Board Games, Not Bored Games

While Thanksgiving is usually a time of eating and thankfulness and joy and peace, this year it was filled with virulent diseases (which always won!) followed by lack of water whilst buried under sand (except once!). Of course, I am talking about the board games we played.

Pandemic was a game of cooperative strategy where we were pit against four diseases that seemed to always get the best of us. While we were close and I hope to take another whack at it again come Christmas, we didn't prevail this go around. Maybe we needed to try a different tack.

To the Forbidden Desert we went! Crash landed on our way to the Forbidden Island (so many forbidden places!) we attempted to keep our canteens full while trying to find the missing pieces of our mythical flying boat to high tail it away with our lives in tact. Well, we did it once out of about a half dozen or so times. 

All and all in our two day run with Pandemic and Forbidden Desert combined, we went for a score of about 1-16. Even the Cleveland Browns can do better than that....

So here is the deal. While I absolutely love these types of games (and even more difficult and rule-complex strategy-wise), I want to throw some other types of games into the mix. Games that will hopefully get us to laugh or shout in joy. Instead of me just picking myself though, I wanted to give a few suggestions that would be awesome big group type games and let you all choose! If you feel I missed one or would just like me to add one to the mix, I will throw up a new poll and we will have a recount (much like our current Presidential election, but hopefully with less controversy).

After all is said and done I will purchase the winner (and runner up should the race be close!) and we will have a go. Go to the link below, look up YouTube videos if you'd like, and I have provided the brief descriptions for each at the bottom of this post. Get the word out so that we all vote!

Happy Gaming! May your dice always roll true!

-Bradley

https://strawpoll.de/1467gdx

Bang! (4-7 players) "The Outlaws hunt the Sheriff. The Sheriff hunts the Outlaws. The Renegade plots secretly, ready to take one side or the other. Bullets fly. Who among the gunmen is a Deputy, ready to sacrifice himself for the Sheriff? And who is a merciless Outlaw, willing to kill him? If you want to find out, just draw (your cards)!" (From back of box)

The card game BANG! recreates an old-fashioned spaghetti western shoot-out, with each player randomly receiving a Character card to determine special abilities, and a secret Role card to determine their goal.

Camel Up (2-8 players) In Camel Up, up to eight players bet on five racing camels, trying to suss out which will place first and second in a quick race around a pyramid. The earlier you place your bet, the more you can win — should you guess correctly, of course. Camels don't run neatly, however, sometimes landing on top of another one and being carried toward the finish line. Who's going to run when? That all depends on how the dice come out of the pyramid dice shaker, which releases one die at a time when players pause from their bets long enough to see who's actually moving!

Ca$h n Gun$ (4-8 players) In an abandoned warehouse a gangster band is splitting its loot, but they can't agree on the split! It's time to let the guns talk and soon everyone is aiming at everyone. The richest surviving gangster wins the game!

Ca$h 'n Guns helps you relive the best scenes of your favorite gangster movies. The goal is to have more money than anyone else after eight rounds while still being alive. 

Dixit Odessey (3-12 players) Each turn one player is the storyteller. This player secretly chooses one card in his hand, then gives a word or sentence to describe this card—but not too obviously. Each other player chooses a card in hand that matches this word/sentence and gives it to the storyteller. The storyteller then lays out the cards, and all other players vote on which card belongs to the storyteller. If no one or everyone guesses the storyteller's card, the storyteller receives no points and all players receive two; otherwise the storyteller and the correct guesser(s) each receive three points. Players score one point for each vote their image receives. Players refill their hands, and the next player becomes the storyteller. When the deck runs out, the player with the most points wins.

Exploding Cats (2-5 Players) Exploding Kittens is a kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette. Players take turns drawing cards until someone draws an exploding kitten and loses the game. The deck is made up of cards that let you avoid exploding by peeking at cards before you draw, forcing your opponent to draw multiple cards, or shuffling the deck.

The game gets more and more intense with each card you draw because fewer cards left in the deck means a greater chance of drawing the kitten and exploding in a fiery ball of feline hyperbole.

Sabatour (3-10 players) Players take on the role of dwarves. As miners, they are in a mine, hunting for gold. Suddenly, a pick axe swings down and shatters the mine lamp. The saboteur has struck. But which of the players are saboteurs? Will you find the gold, or will the fiendish actions of the saboteurs lead them to it first? After three rounds, the player with the most gold is the winner.

With the help of Dwarf Cards, the players are assigned their role: either miner or saboteur. The roles are kept secret- they are only revealed at the end of the round.