LoC #62 - Top 50 Tabletop Games

[Thrifty]

I played a modified version of Operation at GenCon 2003.  You would play Operation, and the other players would try to distract you by yelling at you and throwing things at you.  Points were calculated based on how many pieces you could extract before setting off the buzzer.  Then the pieces would be reset for the next guy.  I was really good at the game, at least back then, so I won by a pretty big margin.

[Johnny Unusual]

Ooh. Dominion looks like fun. I might have to track that one down. Don't know if I want to pay $30 for it, though...

Dominion is a pretty cool game.  No board (though you need space for the stuff you want to buy) and actually rather easy to get the hang of.

# 24: Go

Always wanted to play this.  Largely because I was a fan of Hikaru no Go.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/1_WMa42spAs" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/1_WMa42spAs</a>

It also increased the popularity of Go in Japan immensely as it used to be seen as an "Old Man Game"

# 25: Scattergories

Loves me some Scattergories.  It's also a good game for ESL teaching.

# 26: Carcassone

Those Germans make some damned fine board games.  Carcassone on X-Box Live is also pretty fun.

# 27: Ticket to Ride

I like this one a lot, but I don't think I'll be playing it much anymore, since apparently my friend and his fiance who own it are all played out of this one.

Looking forward to seeing what comes up next.

[Mrs. Dick Courier]

I love word games...I kicked ass at Scattergories.

Never heard of some of these though, like Ticket to Ride.  Sounds like a good game though.

[Compound]

Okay, let's see if I can sneak in some more entries.

[Compound]

# 19: Mastermind
a.k.a. Codebreaker

57 Points (On 3 of 14 lists)
Highest Vote: (#4 by CJones)

Publication Date: 1971

Number of Players: 2

Designed by:   Mordecai Meirowitz

Publisher: Hasbro/ Pressman/Invicta Plastics

Description:
Guess the color of hidden pegs. A deduction game where each player takes turn making a limited number of guesses, using logic to deduce what pegs the opponent has hidden.

Hey, How Do I Win This?
By guessing the color combo before a certain number of guesses. (Usually 20)

Fun Gaming Facts:
Numeric and letter-based versions of Mastermind also exist.

Mastermind has been produced in electronic and non-electronic versions. There have been variations that use from 3-6 holes and 5-26 colors/numbers/words to guess.

Computer programs have been programmed that can deduce what the pattern is in a standard game in 4.3 moves. Keep that in mind next time you're on move 18 or so.

Here's the original box art from 1973.


Here's the same couple in 2006:


She's a computer programmer now, BTW.

Dice:
None

Purple and Orange?:
Sometimes. There have been a number of different colors used for the pegs, and purple and orange are sometimes used.

Awards & Stuff:
While the box art above says "Game of the Year" I can't read who gave that out. So it won something.

Related Games that Received Votes:

Related Games that Didn't Receive Votes:

Hey! It's an Amazon link with the price!   $8.97

Next Turn:
 I'm guessing "flirty" because I think Tom is just choosing random cards from his hand.
 

[Compound]

These aren't the droids you're looking for.

[Compound]

# 18: Apples to Apples

61 Points (On 3 of 14 lists)
Highest Vote: (#3 by Cole Stratton)

Publication Date: 1999

Number of Players: 4-10

Designed by: Matthew Kirby, Mark Alan Osterhaus

Publisher: Out of the Box Publishing/ Mattel

Description:
Apples to Apples consists only of two decks of cards: Things and Descriptions. Each turn, the current referee selects a Description and players try to pick, from the cards in their hands, the Things that best match that Description. The referee then chooses the Thing that appeals most and awards the card to the player who played it. The unusual combinations of Things and Descriptions are humorous to the extreme, and will quickly have the entire room in an uproar. Once a player has won a pre-determined number of cards, that player wins.

Hey, How Do I Win This?
Win a certain number of cards before someone flips the table over in disgust at your choices.

Fun Gaming Facts:
I've met John Kovalic, the artist for this game. This was back when he was drawing a muskrat related comic strip, not these days when he's chillin' at Wil Wheaton's b-day party.

Target sells a variant called "Sour Apples to Apples"  where the judge chooses the best and the worst answer of the cards. The worst answer gets to spin on the punishment wheel and suffers for the next round with a minor penalty.

The Spanish edition is naturally called Manzanas con manzanas.

Dice:
Nope.

Purple and Orange?:
Unfortunately, no. The standard colors are red and green. Because, you know. Apples.

