Ask HN: What board game do you like?

[eimieimi]

I'm trying to coordinate an evening board game event at our company and would love to know any cool games folks have tried recently, or ones that are still loved? Most of our attendees are software developers so any advice is appreciated! Thanks! Eimi, Event Manager, