Board games

Only the ouija board.

I love board games! My circle of friends back in my previous city played often. I'm new to the city I'm in, and haven't found a group yet that is into them.

I volunteer at a gay retirement home and was quite surprised to find a group of eldergays who play Settlers of Catan on a regular basis.

Yews, OP, but what an odd pic you posted. Never heard of any of those.

THESE are board games:

R4, it took me awhile to get into that one!

I play a handheld version of Yahtzee when I am sitting on the toilet, does that count?

OK, I used to love board games when I was younger, but I'm 66 now and hadn't played them for years ... and like r5, I thought that those games were still being played. Surprise! No one plays those kinds of games anymore (except maybe families with children) or Trivial Pursuit, which used to be one of my favorites. But as OP's picture shows, there are TONS of new games that have come into existence in the last 20 years or so. I was really astounded-- I figured that everyone just played video games now.

Anyway, I started going to some Board Game Meetups and have now I attend regularly. It's good mental exercise, and you get to meet new people. Highly recommended!

R8, I've gone to a few gay board gaymer events in my city. They were fun! It was nice to meet some smart guys into games of strategy.

There are some really smart entertaining board games these days that rely on skill and strategy more than luck with dice. Settlers of Catan mentioned above is a good example. Carcassonne is another one.

I think board games got a bad, nerd rep in the US thanks to D&G games. The times of family game night (playing things like Monopoly) are long gone. The board game industry never really created a new marketing branding to appeal to anyone besides kids and nerds. I don't know any 18 - 40 year olds who come together to play actual board games. Card games (like poker) and social games like charade? Sure. When was the last time anyone of you managed to get some guys together to play Clue?

R11, I'm 35 and enjoy them. My friends (30s, 40s) convinced a [skeptical] me to join in on a Board Gaymer night and I liked it way more than I thought I would. It was definitely a different way to meet other gay men vs. the bars.

R10, I had not heard of that game. Sounds fun!

I enjoy 7 Wonders.

This......

I love vintage board games but I can't get anyone to play them with me.

My favorite was Masterpiece but sadly you can't find it any longer. I think there was also a "Columbo" board game.

The DL's favorite board game...

OMG R7 I HAVE to get one of those!..Thanks

Anyone is welcome to pop over for some Ker-plunk

We have a 60 yr old version of Mouse Trap stuffed in the attic of our summer cottage. I'm afraid to open it for fear of spreading Hanta Virus to all!

Of course there was, r15!

I still have my KerPlunk game, r18!

I miss them. I remember starting out on Milton Bradley games (which often had mechanical gimmicks) and then feeling more grown-up when I shifted to Parker Bros.

Does anyone remember "Kosherland," the follow-up to Candyland? (I don't think it was made by MB.)

My favorite board game cover graphics..............

I play this all the time.

I loved Masterpiece, too - still have the game on a shelf in the closet. We also loved Clue, Careers, Stratego, and RISK!

Parcheesi

Marchesa

I loved the Mystery Date commercials on television, always hoping that the scruffy dud would turn out to be a child abductor and pick me! Nice to see a picture of the Pop-o-Matic Cube above.

Not strictly a board game, but I loved Mille Bornes as a kid, although I understand now that the cards are printed in English, not French.

R21, I loved that one as a kid.

There are some gay board games as well.

Some of these are probably collectors' items at this point.

From 1983.

Cruising, the board game.

[quote] The board game industry never really created a new marketing branding to appeal to anyone besides kids and nerds. I don't know any 18 - 40 year olds who come together to play actual board games.

There have been a few ditch attempts, but it never quite takes thanks to globalisation and demo- marketing.

Discussing this question I think of Kazuki Takahashi's creation of the TCG YU-GI-OH! and all its tie-in materials. In the mid-late '90s YGO! was teetering on the edge of becoming a popular 'normy' teen/college-kid game in its home country Japan, as a manga based on it had taken off big time as a cult pastime with young people in higher education. The game itself was kid-friendly but the tie-in comic-book and later anime were rated T+/M due to mature themes such as child abuse, mental illness/psych-horror, supernatural violence, explicit sexual humor, gang-activity and a surprising level of gore. Interestingly thanks to the character/card visuals & emotional storytelling of the Universe in which the original game is set YGO! also became very popular with teen girls, a notoriously tough demo for TTG outside of basic card-collecting or Mystery Date (shout out R28). There was also a spin-off dice game that did very well in Asia called Dungeon Dice Monsters (or DDM) which fused D&D with the YGO! TCG to make an interesting hybrid, but this never really made it overseas. Here's why..

Unfortunately in 2000 an American production team called 4Kids acquired distribution rights to the tv series and in order to align the show with their brand and other content on their channel decided to dub & localise it with every bowdlerisation they could invent. The anime was censored beyond recognition then repackaged heavily and geared toward young children & tweens, causing the manga (still ongoing) and any new anime series/merchandise to fall into step with them thereby ensuring continued international sales. This had a knock-on effect on the TCG itself, with cards undergoing extensive design changes to make them less 'scary' or 'offensive' and seem less Japanese (thanks, America). By the mid-late '00s YGO! was a different beast, written generally for 8-12 year-olds (and a small contingent of very nerdy, socially-unpopular teens). There are still YGO! competition tournaments held across America, Europe & Asia with the main demo being boys aged 8-18 (a running joke is that women are never seen at these events as participants, only staff or chaperones).

It's kind of sad, because for a minute there in 1998 the world was about to see a cool new game resurgence and potentially a new international cult phenomenon. The drive to homogenise and dumb-down everything to sell shit to kids & gullible parents completely undercut a very rich fantasy world with interesting gameplay.

My cousin and I found this in my grandma's garage on a visit and LOVED it.

The caricatures of the suspects were fabulous (in the left row, it looks like Bobby Jindal and Tallulah Bankhead!) and the plastic "lie detector" was fun to use.

I ended up ordering one on eBay a few years back for nostalgia purposes.

Love a board game - Scrabble, Clue, Parcheesi, Pictionary!!!... Card games too.

R11 - Clue is a family favorite on vacation - house has no TV so evenings are sometimes spent playing board games. My son is out for blood playing clue - but then again, so am I....

Glad to see there are other board gaymers on DL!

I got my teen nephews and nieces to tear themselves away from their phones for an hour and they enjoyed Chameleon.

My favorite is Trivial Pursuit but players have to be in the right frame of mind to make it enjoyable. My TP buddy—we’d get stoned and listen to groovy music while playing for hours—got married and moved away. I still have a bunch of TP games in case I meet someone who wants to play.

[quote] Does anybody else occasionally play?

Does chess count? If so, then yes, otherwise, no.

I grew up playing games with my siblings and I tried to share the fun with my nieces. I brought over Clue and Life and introduced them to the kids. We were all having a great time until mommy—my SIL—came home from work and declared board games “dumb and boring.”

And that was it. The kids literally stood up, walked into the next room with Mom, and turned on the TV. I left the games with the girls but have never heard them mention playing them. My SIL probably threw them in the garbage.

I like word games, Scrabble, Boggle, Bananagrams, Upwords.

R41, sure, why not? I love chess.

Is the game "Life" still around. Played it as a child when it first came out, On your first spin, you'd land on a career choice. If you were lucky, you'd end up with the top paying job: a medical doctor with a 10K annual salary. This was early 1960's.

There’s only one board game for me but I play it online nowadays.

Regularly, once a month or a bit more often. I have 2 circles of friends who are into board games, mixed company. One if those circles includes a married-with-kids couple who managed not to give up on their hobby. Collectively, we own over 50 games so sometimes it's months before we play a particular one again. There are so many great new games appearing every year.

Candyland

r.46 I envy you.

Syzygy is a really fun game that no one ever seems to know -- like Scrabble, but faster.

You draw letter tiles and race to make a big crossword in the middle of the table. When a player has used all his tiles, he says "Draw" and everyone has to draw more. The one who clears his hand when there are no more tiles to draw wins.

chutes and ladders. good times

When I was small

This is all the game I need right here.

Enjoyed board games growing up. Though Sorry could be a contentious game. Is that game still around?

Is the game "Life" still around. Played it as a child when it first came out, On your first spin, you'd land on a career choice. If you were lucky, you'd end up with the top paying job: a medical doctor with a 10K annual salary. This was early 1960's.

Oh, yes-- and now there are modernized "parody" versions of those games: LIFE has a "Quarter-Life" edition for millennials-- you start out with crushing debt! And there's "Sorry-Not Sorry" "Mystery Date-Catfish Edition," "Botched Operation" "Clue-Las Vegas," etc.

[quote]Not strictly a board game, but I loved Mille Bornes as a kid, although I understand now that the cards are printed in English, not French. .

I still have the original 1960s Mille Bornes and we play it occasionally at our Meetups.

I got a Meetup notification for a gay board game group in Long Beach today.

