A Beginner's Guide to Board & Card Games Beyond the Usual

If you're like most Americans, you think board games means Monopoly, Risk, Pictionary, Trivial Pursuit and the like.

Well, I'm here to tell you that you have *lot* more choice than that.  There are games available that look as good, have as broad an appeal, are as interesting as the mainstream fare - and are much more satisfying to play.

Do we really need more board games & card games?

Yes!

OK, "need" may be too strong a word, but board games & card games are a great way to spend time with friends or family: they're highly interactive, engaging, social, challenging, intergenerational, appealing to both genders, and, most importantly, plain old fun.

Not only do these little-known games provide variety, but they include specific improvements over the mainstream games, like rewarding good play instead of good luck, limited playing time, and fun for all players the whole way through the game.

Looks like there are a lot of games to choose from - where should a beginner start?

Obviously, different games will provide different levels of interaction, challenge, satisfaction, etc.  The good news is that there are a quite a few games with qualities that are perfect for beginners, such as easy to learn, appealing to a wide variety of people, and very satisfying.  I've listed a few of these "safe bets" below.

Settlers of Catan	Build settlements on an undeveloped island.   Settlements earn resources, which buy expansions, like cities, which earn double resources, and roads, off of which you build more settlements.
Carcassonne	Build up a medieval city.   Place a tile, possibly claim an area on the tile (city, road, cloister or farm). This area may be expanded when more tiles are played, and the larger it is, the more points it's worth.
Ticket to Ride	Build a railway system across the US or Germany.   Claim rail track by playing cards of the right color. Connect up your assigned cities and earn points - fail to connect and lose points!
Blokus Trigon	Fit as many triangular-Tetris-like pieces as you can on the board before it fills up.
Ingenious	Place your pieces on the board to make the best connections to already-played colors.
Lost Cities	Lead up to 5 expeditions to lost cities.   Invest resources into expeditions, but value of the investments must increase, and they're received in random order. 2 player
Apples to Apples (Party Box)	You pick the card from your hand that best exemplifies a given quality. For instance, the most "scary", or "smelly", or "patriotic" from Madonna, lightning, socks, Mahatma Gandhi, street gangs, London, and the universe. The winner is determined by another player - completely subjectively! Party game

Note that most of these have expansions, so if you go looking for them, you may find many games with similar names. Just start with the basic game, which is the one exactly matching the listed name.

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OK, where's a good place to get these games?

There may be a "brick 'n' mortar" store in your area, where you can see the games, and maybe even try 'em out. These stores are good to use & support. In Northern Virginia, there are 2 good shops: Game Parlour in Chantilly, and Compleat Strategist, near the East Falls Church metro stop. The Game Parlour is very good for trying out games.

There are good on-line shops, too, with cheaper prices. Here are my favorites.

	GameSurplus.com	Best prices, smallest selection, but will have all the basics
	FairPlayGames.com	Good prices, good selection
	FunAgainGames.com	Excellent selection, semi-reasonable prices. Also, good resource of information.

Also, at the site BoardGameSeeker.com, you can enter a game and it will list a whole bunch of online sites that carry it and how much they charge.

Is there a place with more information?

Yes! The web site www.BoardGameGeek.com is an excellent source of information on about every game ever made.  They have user-submitted reviews, pictures, session reports, lists and much more, all organized by a good user interface.  Feel free to check it out!

This was created & distributed by Peter Dahlstrom, who has no stake in any specific game, game company or game store.  He just likes playing games, and thinks you might, too.
Feel free to link to this page, although it'd be nice if you let me know by emailing pdahl at erols (skip this part) dot com.	This page has had hits since Nov 15, 2006