Awards & Stuff:
1999 Mensa Select Winner
2001 Origins Awards Winner, Best Card Game Supplement
2003 Japan Boardgame prize Winner, Best Japanese game
Games Magazine Hall of Fame

Related Games that Received Votes:

Related Games that Didn't Receive Votes:
Cards Against Humanity, which plays like Apples to Apples, but instead of nouns and descriptions, you have questions, such as "What's the next Happy Meal toy?" and rather inappropriate answers, such as "German dungeon porn" or "Eating all the cookies before the AIDS bake sale."  And the best answer gets an awesome point. Needless to say, it's not for everyone.

Hey! It's an Amazon link with the price! $22.99

Next Turn:
I once saw someone set about 300 of these on fire.

[Compound]

# 17: Magic the Gathering

62 Points (On 4 of 14 lists)
Highest Vote: (#5 by Johnny U)

Publication Date: 1993

Number of Players: 2

Designed by: Richard Garfield

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast/ Hasbro

Description:
Magic: The Gathering (MTG; also known as Magic) is the first collectible card game, created by Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011. Magic can be played by two or more players each using a deck of printed cards or a deck of virtual cards through the Internet-based Magic: The Gathering Online or third-party programs.

Each game represents a battle between mighty wizards, known as "planeswalkers", who employ spells, items, and creatures depicted on individual Magic cards to defeat their opponents.

Hey, How Do I Win This?
By either reducing your opponent to zero life points or below or by being the last player with cards in your draw deck.

Fun Gaming Facts:
Magic begun the collectable card game genre, which dominated the gaming scene throughout the 90s. There are fewer CCGs around these days, but they're still around.

The two rarest cards in the game are a card given to the 1996 World Champion (Aussie Tom Chanpheng, BTW) and a card to celebrate the opening of the magic center in Japan. In both cases, only a single card exists in the world. Additionally, Richard Garfield used a Magic card to propose to his wife and also to celebrate the birth of his first two children. But there are 15 of each of those in the world, so they're not rare at all.

Magic the Gathering was shown on ESPN2 for a while. It wasn't exactly the most spellbinding of presentations to watch.

And those 300 cards burned above to show people at a con that "they were just frigging cards?" Today, those cards would be worth thousands of dollars. Yeah, Mr. "You Magic Players suck" probably regrets that these days.

Dice:
None.

Purple and Orange?:
No. While purple and orange are used in the artwork of some cards, the main colors in magic are red, blue, green, white and black. Although Phil Folgio predicted orange mana back in 1994.

Wow, Phil made more What's New comics after The Duelist? How did I not know that?

Awards & Stuff:
2005 Origins Awards Winner, Collectable Card Game or Expansion of the Year (for "Ravnica: City of Guilds").
2005 Årets Spill Nominee, Strategy Game of the Year (for 9th Edition).
1998 Origins Awards Winner, Best Card Game Expansion or Supplement (for "Urza's Saga").
1996 Golden Ace, (Game of the Year, France) Winner
1995 A la carte Fairplay Magazine prize for card games 1st Place.
1994 Mensa Select Winner
1994 Lucca Games Best of Show (Italy), Winner, Best Translated Game
1993 Origins Awards Winner, Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Boardgame and Best Graphic Presentation of a Boardgame.
Games Magazine Hall of Fame Inductee.

Related Games that Received Votes:

Related Games that Didn't Receive Votes:
Oh, let's say Legend of the Five Rings, a CCG based on a fantasy version of the Orient with dueling clans. And it's just about to release its 10,000th different card at GenCon. And yay, Toku.

Hey! It's an Amazon link with the price! Here, have a core set fat Pack

Next Turn:
A classy, urbane game.

[Compound]

But first, more Magic stuff that I didn't want to stick in that entry.

Since Magic began, people have been creating homemade magic cards. Pretty much any genre imaginable has had folks make Magic cards for it.

Twilight

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Celebs:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

MST3k

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(None for Rifftrax though, although a GIS gives ...interesting... results. (No, not porny.)

Googly Eyes

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Although I think that's a real card with googly eyes attached to it.

The President

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Monty Python

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dune

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Radioactive Man

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(One of my favorite cards ever, BTW.)

And yes, even My Little Pony

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And sadly, I'm not sure if that's a random fan made card or one from the "official" fan made MLP set.

