Board gaming is enjoying a quality spike the like of which it has never seen. You’ll find plenty to choose from, whether you’re interested in family board games, horror board games, or anything else. But just because modern games are the best they’ve ever been, it doesn’t mean that older games are bad. They’ve been around a long time, and there’s a long history of quality to enjoy.
Modern games are mostly the product of a design trend that dates back to the mid-nineties. So it’s of particular interest to go digging for gold in the years prior to that explosion. Here, in chronological order, are some gems you might have missed.
Go (~2200 BC)
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We’re not including well-worn abstracts like Chess on this list. Go is huge in Japan and China, where it originated, but it’s a little more obscure in the West. And that’s a shame because Go is a thing of staggering genius. On your turn, you place a stone of your color atop an intersection on a grid of lines. If you can cut off all four adjoining spaces for a stone of the opposite color, it’s removed. That’s pretty much the entire game, yet the strategy beneath is so deep that only very recently has an AI challenged a top human player. Place one stone and you could be playing for a lifetime.
Playing Cards (~900 AD)
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These also originated in China, and are also a game you can play for the rest of your life. Because, of course, it’s not one game but thousands. Many you’ll already know: Poker, Bridge and other popular titles constitute hobbies in their own right. But there are equally fun games played with slightly different decks across the world. You can play them fine with a standard 52 card deck: Jass, Scopa and dozens more. There are modern designers working with the deck to create new, strategically rich games like Ambition. Get a deck, get to Pagat.com, and it might be the only gaming equipment you ever buy.
Perudo / Liar’s Dice (1800)
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You’ll see this sold under various branded names, but the game is always the same. Everyone shakes some dice in secret, under a cup. Then they have to bid a certain number of a particular value they think the combined dice hold: seven fours, for example. Next player either ups the bid or calls their bluff. This straightforward setup disguises a wealth of statistics, guesswork and outright chicanery. Making a bid high enough to put the next player in a quandary is a wonderful moment. Being in a quandary, calling the bluff and finding the fates have rolled in your favor is better.
Othello / Reversi (1883)
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This is often presumed to be a classic two-player ancient abstract like Chess and Checkers. In fact, it’s much more recent and, bizarrely, two different men took credit, each rubbishing the other’s claim. On your turn you place a disk of your color, black or white, onto a grid space. The aim is to fill the grid with your color. But the disks are reversible. If you can bookend a line or diagonal of your opponent’s color with yours, all the disks flip to your side. Cue a fiendish battle of wits that can suddenly swing, even late in the game.
Scrabble (1948)
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Yes, this well-known word game does take a bit too long between turns, especially with more players. But it’s a fascinating and brilliant balance between vocabulary and spatial play. Sure it helps to know a lot of words when you’re finding ways to lay out your seven random letters. But a player that can sneak a ten-point letter into an awkward bonus space will scoop the prize every time. And it’s so well-known it’s easy to find people willing to play. Grab your phone between turns, and get gaming.
Yahtzee (1956)
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Roll and write games, where you scribble in the results of dice or card draws, are very much in vogue right now. But let’s not forget their mass-market progenitor, Yahtzee, which is far more fun than you may remember. Sure, you’re in the hands of fate when you’re rolling the bones. But filling in the grid takes a lot more skill and statistics than many realize. There’s nothing worse than crossing in a blank and then getting the right rolls down the line. Fast, furious and family-friendly, get the pencils out and take this classic for a roll.
Diplomacy (1959)
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Wrecking friendships for over 50 years, Diplomacy is divisive in a way few other games are. Designed by a historian to examine the political geography of 19th century Europe, the game has no randomness. Players struggle to conquer the continent, with one unit simply eliminating another in combat. It’s designed so that you can’t win alone: you need allies to prosper. Yet only one player can claim victory, so betrayal and backstabbing is inevitable. Its clever catch is that movement is simultaneous. You write orders down in advance, and all players reveal them at the same time. So you don’t know who’s kept their promises and who’s turned against you until it’s too late.
Acquire (1964)
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Some credit this game, by virtuoso designer Sid Sackson, as the progenitor of much of modern gaming. In an era where there were only mass-market titles and war games, Acquire was something new. It’s a game about creating, merging and investing in companies. On your turn, you place a tile onto the grid, representing a company stock. If your placement joins two existing companies, the larger absorbs the smaller. Then, you can buy shares in any of the companies which you’ll sell later for a profit, depending on the size. The result is a masterful mix of fiendish spatial challenges and economic wiles that remains fresh and thrilling to this day.
Can’t Stop (1980)
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A second Sackson classic, Can’t Stop is an easier and more raucous game. It’s a race to reach the top of three of the eleven columns on the board. Each column matches a possible roll of two dice and the more likely the result, the longer the column. You roll four dice, make two pairs and move two markers. Then comes the kicker: you can keep rolling, or end your turn. If you carry on and fail to roll a match, you lose your progress. It’s a constant, agonizing temptation to balance luck and skill. Play it as a board game, or try the excellent mobile version.
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective (1981)
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A bizarre blend of board game, whodunnit, and choose your own adventure, this sleuthing title was years ahead of its time. Pick a scenario and head out onto the foggy streets of Victorian London as the agents of fictions’ most famous detective. Players must work together to uncover clues, solve riddles and try and piece a solution together as efficiently as they can. Do it better than Holmes himself and your group wins. Atmospheric writing elevates these scenarios into an engrossing fiction in its own right. And if you manage to solve them all, there are loads of expansion packs to puzzle through.
Settlers of Catan (1996)
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A modern classic, now known simply as Catan, this game has fallen a little out of favor. But we shouldn’t forget what a revolution it was in its time. Its mix of clever dice mechanics, trading and route planning as players competed to colonize an island was like nothing we’d seen before. In its native Germany, games like this weren’t quite so novel, but its import in English kickstarted the whole modern gaming scene. It’s worth playing for its historical value alone. Luckily, it remains worth playing to recall how addictive its sweet blend of luck and strategy can be.
Source: IGN.com The Best Classic Board Games