Best Games to Play

The 52 Best Games to Play Invented before 2008

Fifty-two? Why 52 (plus the expansions and other editions mentioned)? Because I started with Aaron Fuegi’s Top 100 Games list, which he publishes on the internet (and continually updates) at Aaron’s Top 100 that scored an average of 7 or higher. Aaron uses all sorts of stats and computations to rate the games, based on game players giving a numerical rating; then he computes a score from averages and another factor, which we won’t go into it here. You can see the scores and averages and other data as part of a full list on Aaron’s site.

I have chosen those games listed in the Top 100 list from March 10, 2003 (compiled using ratings sent in by 606 people) and October 16, 2008 and combined them. (Naturally, some gmes from the 2003 list did not appear in the top rankings of the 2008 list because they were replaced by other games.)  The rankings are so close, that I would not be inclined to say that any particular game on the list would be better or better liked than any other game  on the list; all the games are considered by serious game players to be great games to play.

Newer games played fewer times might have “inflated” rankings as a result of fewer negative ratings. And there were certainly some additional great games out there which had not yet received the distribution necessary to develop a good following, hence, a good ranking, and consequently have not made the list.

My thanks to Aaron. If you have any questions, additions, corrections, or suggestions, contact him directly at aarondf@bu.edu.

Game Title Company Year

• Acquire 3M 1962
• Advanced Civilization Avalon Hill 1991
• Age of Steam Warfrog  2002
• Amun-Re Hans im Gluck  2003
• Anno Domini Fata Morgana 1998
• Attika Hans im Gluck  2003
• Bohnanza Amigo 1997
• Call of Cthulhu Chaosium 1981
• Carcassonne Hans im Gluck 2000, also Carcassonne – Hunters 2002; also Carcassonne Expansion 2002
• Caylus Ystari Games  2005
• Der Herr der Ringe Kosmos  2002
• Die Fursten von Florenz Alea 2000
• Die Handler von Genoa Alea 2001
• Die Macher Hans im Gluck 1986
• Die Siedler von Catan Kosmos 1995; also Kosmos 1997 and Kosmos 2000; also Starship Catan Mayfair 2001
• Durch die Wuste Kosmos 1998
• Einfach Genial  Kosmos  2004
• El Grande Hans im Gluck 1995
• Empires in Arms Australian Design Group 1983
• Euphrat & Tigris Hans im Gluck 1997
• Funkenschlag 2F-Spiele 2001
• Goa Hans im Gluck  2004
• Hammer of the Scots Columbia Games  2002
• Kardinal & Konig Goldsieber 2000; also Kardinal & Konig: Das Kartenspiel Spiele aus Tim 2001
• Kohle, Kies & Knete Schmidt Spiel  1994
• La Citta Kosmos 2000
• Lord of the Rings: Friends & Foes Kosmos/Fantasy 2001
• Lost Cities Kosmos 1999
• Louis XIV Alea  2005
• Lowenherz Goldsieber 1997
• Medici Amigo 1995
• Modern Art Hans im Gluck 1992
• Mu Doris & Frank 1995
• Ohne Furcht und Adel Hans im Gluck 2000
• Power Grid 2F-Spiele  2004
• Princes of the Renaissance Warfrog  2003
• Puerto Rico Alea 2002
• Ra Alea 1999
• Raja: Palastbau in Indie Phalanx Games  2004
• Roads and Boats Splotter Spell 1999
• Saint Petersburg Hans im Gluck  2004
• Samurai Hans im Gluck 1998
• San Juan Alea  2004
• Stadte und Ritter Kosmos 1998
• Taj Mahal Alea 2000
• Tichu Fata Morgana 1998
• Tikal Ravensburger   1999
• Torres FX  1999
• Union Pacific Amigo  1999
• Ursuppe Doris & Frank  1997
• Vinci Eurogames  1999
• Wallenstein Queen  2002

Close runners-up (including two of my favorites) include:

Daytona 500 (Milton Bradley, 1990) and Hare and Tortoise (British Intell, 1973) . Bridge (yes, the card game) (public domain, 1925) also received a top ranking.

Only 3 games on the list are from U.S. companies (Mayfair, Avalon Hill, 3M), and nothing from Sid Sackson’s AVALON HILL in 1962 until the 1992 ADVANCED CIVILIZATION.

Some of The Big Game Hunter’s favorites

(including skill & action / dexterity games you don’t often see on a list):

 

GAME BUYERS GUIDE of 1998

The decade of the nineties has seen the richest outpouring of new, great-playing games in this century.

Most of the games listed here are easy to learn and offer a rewarding and engaging play session. You will find strategy games, skill games, word games, party games, card games, race games, and dice games. Most can be played with ages beginning between 8 and 12; some are more suited to adults only. And all of them offer the lover of games a chance to flex the strategic mind. Simple games of roll-the-dice-and-move do not make the cut. Great games do not center on luck, nor do they rely upon complexity; rather, they’re simple, easy to understand (though possibly difficult to master), and tend to keep all players involved during other players’ turns.

The list does not contain many children’s games, nor electronic games, collectible cards, or wargames. The list doesn’t cover all the wonderful, classic board games that have been around for ages, such as checkers, chess, Mancala, Go, Halma, and Reversi, and the modern classics of Chinese Checkers, Pente, Othello, Empire Builder, Blockhead,Scrabble, Boggle, Upwords, Jotto, Mastermind, Careers, Cathedral, Stratego and Acquire. The list does not cover very many mass-produced games found in the major toy stores–only those few that are exceptional. Most of the games in the list are found in small, specialty toy and game shops, and some may be available only by mail-order.

This list of best games has been put together by members of GAPT–The Association for Game Analysis and Play Testing. GAPT is a small organization of avid game players from New York to California, all of whom are skilled in the ability to recognize the qualities that make a good game good. Besides possessing an insight into the game-development process, they share a special passion for games, and an understanding of how games should work–or in this case, play. Some GAPT members are individuals who write game reviews for magazines, or are consultants and game analysts for various toy and game companies; some are inventors of games presently on the market. Collectively, they pool their knowledge and poll each others’ lists of favorites, which is how we arrived at the “best of the best” listing in this 1998 Game Buyers Guide.

Above introduction by George Petry

From two-player strategy to multiple-player family board games:

1835 (Hans im Gluck/Mayfair)  The Great Hexagonal Railroad Tile System in Germany.

1853 (Hartland/Mayfair)  The Great Hexagonal Railroad Tile System in India.  (Yes, we know there are others in the series, we like these, and someday hope to play them all.)

25 Words or Less (Winning Moves)  The one party game that gets every body quiet all of a sudden!  We all loved it.  Like combining password with Name That Tune.

Abalone (Abalone/Strunk Games)  A classic two player game of shifting opportunities as you push your opponent’s marbles off the board.  Now play with three or four with extra colors, or splurge and get the beautiful ebony wooden set for six.  It looks like a Steinway.  Play on!

Acquire (Avalon Hill)  Sid Sackson has updated his most beautiful child with optional rules that take some of the dead air (and dead tiles) out of the original.  Still a classic investment game.

Avalam Bitaka (Fils-Fils Diffusion)  Two player strategy has you stacking large wooden discs in order to capture the top and thereby the stack.

Bailiwick (Bailiwick Enterprises)  A nice, little gammon-like game for the family.

Batik (Gigamic)  tangrams under glass.  The perfect game your three year old can play with Grandpa.  Mine does.  Slip your wooden shapes between the panes and pile them up strategically, but don’t top out, or lose.  Quick and addictive.

Blackbeard (Avalon Hill)  all right, I counldn’t resist.  This is a wargame.  But it’s about Pirates!  That should take the curse off it.  Play it with lots of cocoa. (That should take the curse off it, aye matey?)  Besides, you will find out what careening means.

Blisters (     )  Anice little dice game of score it or bust.

Captivation (Captivation Corp.)  A party game and a board game!?  Impossible you say?  Never!  This is the Nineties!  We never had so much fun with four or more.  Like some quest for the grail, plot your pawns through just the right pathways to answer those tantalizing vocabulary questions and bring home the rings.

Catch Phrase (Parker Brothers)  The party word games with the ticking timer that can go off at any !#$%&  time.

Char (Bechter Productions, Inc.)  A brilliant variant on 3D four-in -a-row.

Chickenfoot (Plastech Industries Co.)  Reacquaint your family and friends with the power of strategic dominoes.  The beautiful marbleized nine-point tiles are in full color on white!  Your won’t believe how food a games this is.

Chronology (Great American Puzzle Factory) A surprisingly fun car game which does not require that you know the dates of events, just where the events fit in an ever-changing time-line.

Clue, The Great Museum Caper (Parker Brothers) It’s not Clue; completely different and in three dimensions, it’s a great 4-player strategy game of pursuit.

Cosmic Wimpout (Cosmic Wimpout)  The supreme dice game of score it or bust.

Crokinole (Fillip & Carom, Inc.)  Forget that old carom board in the attic.  Get yourself a new modern board of oak that is smooth as silk and start flipping that finger.  Disc in the center spot is still worth twenty points.  Then start practicing for the international tournaments.

Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix (Mayfair) Vroom with cards!! Play your cards right and you’ll outmaneuver and out race the competition. Neat little cars, too.

Die Hanse (Laurin\Mayfair)  A great game beautifully done.  The Hanseatic League sails again around the ports of Europe trading its wares and stuff.  Beware the Pirate ship!

El Grande (Hans im Gluck)  empire building in old Espana.

En Garde (Abacus)  High praise for a card game that simulates fencing.  Thrust us on this one.

Field Command (Walter Johnston) Fantastic “war” game for people who don’t play wargames. This two-player, terrific strategy game uses eighty, beautifully-detailed playing pieces (Napoleonic War Figures) on a three-level playing surface, each piece possessing a different power on a different level. Infantry, cavalry, cannons, and more make up a game attractive enough to give as a special gift, which eventually should become a collectors item.

Formula De (Eurogames)  Varooomm!!! with Dice!  Lots of Dice!  One for each Gear!!!  Watch those corners.

Genius Rules (Winning Moves)  The New Eleusis.  And elegant besides.  Divine the hidden rule which governs the placement of cards to the meld.

GeoShapes (Talicor)  Anice family game which teaches shapes and geometry.

Glyphix (Strunk) A great twist on memory games, Concentration-style: the pieces change position!

Hare and Tortoise (Ravensburger)  Pure skill in a pure race game.  The faster you go, the more it costs you; playing it slow and safe may gain you the fuel you need, but lose you the race.  Hare and Tortoise is a great strategy race game–one of the best there is!

Henry (Tiger-Electronics)  You’ld think a grownup could master an electronic game with sounds from childhood!

L•Game and 3•Spot (Rex Games) Also called 3•Spot and L•Game. This is one of those neat, little items that may get overlooked. Two games packaged in a smaller than five-by-five plastic case provide short games of long strategy for two players. One game uses three pieces, the other four. And if you’re looking for the perfect travel game, you can’t lose!

Last Chance (Milton Bradley)  You bet your dice again and again!  This one even tops the first!

Linie 1/ Streetcar (Gold Sieber Spiele/Mayfair)  Plot your trolley line then build it if the others will let you.  Run your trolley along your route and finish first.  An adorable thing to look at and a family game with some depth.  Ding-Ding!

Mad Chatter (Hersch &Co/Western Publishing co.)  An elegant presentation of categorical passwords,  Games….Articles…info…Games…Things found in Games Annual.

Manhattan (Blatz\Hans im Gluck\Mayfair)  Imagine Acquire with real Skyscrapers!  Investment and positioning add up, waayy up, to an instant classic as you stack your pieces to make real buildings on investment property,  Plot your options on multiple fronts.

Medici (Amigo Spiele) Possibly the best auction game ever devised. Imagine Acquire, High Bid and Bridge combined! All players are engaged in play all the time, making decisions on every player’s turn. The object is to fill your merchant’s warehouse with fine items and collect your bonuses. Bidding wisely is key, but there is an added feature of each player selecting the number of goods for sale each turn. Medici, designed by Reiner Knizia, may well be one of the best games around.

Modern Art (Hans im Gluck/Mayfair)    Another clever auction game.  As art dealers can you turn the art market in your direction?  Manage the artists in your gallery with cleverness, and by observation, buy the right painting at the right time. Modern Art is another game by Reiner Knizia, focusing on decision-making; the result can be a good close game with some surprising turns.

Modigliani (Gazebo Games UK Ltd.)  An elegant art auction game beautifully presented.

Moscow Auction (Planet 3 Games)  A very happy not-quite-monopoly game played on the map of Moscow with lots of auctions. lots of inflation, and pretty cards invoking memories of things you know nothing about.  Play the loopholes cleverly and you may make a good capitalist, Comrade!  Vodka is strictly optional.

Mu (Doris & Frank)  A well praised series of card games.

Murder on the Nile (Eurogames)  One of the cleverest games ever.  Clue fans clue up!  Can you imagine a mystery game where the detectives can actually make a suspect guilty?  No, we’’ll not reveal how they pull off this one.

Octiles (Kadon Enterprises)  Why try to get from on side to the other? Octiles!  Shifting pathway dissolve the perfect plans.  Stay alert and look for your chance to pull it out.  Admire the beautiful wooden pieces while you think.

Omnigon (Gametree) Two-player strategy game with marbleized plastic hexagons that are allowed different moves on a hexagonal, textured plastic board. An interesting positioning game which forces players to switch continually from offense to defense.

Oska (Great American Trading Co.)  The shortest  game of checkers your will ever play.  How’s that again?  Addictive and wonderful.  This time, you go first.

Pyraos (Gigamic)  simplicity itself.  Be the last to cap the pyramid made of wooden balls.  Pharaohly clever.

Quandary (Milton Bradley) Bradley’s best is being sold through specialty stores. This wonderful, four-player strategy game is unique, with large, colored wooden tiles that you place on a board as you bid, and bluff.

Quarto (Gigamic/Great American Trading Co.) Two-player strategy using 16 pieces differing in either height, color, shape, or solidity. Avoid placing a piece that makes a set in a line or square of four. What’s unique is that the piece you will have to play is given to you by your opponent.

Quintillions (Kadon Enterprises)  3D wooden strategy game.  Extra for the matching turntable.

Quoridor (Gigamic)  a very close game of fences and pawns.  Engaging for two, wild for four.  Try partnership play.  Beautiful wooden presentation.

Raj (Winning Moves)  Your all start out equal in this game:  15 cards I through 15 to bid for 15 scoring tiles both positive and negative.

Rhymation (JJAGS)  Password for poets,  A great party game.

Robo Rally (Wizards of the Coast)  Robots on wheels with lasers!  Oh My!  Seriously, name antohe game in which you plot your moves in advance and them play them ou tin simultaneous slow motion.  The chaos is plausible.  Drinks off the table, please, you’ll laugh so hard you’ll knock them over. Seriously, this is the paradigm for loving the Unified Field Theorem.  And it has add-ons, so bust-a-move!

Rolit (Goliath)  Four-color Othello played with four-sided spheres.  What will they thing of next!?  Wait till the Aughts!  Good-Bye!

Serenissima (Eurogames\Chessex)  Sail your galley across the Mediterranean Sea building your empire, filling your warehouses, recruit sailor, build more galleys, erect forts, attack ports!!  Sorry.  Too much wine in the hold.  Throw it overboard!

Sharp Shooters (Milton Bradley)  Your bet your dice it’s fun.

Skycapers (Winning Moves)  Like combining Blockhead with Chess.  If you choose your blocks wisely and have a steady hand your capers will score your bonuses.  I’m still working on a strategy for this clever contest.

Speed Circuit (Avalon Hill)  Vroom!

Stealth (Talicor) There’s more than one way to win in this two-player match up of attack modules, all with a secret power. Bruce Whitehill’s new game of strategic attack and defend, of suicide missions and the dangerous but powerful bluff.

Taboo (Milton Bradley)  Classic party game.  Password with limits.

Take 6 (U.S. Games Systems)  a great card games for a crowd.

Take it Easy (F.X. Schmid)  A scoring game with numbered hex tiles.  You place ‘em, you score ‘em.

Terrain Game, The (Games with a Twist)  Elegant hand made wooden game of hexagonal stepping stones.  Fill the board with these blocks in eight different heights, then move your beautiful wooden pawns to their matching wooden markers but careful!   There are limits to the distance you can jump or climb. And the board is different every time!

The Great Dalmuti (Wizard of the Coast)  Another great card game for a crowd, but hide all the breakables and check your grudges at the door.

The Settlers of Catan (Franckh-Kosmos/Mayfair)  An instant classic.  Best played with a hot steaming mug of cocoa all round.  Settle new land and build, build, build.  Comes with fancy wooden pieces for roads, villages, etc.  Remember Square Mile?  This is better.  Be on the lookout for the new Seafaring  add-on.

Topple (Pressman) Another wonderful balancing strategy game (with a six inch shaft, unlike the short-shafted European versions).

Transpose, Amazons (Kadon Enterprises)  Played on the same beautiful wooden equipment, Kadon, known for may wooden strategy games, has two games for you to play and never tire of.  Transpose will appeal to Backgammon players and has some delightful features, moving your pieces off the board while risking being landed on and sent back.  Amazons is amazing.  It is direct and subtle and has the flavor of Go without the complexity.  Your two pieces shoot “arrows” which methodically fill the board with beautiful wooden markers according to line-of-sight logic.  Keep your territory in mind as you fill the board with obstacles, because the last player to be able to shoot and move is the winner. Surely the Abstract Game of the Decade.

Tri-Balance (Nova Design Group)  Two or three players place and score their wooden pieces of varying weights on a triangular board balancing on its center.  Risking the higher point areas may force one corner of the board to hit bottom.  Tri-Balance is simple, yet elegant; and, in terms of the look and the game play, its all-wood style gives just the right balances.

Tribond (Big Fun a Go Go) Given three words or phrases, what do they have in common? “Wrestling, bowling alley, sewing kit.” Answer: pins. This is one of those “Oh, yeah!” games. “Great fun, laughter, social interaction”: Tribond.

Tutanchamun (Amigo Spiele)  Pharaohly clever again!  The path is the artifacts and the artifacts is the path.  Pick up what you like as you exhume along.  But what is your fellow archaeologist collecting again?  Pay attention next time.

Ultimate Stratego (Winning Moves) Stratego for four! Capture both of your opponent’s flags or bring both of your flags secretly together. Watch out for the “Boom!”

Undercover / Heimlich & Co. (Ravensburger) Wooden men race around a gorgeous board, their ability to locate the movable secret file dependent on your strategy.

Wizard (U.S. Games Systems)  Oh Hell with all the trimmings.  My family could never get enough of Oh Hell.  But we played with a full hand first and ended with the one card hand.  I am convinced it makes a better game.

SO YOU’RE HAVING A PARTY…

Beyond Balderdash (Parker Brothers) When there were about six “Dictionary” games on the market, we were still having more fun playing with pencil and paper and “Webster’s” unabridged. But Beyond Balderdash adds categories, and gives new dimension to the invent-and-bluff game of words and phrases. Just who was Charles Ferdinand Dowd, and what did happen on January 4, 1935?

Catch Phrase (Parker Brothers) The party word game with the ticking timer that can go off at any !#$%& time.

Encore (Endless Games) So how come if none of us can sing and this didn’t sound like a good game, we’re all laughing hysterically?

Taboo (Milton Bradley) Classic party game. It’s what you don’t say that counts.

25 Words or Less (Winning Moves) Less is more! Like combining Password with Name That Tune.

Also highly recommended: Captivation (Captivation Corp.); Oodles (Milton Bradley)

IT’S IN THE CARDS:

Genius Rules (Winning Moves) And genius it is. Divine the hidden rule which governs the placement of the cards.

Get the Goods (U.S. Games Systems). The American version of the popular European Reibach & Co. is here!

Set (SET Enterprises) An eye-opener. Players try to identify sets on cards in one of four different categories. In this speedy card game, the first one to see it, takes it. We perceive this as one of the best games for adults to play with children, as the adults will treasure it, but the kids can win.