The games I was referring to in R54. There's also a Monopoly-Cheater's Edition.

Here’s a non-board game. You just need to keep track of the words you guess on a piece of paper or device. I’ll explain:

Two people each, privately, choose a five letter word. None of the five letter words can have duplicate letters, such as “steel”.

Then, you take turns stating other five letter words, (no dup letters), and your opponent tells you how many letters in your guessed word are also in his secret word.

For example, your opponent’s word is “cream”. At your turn, you say, “house”. Your opponent replies, “1” (for the “e”.).

Finally, one of you figures out their opponent’s word. It’s Hangman adjacent.

If you try it, please report back.

I loved Clue as a kid and still do.

[quote] I play a handheld version of Yahtzee when I am sitting on the toilet, does that count?

What will people think when you’re in there behind closed doors doing your business and suddenly shout out “Yahtzee!”

Love Risk.

A friend of mine had that Gay Monopoly game. He, I, and some of his friends played it once.

My mother and I used to play Scrabble. We had the deluxe edition.

I play checkers at Cracker Barrel while waiting for a table. They always have one of those oversized checkers set up by the rocking chairs in front of the restaurant.

Whoever owns the rights/copyright to "Green Ghost" needs to get that bad boy back in print pronto.

Beat-up/incomplete sets of "G.G." routinely go for $50-100 or more on eBay.

Are those parody games fun to play?

We had Colombo board game as a kid. Also, the Star Wars board game.

Kicky

The big ones I remember as a kid were CandyLand, Chutes and Ladders, and Go To The Head Of The Class.

Does anyone remember "Cootie"?

Went to a board game Meetup last night. Played Settlers of Catan and Alhambra. I'm not that great at strategic games, but both of these also require some luck, so I managed to win one and tie the other. And playing against veteran gamers. (I'm a relative newcomer.)

Of course this classic.

I loved Parker Brothers “the inventors” - thought about buying it on eBay. Loved Milton Bradley game show homeeditions (concentration)

I give you credit for getting out there. R68!

A vintage Clue game board makes nice wall art....

For our British brethren -- why is the British version of Clue called "Cluedo?" Is that a word?

nice find R35 I had completely forgotten about that game. Loved that little poker thingey!

Lie Detector was so popular that they came out with Spy Detector.

I had Lie Detector when I was a kid in the '60s.

^^^ so did I.

Always loved boardgames, continue to play. Also a good way to keep the children of friends occupied if they come over. Though I make sure to lecture them about putting it all away properly and not losing any pieces.

I'm in a Scrabble club.

I love playing The New Yorker caption game. We get to make up our own captions for New Yorker cartoons.

R73 the original game invented in the UK was named Cluedo, a portmanteau of Clue, and the latin Ludo which means I play. Parker Brothers who bought the rights for the US didn’t think that name would sell, and shortened it to Clue.

r82 It's Madeline Kahn night on TCM. They just showed Young Frankenstein, and What's Up Doc is next.

I want to check out board game cafes. It looks like you can pay a flat fee in most of them and play all day.

Board games?

R34 “...MY game uses DICE.”

Picked up a vintage Boggle over the weekend, inspired by a recent Gilmore Girls binge. (MARY)

My sister had the Beatles' Flip Your Wig game. Nowadays it gets from $75 to $300 depending on the condition.

I also loved Masterpiece.

Fun thread. Gaymer and Board Game Meetups are a good idea to find like-minded people, and I had not ever heard of board game cafes.

Board games are fun, especially with families.. on holidays. Scrabble is fun, or Monopoly. When you have awkwardness with family, just engage in a game.. lol.

Boyfriend and I used to play Big Boggle. We had a house rule that one couldn't form a new word simply by adding an S to the end of another.

Snakes and ladders, for kids

[quote]I volunteer at a gay retirement home

Wait, people retire from being gay?!

R85, I can't look at that without thinking "Roll Initiative!"

Snakes and Ladders, not for kids.

So far, I liked Pandemic.

I read an article a while back about the moral lessons behind "Snakes and Ladders". It's interesting stuff. The original game dates back over a thousand years.

Coke speed Jenga!

It’s like Jenga... except you set your phone timer to 30 seconds. When it’s your turn, you do a bump of coke, hit your timer, extract a piece from the Jenga tower ONLY using one hand, then stop your buzzer. Each round you have progressively less time.

Fun to play with your friends on vacation!

I played Orleans for the first time last night -- fun game, although I came in last.

Clue!