Curse you bronies for making me ask that.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This one though? It's a real card.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Compound]

# 16: Backgammon

71 Points (On 4 of 14 lists)
Highest Vote: (#2 by Tripe and Gojikranz)

Publication Date: Approx 3000 BC
 
Number of Players: 2
 
Designed by:   Unknown
 
Publisher: Public Domain
 
Description:
Backgammon is a classic abstract strategy game dating back thousands of years. Each player has a set of 15 "men" that must be moved from their starting positions, around, and then off the board. Dice are thrown each turn, and each player must decide which of his men to move based on the outcome of the roll. Players can capture each other's men, forcing the captured men to restart their journey around the board. The winner is the first player to get all 15 men off the board. A more recent addition to the game is the "doubling cube", which allows players to up the stakes of the game, as it is often played for money. Although the game relies on dice to determine movement, there is a large degree of strategy in deciding how to make the most effective moves given each dice roll as well as measuring the risk in terms of possible rolls the opponent may get.

Backgammon may be the first game to be mentioned in written history, going back 5,000 years to the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia. During the 1920's, archaeologists unearthed five boards from a cemetery in the ancient town of Ur. At another location, pieces and dice were also found along with the board. Boards from ancient Egypt have also been recovered from the tomb of Tutanchamun, including a mechanical dice box, no doubt intended to stop cheaters.

It was often enjoyed by the upper classes and is sometimes called "The Aristocratic Game." The Roman Emperor Claudius was known to be such a fan that he had a set built into his coach so he could play as he traveled (the world's first travel edition?).

The rules in English were standardized in 1743 by Edmond Hoyle. These remained popular until the American innovations of the 1930's.
 
Hey, How Do I Win This[size=0pt]?
Remove all 15 of your pieces before your opponent. Do that before they remove any checkers and get a gammon for double the points. Do that before they remove any checkers from the starting area and get a backgammon for triple the points.
 
Fun Gaming Facts:
A wordy quote regarding the different names of the game:

The names of the game were many. In Persia, Takhteh Nard which means "Battle on Wood". In Egypt, Tau, which may be the ancestor of Senat. In Rome, Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum ("game of twelve marks"), later, Tabula ("table"), and by the sixth century, Alea ("dice"). In ancient China, T-shu-p-u and later in Japan, Sugoroko. The English name may derive from "Bac gamen" meaning "Back Game", referring to re-entry of taken stones back to the board.

The doubling cube is an American creation, dating back to the 1920s.
 
Hugh Hefner used to host backgammon parties at the Playboy Club. No that's not a euphemism for anything other than playing backgammon.
 
Dice:
Yes! A pair of six siders plus the doubling cube.
 


Purple and Orange?:
Nope/
 
Awards & Stuff:
None.
 
Related Games that Received Votes:
 
Related Games that Didn't Receive Votes:
 
 
Hey! It's an Amazon link with the price! $16.29
 
Next Turn:
I've actually seen more fistfights involving this than with poker.
 

[Tripe]

# 20: Mastermind

Fantastic game, almost had fourth place on my list had to settle for fifth.

# 19: Chess
Highest Vote: (#1 by CJones)

*Ahem*

# 16: Backgammon

Also splendid.

[Compound]

*Ahem*

Oh , hell. That's not an ahem, that's a "say, what does that flashing light on the reactor console mean?"

[Compound]

And we take a quick moment to recalculate numbers as there's a duplicate entry.

[CJones]

Out of my 3,4,5,6 and 7, my #4 Mastermind is the first to make it (my numbers 1 & 2 were givens, and there was no chance they wouldn't make it).

I suspect 5 will make it. 6 probably not, even though it won the Spiel des Jahres. I'm surprised not to have seen my #3 by now. I have a bad feeling, if it was going to show up, it would have already. Then again, I fully expected Chess to take number 1 easily, so who knows. Finally my number 7 is another trick taking card game, and we've had several of them, and that's not even including Bridge. Before the internet, I'd never seen anyone play, or even mention this game, since my grandmother taught me how to play it. She'd invite me (I'm about 12 at this point) and three of her elderly female friends over, and we'd play it. Yep little kid me versus 3 old women.

After my grandmother's passing I haven't played the game, which is a shame, cause I really liked it. I simply don't know anyone who knows how to play it, and I can't remember the rules well enough to explain it.

Oh, and I checked my Mastermind. It has that same cover (the one where they're younger) except the game of the year star is on the right instead of the left. The first word is "Awarded". It says nothing about awarded by whom, or what year. And might I add: TWENTY GUESSES?! The one I have gives you ten. I guess they figure kids are getting stupider and stupider.   

[Tripe]

And we take a quick moment to recalculate numbers as there's a duplicate entry.

What do you mean a duplicate entry?