Also highly recommended: The Great Dalmuti (Wizards of the Coast); Mu (Doris & Frank); Take 6 and Wizard (U.S. Games Systems)

ONE GOOD ROLL–BEST DICE GAMES:

Cosmic Wimpout (Cosmic Wimpout); Last Chance (Milton Bradley); Sharp Shooters (Milton Bradley)

SKILL AND EYE-HAND COORDINATION:

Crokinole (Fillip & Carom) If you don’t have a 19th century board, get yourself a new one smooth as silk, and start flipping that finger.

And all those pile ‘em up, stack ‘em up games, if you like that sort of thing.

And a few special games from the 1990s, by category:

Best Looking Game:

Wadjet (Timbuk II). Huge, lavishly illustrated busy board, dated 1923 expedition logs that fit into your glossy expedition record books, beautiful cards, money, even a color-illustrated glossary on a 14 1/2 inch heavy stock sheet, packaged in a very large, impressive box. And the playing pieces are four very different, intricately detailed, plaster busts three inches tall! Wadjet is expensive, but you could give it as a gift without even wrapping it.

Best Looking Pictures in a Game:

Riddles & Riches (R & R Games) Beautiful 8” x 12” glossies of rooms in a mansion (actually photos of intricate doll house set-ups) are used for players to find an object hinted at in clue cards.

A Game in its Own Category:

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (Endless Games) A supposedly hot trivia item on college campuses. (We playtesters all went to college, but in trying to come up with just one answer, we were speechless!) It’s the game for people who know people who know Kevin Bacon.

The Game Milton Bradley (Hasbro) Should Release in the U.S.:

Smuggle (out-of-print Milton Bradley) The best themed rendition of Liar’s Poker (also sold long ago in England as “Contraband”).

The Best Out-of-Print (including collectible) Games to Play

Bantu
Bas-ket
Battling Tops
Black Box
Booby Trap
Bridg-it
Camelot
Can’t Stop
Careers
Cathedral
Chinese Checkers
Clue Master Detective
Clue The Great Museum Caper
Concentration
Daytona 500
Elefun
Encore
Fireball Island
Halma
Hare & Tortoise
Heroquest
Hotels
Kimbo
Liar’s Dice
Lie Detector
Loopin’ Louie
Masterpiece
Mattel Talking Football
Mr. President
Mr. Ree
NFL Strategy Football
Oodles
Pente
Ploy
Quandary
Racko
Rich Uncle
Risk with Wooden pieces
Sleuth
Scrutineyes
Seance
Square Mile
Stadium Checkers
Stock Market Game (by Gabriel)
Stop Thief
Summit
Survive
Torpedo Run
Touring
Tripoley
Troque/Troke
True Colors
Twixt (See also Bridgit)
Voice of the Mummy
Wildcatter

Some of the games, such as TOURING, were replaced by another game, in this case MILLE BORNES, which is still being made.

 

Critics Choice

The best games to play (most are out of print) – alphabetical

Anonymous:

Bas-ket (Cadaco)

Can’t Stop

Encore

Fireball Island

Pente

True Colors

 

Herb Levy (GA REPORT):

500, Kimbo

Bantu

Can’t Stop

Daytona

Mr. President

Ploy

Rich Uncle

Square Mile

Stock Market Game (by Gabriel)

Summit

Troque/Troke

Wildcatter

 

Jeff Lowe:

Balck Box

Careers (early editions)

Cathedral

Clue, The Great Museum Caper

Halma

Quandary

 

 

Charlie Morgan:

Clue Master Detective

Clue The Great Museum Caper

Elefun

Heroquest

Hotels

Masterpiece

Mattel Talking Football

Risk with Wooden pieces

Seance

Stop Thief

Survive

Torpedo Run

Voice of the Mummy

 

Lyle Rhodebeck:

Concentration (any version)

Liar’s Dice (Milton Bradley version).

Loopin’ Louie

Masterpiece

NFL Strategy Football

Oodles

Racko

Scrutineyes

Stock Market Deluxe

Survive

Tripoley

Troke