounds, Blood Rage features card drafting, battles and territory control via forces represented by sculpted plastic miniatures. All conflicts are resolved through playing cards, and cards are also used to improve and differentiate the different clans and the leaders, warriors, ships and monsters at their command.
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An archived version of their website states:
DRINK-A-PALOOZA – a.k.a. The ‘Monopoly’ of Drinking Games includes numerous drinking card games such as kings, circle of death, waterfall, f*** the dealer, high-low, social, ring of fire, and elements of asshole that are combined into one Monopoly-like drinking game.
Your DRINK-A-PALOOZA game comes with beer pong balls (ping pong balls), spin the bottle, playing deck of cards, dice, six pack game pieces and mini beer bottles collected to win the game. This drinking game is played similar to the Game of Life and you fill up your six pack with beer bottles to win the game.
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Their product description states:
Dark Souls: The Board Game is a cooperative dungeon crawl board game for 1-4 players. To win the game, players must work together tactically to learn how to defeat enemies before finally confronting the boss. Players will find specific attack patterns and weaknesses of the enemies, but they will have to be careful.
If a player’s character dies, the game does not end, but starting over comes at a cost. Each time a character falls in combat, the whole party must return to the bonfire, and all enemies reset. Use your resources sparingly, learn quickly, and prepare to die.
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Wikipedia states:
Pandemic is based on the premise that four diseases have broken out in the world, each threatening to wipe out a region. The game accommodates two to four players, each playing one of six possible specialists: dispatcher, medic, scientist, researcher, operations expert, or quarantine specialist. The game is unlike most board games in that the gameplay is based on cooperation rather than on competitiveness. Through the combined effort of all the players, the goal is to discover all four cures before any of several game-losing conditions are reached.
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Chardee MacDennis is short for Charlie, Deandra, Mac, and Dennis. It’s the name of a board game that started on the TV show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is a website that has tried to piece together a working model of the game.
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