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Board games

This page contains lists and reviews of board games I have played, categorised based on how well I like them.

This page was last updated 12th of October 2005.

My favourite games

1856

In the game 1856, you play the president of a Canadian railroad company during the mid 19th century, and build track, eastablish stations, buy stock and gain control of other railroad companies, purchase increasingly more powerful locomotives, and try to avoid being eaten by the Canadian Government Railways. All in order to get filthy rich, of course.

The game rules are, compared to the rules of other board games, quite advanced, and might take quite some time to read and understand. But as soon as you grasp the basic concepts and get the game started, it is as easy to follow as any other game you know.

I have only had the opportunity to play this game twice, the first time being the most enjoyable. I played the game together with Allan and Ian, and our gaming session took most of the day. Towards the end of the game, I was president and majority stockholder of three different railroad companies: Welland Railway, Great Western Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway. After eight hours of play, and a few - um - hostile actions on the stock market, Allan went bankrupt, the game ended, and Ian and myself counted our money and the value of our shares in order to figure out who won.

Ian had $2786. I had $2787.

Blokus

Blokus is what Tetris would have been if it happened to be a four-player board game.

The game consists of a 20x20 square board and coloured pieces in various shapes. Its objective is to place all your pieces on the board in such a way that your opponents are prevented from doing the same. The player with the least number of pieces left at the end of the game wins.

Even though the rules are very simple and the game is quick, the game is still quite challenging. Especially when playing against annoyingly intelligent friends. All in all, the game is very fun, and makes an excellent appetiser before playing some epic 7-hour strategy game.

Roby Rally

The mechanics of this game are quite simple. You control a robot participating in a race around a factory floor full of holes, conveyor belts and laser beams. In order to get to the checkpoint flags along the route, you program in advance your next five moves using the variety of movement cards on your hand.

This is generally simple enough.

The difficulties arise when there is more than one robot rushing around on the factory floor. And there are, of course, as this is not a single player game. The robots get in eachother's way, push eachother into holes and laser beams, off the game board or onto conveyor belts leading in undesired directions. The players will have to foresee the movements of the other robots, and take that into account when programming their own. All before the time runs out, of course.

If a robot is damaged, the player controlling it recieves fewer movement cards to choose from. If it is seriously damaged, previous commands get stuck in the system, and the robot will end up moving in undesired directions which one will also have to take into consideration. Robots can also get hold of various improvements from various locations on the board, as well as repairs.

This is for some reason one of the games I've been automagically good at, usually (but not always) winning the game when we play. Perhaps that's why I like it.

Ticket to Ride

If a game involves trains, I like it, it appears. The game “Ticket to Ride”, which takes place in North America anno 1900, indeed involves trains – lots of them! – and is certainly no exception from that rule. The players are, in the spirit of Phileas Fogg, to travel, by rail, through the largest number of North American cities possible during seven days. Having travelled through 15 European countries in 25 days once myself, I am not entirely unfamiliar with the concept.

The game is, unlinke certain other train games I have played recently, remarkably simple – something which, perhaps unexpectedly, does not disqualify it from my list of brilliant and fun games. The game board is a large map of North America, dotted with cities with coloured railroads between them. Each turn the players can choose to do one of three things. They can either draw destination tickets, draw coloured train car cards or claim one of the routes on the board. The destination tickets tell of a train route between two cities the player has to travel in order to get the point value it says. Long routes give many points, short routes give few. The colours on the train car cards correspond with the colours of the routes between the cities on the board. In order to claim the route between for example Montreal and New York – which consists of three blue lines – the player will need three blue train car cards. To get from Miami to New Orleans, the player similarly needs six red train car cards. And again – long routes give many points, short routes give few.

When one player has claimed a route, she places her pieces on it, and no other player can travel the same route, which towards the end of the game results in a quite overcrowded board where the players might need to take long detours to get to their destinations. The game ends when one player is out of pieces to place, and the player with the highest number of points wins.

Other games in this category

I haven't written reviews of all the games in this category yet. Here is a list of the remaining games in this category:

Games I like

Attack!

If you like wargames but consider Risk to be a bit too simple, you’ll love “Attack!” – which is yet another brilliant game from the creators of “War: Age of Imperialism”. I do.

The story of the game is the same as in any other game in the same genre. The year is 1930-and-something, and rival imperialist powers of various political flavours (fascism, monarchy, democracy and communism) are busy trying to take over the world. Both through sneaky methods such as coups and funding of rebellions and revolutions, through peaceful, diplomatic means, or – if that fails – through the presuasive powers of tanks, artilleries, infantry, planes, battleships, destroyers and submarines.

Although the core game mechanics regarding your imperialist power’s economy are not as good as in “War”, “Attack!” introduces fun features such as technology research, dependence on massive oil production in your territories to fuel your war marchine, as well as the establishment of trade routes that can be screwed up by enemy submarines and strategic bombing of your rivals’ factories.

Two thumbs up!

Other games in this category

I haven't written reviews of all the games in this category yet. Here is a list of the remaining games in this category:

Games that are okay

Citadels

Citadels is a quick and fun card game where the players take the roles of feudal lords in medieval Europe, aiming to show off their wealth by building various expensive buildings (cathedrals, docks, castles, graveyards, trading posts, barracks, for example). The player with the fanciest buildings at the end of the game wins.

In order to keep up with the Joneses, the players each turn seek the services of different characters helping them towards power and prosperity: the assassin, the thief, the magician, the king, the bishop, the merchant, the architect or the warlord – eight roles with different strengths and weaknesses. The warlord may help you destroy other players' buildings, unless the assassin kills him first. The architect may help you build buildings quicker, unless the thief has stolen all the gold that was to pay for the construction.

Apart from the boring couple of minutes each round where the other players are secretly deciding which character to choose (hi, Tim! ;), the game is great fun. It also completely lacks randomness, but involves fun elements such as subtle persuasion, fragile alliances and screw-things-up-for-whoever-is-in-the-lead-mentalitiy instead..(c:

Other games in this category

I haven't written reviews of all the games in this category yet. Here is a list of the remaining games in this category:

Games I don't like

Other games in this category

I haven't written reviews of all the games in this category yet. Here is a list of the remaining games in this category:

Appendix: Games on my wishlist

My birthday is on the 19th of April. That's a hint..(c: