^oh yeah I like that game too . And Life, especially the Pirates of the Carribean version

Settlers of Catan (anybody else play this one?)

I have SoC on X-Box Live, although I don't have a gold account which means I gotta play everything solo. Still, Settlers is a fairly fun game, although it tends to make my blood pressure rise. Sometimes I'd swear the game was cheating...the AI players get the thief a whole lot and by game's end they tend to gang up on you and use the thief as their primary weapon. Never can seem to get enough Sheep either... If I got the board game my wife wouldn't play it and my brothers would sneer at it and demand we play Axis & Allies instead, so it's a bust there.

I hate movie video games, nearly all of them are terrible.

Board games: Monopoly, Sequence, and Domination. I like Army Monopoly best out of the Monopoly variants I've played. Sequence is regularly played when we visit my grandparents or vice versa. And Domination rocks - I frequently eek out a win despite my sisters' shrieks of "not fair!".

Card games: Cribbage, canasta, spades, nertz, slapjack, and "oh, pshaw!" (we use the family-friendly name). We play lots of cards, especially cribbage and spades. It can get pretty loud, especially when there's four or more us playing nertz. Spoons is also great if you can get a bunch of cousins to play it; if there's enough teasing (aka distraction strategy one) going on, you can drag the game out FOREVER!!!

Outdoor games: Catch (with either a football or a baseball), kickball, Frisbee, and ball tag. I really enjoy playing catch with my older brother and I can throw a football quite well. Not bad with a baseball either.

Video games: Medal of Honor: Frontline(PS2), Rainbow Six: Vegas 2(XBox 360), Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(PS2), GRAW, and Call of Duty(not sure which one I like best). Medal of Honor: Frontline is one the best games ever and I hope I'm not biased by sentimentality.

Other games: Yahtzee, Rummikub, Dominoes, and Racko. Our family's favorite game is probably Mexican (or Mexican Train) Dominoes. We also recently discovered Bendominoes which is great to play with younger kids, since it moves a little faster.

SnowAngel

Hmm, this may take me awhile. Mainly in the memory department .

Board Games: Monopoly, Apples to Apples, Stratego, Sorry, Clue (I'm a tough one to beat), Scattergories, Jenga, and Backgammon (haven't played this one in a long time, but I remember loving to play it growing up).

Card Games: Solitaire, Uno, and Eqyptian Ratscrew.

Outdoor Games: well, this becomes more of a sport category for me.

Video Games: Dynasty and Samurai Warriors series, Mario Kart, Wii Sports, DDR series, Sonic Spinball, Tetris, Bust'a'Move, Kingdom Hearts, and the oldschool Crash Bandicoot and Spyro series.

Oh kingdom of hearts i forgot about that one, Love playing in the winnie the pooh level.

Such fun to read through this topic! Thanks, fk, for another great one.

I'm a board game fan, and my top favourites would be (in no particular order):

*Dutch Blitz - craaazy, and one of the best games EVER: before we had children, we'd have my brother and sister over, plus a few friends, and stay up much of the night playing this very loud and energetic game. It's so addicting. Now we've got our kids and many friends hooked. If we have more than four players (which we usually do), we play with regular card decks, and use the suits in place of the colours, building up the piles from Ace to 10.

*Quickie Scrabble: each person chooses 12 letter squares and has to make up their own crossword before the next person finishes theirs. Then the rest of the tiles are a kitty, where you can choose more if you're stuck, but if you have any leftover when one person wins, those points count against you. It's challenging, fast, and cool.

*Yahtzee: we used to play with close family friends when growing up and we all made it just So. Much. FUN!!! So, this one would be more nostalgic than anything, 'though I still enjoy playing it from time-to-time.

*Eat p**p, you cat" That's the official name, Val? LOL We just call it "The Paper Game". Anyway, I learned this at a staff dinner a couple of Christmas ago and remember all of us laughing so hard at some of the outcomes. One of the best that evening was when someone thought popsicle sticks were the Ten Commandments. We taught it to Val and her family a couple of years ago and now it's become a favourite when we all get together.

*Boggle: a long-time word-game favourite. Since I especially enjoy games where everyone is playing at once—ones that are fast-paced—this one fits the bill.

*Probe: well, this isn't fast-paced, but one is always thinking in it.

*Paper Battleship (Battleship on paper): I'm not sure where my parents discovered this one, but it's quite a challenge, and involves some strategizing. It takes a long time to play, though.

*The Dictionary Game, commonly known as Balderdash: we saved money: we get out some paper and a dictionary and go to it. This simple, yet interesting game is always entertaining. We have still not yet found an efficient way of scoring, though.