My parents didnt like board games, i thought they were called Bored Games per my mother until I was in high school

Played at a Meetup last night: Alhambra, Mint Delivery, Azul Stained Glass, Port Royal. Won three out of four.

R90- I think a lot of big cities have board game cafes now. I thought Toronto only had 1 or 2 but it looks like it's expanded to 20 cafes. "Snakes and Lattes" is supposed to be the biggest.

There was also another version of The Game Of Life called "Careers" but it didn't seem as much fun to play.

It's interesting that with all the online gaming, streaming etc. that people still gravitate towards board games and vinyl records. It also sounds like print books are making a comeback.

Like some of you, I only recently learned about the revolution in game design of the last 20-25 years. Pandemic was my gateway drug.

Besides being fun, board games are great for people who like low-key socializing (as opposed to, say, going to a bar.)

I recently picked up Pandemic Legacy but I'm having trouble getting folks to commit to playing it through.

r107 I bought Pandemic but I have yet to play it. (I can't find anyone who wants to teach it -- I guess it's old hat to them.)

Pandemic might seem like a lot at first, R108, but it's not that hard to learn. Just go for it, it's a great game.

This was one of my favorites because of the voice activated mummy. I still remember some of the phrases he spoke. I don’t believe we ever played it as it was intended as we lost the instructions. Wish I still had it as it commands a good price.

I'm listening! What did the mummy say?

Last weekend I played Isle of Skye for the first time. It's like Carcassone in that you lay out tiles to build a landscape, but here tiles are auctioned off instead of just drawn from the bag. Simple enough to learn, but with a nice twist: the scoring is different on each round, so your strategy has to evolve.

I also played Magic Maze, which is bonkers. It's a cooperative game about moving through mazes, but the players are not allowed to speak! It was kind of fun and kind of stressful and I'm not sure I actually liked it. Very clever though.

I would take a few days of PrEP bracketing a game of that evocative 1983 Gay Monopoly. R32

My nephews and nieces loved "Exploding Kittens." (No animals are harmed in the process...) It's a card game.

LOL at everyone saying they’re not familiar with the games in the picture. Those are preschool games.

You sank my battleship!

I just went to a board game meetup today. For some reason though, I ended up with a group playing a card game. Others were playing games like Yahtzee, Life and different versions of scrabble. I think boardgames are making a comeback.

Not any longer. I always win. And I screech howl jeer humiliate. Im a poor winner. So I stopped.

R114, I ordered Exploding Kittens from their Kickstarter and I just don’t get the game. Extremely juvenile and you get bored playing it after 10 minutes.

R119, lol. It's really more of a game for kids.

R120, that’s ageist! That’s like literal violence!

When I was a teenager I asked for and received one that was based around the hit parade. I think it may have been a K-Tel product. When you landed on certain squares you got to play a little floppy 45 rpm record that would say one of three options: 'It's a hit, it's a hit!'; 'It's a flop, it's a flop!' or 'Break even, break even'. It was about as fun and exciting as it sounds.

[quote]LOL at everyone saying they’re not familiar with the games in the picture. Those are preschool games.

KingDomino and Dixit are not pre-school games.

Mai Valentine looks almost exactly like Lina Inverse and I'm pretty sure the latter came first.

I've always wondered about Warhammer.

Pictionary, already mentioned, is always hysterical. Everyone is on an equal playing field, racing against the timer to turn words and phrases into decipherable drawings for their partners. It's always funny to look back over old drawings when the game is over.

Password is also a fun and funny game. People do whatever they can to saturate their selected clue words with extra meaning, like turning their head to the side and raising an eyebrow as they say, "snowwwwwwwww?", trying to get their partner to say "sleet" or "rain" or whatever. Taboo is similar.

These are the games I like to drag out during holidays with the family. We seldom play games but are always happily surprised at how much fun we have when we do. We don't like serious games or card games, except for one sister in-law who plays a fast, aggressive game of Dutch Blitz.

I just played Haunted Mansion Game of Life yesterday. Loved it!

I have a couple of friends who have over a hundred games. They range from something a child could grasp to those that take an hour to read the rules and don't allow any mistakes if you want to win.

There's a fun card game, Love Letter, than appeals to both hard-core gamers and those who never play. Terraforming Mars is not for the newbies but is a beautiful, intricate game.

r127 I've played both of those, and agree on both. Tomorrow night's my weekly Board Game Meetup -- last week we played Railways Through Time, which took FOREVER. I can't stay up that late anymore!