The Waiting Game Sucks. Let's Play Hungry Hungry Hippos!
Wil Wheaton - blogger extraordinaire, former Wesley Crusher and as always, in the running for the coveted title of King of All Nerds - has once again written about something near and dear to my heart. Wheaton's a gamer, and this week he's writing about his favorite "analog" (i.e. non-video) games (This is on SuicideGirls and may or may not be work-safe, so click with caution). In that spirit, here are a few of mine:
Munchkin: I started Emily playing Munchkin well before I ever managed to get her to play D&D with us, so you don't have to be a huge RPG nerd to enjoy it. It's hours of goofy fun, whether it's classic Munchkin, Star Munchkin, Munchkin Fu, Super Munchkin, you name it. To some people, bickering about the rules seems to be the entire point - though certain friends of ours would probably bicker about the rules of Old Maid for hours on end. Anyway, backstabbing, thievery and general shenanigans are the order of the day for this one - it's not for the thin-skinned.
Fluxx: The best thing about Fluxx is that it's entirely portable, and a nice change when you're tired of standard-deck card games. Between a Fluxx deck and a standard deck of cards, you've got hours and hours of gameplay in the space of a few cubic inches, so it's a great thing for backpacking, plane rides, or other such things where size and weight might be a concern. The built-in variability ensures that each game will be different, which creates replayability. Sometimes a hand will take two minutes, sometimes half an hour.
Axis & Allies: This is a great one if you've got all night - like Risk, only moreso. Yeah, it's both tough to win and extremely unsettling when you're playing Germany. But if you've got the time, this one's a blast.
Monopoly: Yeah, I like Monopoly. The sad thing is, every other person I know hates it with the fiery passion of a million hells, so I can never get anyone to play with me. Still, it's a fun mix of luck and strategy, and if you don't play with all the lameass house rules that everyone assumes are actually part of the game (e.g. the huge prizes associated with Free Parking), it's not necessarily an all-nighter.
Carcassonne: Easy to teach and learn, tons of fun. I'm amused by the way the box advertises "Includes free river expansion pack!" as a selling point. The river tiles are included in every box, always has been - why doesn't the box just say, "Includes all the pieces!"?
MindMaze: I would so dearly love to find a complete set of this game. My brother and I found this buried in the back of the game cabinet one summer when we were about 7 and 9 or so. Basically, it's a two-sided plastic board that stands vertically between the two players. Each player uses plastic dividers to create a maze that the other player can't see, and then both use magnets to try to navigate a steel marble through the maze. First one to finish the maze wins. We played it all the time, and it wasn't long before several crucial pieces were lost. I would love to play this again to see if it's as much fun as I remember.