*Bonco ('though it's usually called "Bunco"): this needs a large group to be most effective—16 at least. Three dice at each table racing for a Bonco, four groups of four, and lots of noise add up to a wild time. It's so much crazy FUN! (I see the Dice markings don't show up on that link, sorry.) My parents brought us up playing Bonco when we'd have groups over, and the tradition has continued at my own home now. This is a game that my father actually sent away to a few game companies to try and get 'published', but they all refused. He doesn't even know where he learned it (he didn't make it up ... yet now I'm wondering ), but now we see you can buy it in stores! As stargazer said at the end of his post when he was referring to a similar situation "Guess we missed our chance to be millionaires then".

I don't play video games, although our sons like them. When I was growing up, it was a blast to play hide 'n seek outside ... in the dark. Or sardines (kind of the reverse of hide 'n seek). We'd have fun doing this for hours.

My family has a Monopoly rule that is not in the normal game. If you land on Free Parking, you get the Jackpot. The Jackpot always has a $500 to start and any time you have to pay the bank for anything like taxes or penalties from Chance/Community Chest cards goes into the Jackpot. Buying property, houses, and hotels, obviously goes to the bank. I was completely thrown off the last time I played because I was so used to that.

I haven't heard of starting the game with 500 dollars in a Jackpot, but I have heard of all the tax / penalties money going there. We've played that way before. The computer version (at least the one we have) actually has money going to free parking. I could be wrong but I think it sends all money going into the bank there.

If I got the board game my wife wouldn't play it and my brothers would sneer at it and demand we play Axis & Allies instead, so it's a bust there.

I know the feeling. My sister refuses to play certain games with me. My Lord of the Rings Game is one of them. It is a longer lasting game so it is hard to find time to play it.

Has anyone heard of Authors? Most people I mention it to have never heard of it. The deck is made up of book cards and the goal is to collect get four cards by the same author. Interestingly, this set of four is called a book although it is technically made up of books. For example, one of the authors is Sir Walter Scott. The four cards are The Lady of the Lake, Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, and The Talisman. If I have all four of those cards I have a book and can put it down. The idea is to get as many books as possible. The game is played similar to Go Fish. On a player's turn that player gets to pick another to ask for a card. The player keeps asking until someone says no. Then picks a card from the deck. (Sorry if that is confusing, I was trying to summarize the rules quickly). The game we played the most growing up was my mom's when she was growing up. It has eleven authors and thus 44 cards. We finally found some in a store, so now my sister and I are getting a collection. The ones we found are a combination between a regular deck and an Authors' deck. (ex. the cards listed about are also labeled if 10 and each one has one of the four suits). There are 13 Authors then instead of 11. The Authors games we got have the same pictures as the game my mom has. The cards are bigger and there are two more Authors. We also have Women Authors, Children's Authors (no C.S. Lewis ), and American Authors.

To continue my list ...
Card Games
Quiddle - the goal is to make a word or words from the letter cards one is dealt. The number of cards dealt goes up from hand to hand. It starts at 3 and goes to ten I think. I call it Quibble some times because when we played it as a family we fought.
Racko
Give a way
Beggar your neighbor - this is kind of like War but can be played with more people and doesn't last as long. Players take turns putting cards down. When a face card or Ace is played the next player has to play 1-4 cards depending on which card was played (Jack gets one card, an Ace gets four). If another face card /ace isn't played the player who played the face card or Ace gets all of the cards. If one is played, the next player has to play the fine. This goes on until some one puts down the required number of cards without playing a face card of ace. The last person to play a face card / ace gets the whole stack.
Double Solitaire - like regular solitaire except for two people. Aces go to the middle and the players can play on any of the aces (following suit). The person who plays up all his /her cards wins. If the players get stuck, the cards in the center are divide by player (the backs need to be different) and counted the player who got the most up wins.
Spit - no it doesn't involve actually spitting.

Board Games
Where in the US is Carmen Sandiago? (not sure I spelled that right)
Trouble
Headache
Candy Land
Shuts and Ladders
Uncle Wiggley
Casper (it is played kind of like Parchessi)
Parchessi (not sure I spelled that right)
Aggravation One summer my sister and I played this almost every day.

Computer Games
Spider Solitaire
Solitaire
FreeCell
Pinball - which doesn't seem to be on my new laptop
Hexic - which also isn't on my new computer
Tetris - I only got to play this at school because I could never find it in the stores. I got the hand held game though.
Where in the US is Carmen Sandiago?
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago?
Oregon Trail
Dinomix - our first Windows computer had this game. We haven't been able to find it since. The goal was to build a machine out of pieces (fans, balls, conveyor belts) to preform a certain task.
Overkill - the idea was to navigate through space, shoot aliens, collect fuel, and not hit anything harmful. One could also upgrade one's ship but had to be careful that the ship didn't get too big / use too much fuel.
Jazz Rabbit - this was Mario / Sega style game i.e. worlds to advance through, things to collect, things to avoid. The rabbit was trying to rescue a female rabbit that had been taken captive. We also had a Christmas version.

That's all for now. (It's dinner time) Hopefully I'm not boring anyone. I'll probably will post more another time.

My sister refuses to play certain games with me. My Lord of the Rings Game is one of them. It is a longer lasting game so it is hard to find time to play it.

I know that there are a number of LotR fans here, and since you're an LotR boardgame fan I figured I'd bring this up to really blow your mind. I frequent another website which catalogues and reviews boardgames (they're up to 40,000 or something now ) and in the past few months they released a LotR game called "War of the Rings - Collector's Edition". The things costs several hundred dollars per game and they made only a limited number of them. Take a look at the pictures!

That's no book...it's a space station! Er...I mean that's the boardgame box itself.

Anytime I see little play bits I get excited. This one has hundreds of them...hundreds! Mwahahhaaha!

The gamebox has hinges!!!

Ok, that's it...I'm getting myself a copy. Anyone want in?

*all images courtesy of http://www.boardgamegeek.com *

I know that there are a number of LotR fans here, and since you're an LotR boardgame fan I figured I'd bring this up to really blow your mind. I frequent another website which catalogues and reviews boardgames (they're up to 40,000 or something now ) and in the past few months they released a LotR game called "War of the Rings - Collector's Edition". The things costs several hundred dollars per game and they made only a limited number of them.
Ok, that's it...I'm getting myself a copy. Anyone want in?

*all images courtesy of http://www.boardgamegeek.com *

Oh, my gosh! That game looks awesome. Unfortunately, by the time I could afford it, they would have probably sold out. *wonders if there is any way to play with Shadowlander's when they live in different parts of the country*

This is the one I have. I also have the Friends and Foe and Sauron expansion packs. My dad is kind of scary when he plays Sauron; he seems to enjoy it a bit too much.
(image from Wikipedia)
I'm curious, has anyone heard of or played Go for Broke?
I really want to play board games now. I would love to have a board game party. Unfortunately, I don't have anyone to invite.

I can't believe I came in here and posted without gushing about my latest favorite game....

For those of you who are Facebook addicts like me, I've gotten myself addicted hook-line-and-sinker to Mousehunt.

The premise of the game itself is exceptionally simple. You get a base, you get a trap, you save the kingdom of Gnawnia (yes, Gnawnia, they got bonus points in my book for that) from being overrun with mice. You hunt mice, you get gold and points. The more points and gold you get, the more you can upgrade your trap. The more you upgrade your trap, the harder the mice you can catch.... And so on and so forth.

I don't know why I find it so fun. Maybe because I picked it up after I stopped playing World of Warcraft (which was REALLY time consuming) and this game can be played in the background while I'm working with no problem. Though I think a lot of it has to do with the creators of the game have a wickedly funny sense of humor and loads of creativity.

If you would like to give it a try.... http://apps.facebook.com/mousehunt

And I gotta say, I'm surprised I haven't seen any Farmville mentions on here. Or Bejeweled... I see a lot of my friends playing that one all the time too.

back last summer I palyed the LOTR "Scene It"! it was awesome! and entertaining!

@FK: I have Bejeweled 2: Deluxe and I abesolutely love it. I really want to get the newest one, I think its called Twister or Twisted or something like that.

FK: oh I love Bewjeweled! I even have it on my Google homepage .

Libby: they have an LOTR Scene It?! Awesome! I totally want to get the second edition of Disney Scene It (I already have the first). The second has LWW .

Awesome thread!

In no particular order...
- Apples to Apples
- Pictionary Telephone (which I will presently explain)
- Balderdash
- The Ocarina of Time (Zelda)
- Super Mario Sunshine (The GameCube one)

Most of these I think are relatively familiar.

Pictionary Telephone is a game my best friend's family taught me like... six years ago. It's been our traditional game ever since. It's a combination of pictionary and telephone...

1. Determine how many players there are. For the sake of example I'll say (8).
2. Make (8) packets of paper (usually a quarter of one an 8.5x11), each with 8 pages stapled together. Distribute to the (8) players.
3. Each player writes a phrase, word, title, or whatever on his/her first page of the packet. Like Telephone.
4. When everyone is finished, pass to the person on your (right/left)
5. Each player looks at the phrase/word/title/whatever, turns to the next blank page of the packet, and proceeds to draw out whatever is written WITHOUT any words. Like Pictionary.
6. When everyone is finished, pass to the person on your (right/left)
7. Each player looks at the picture, turns to the next blank page of the packet, and proceeds to write a phrase/word/title/whatever that he thinks the picture represents. (kind of like pictionary)
8. Pass.
9. Draw the phrase/word/title/whatever
10. Pass
Etc. etc. etc. until all the packets are filled and each person has his packet back. Then go back and read, laugh, and show off what absurd things resulted.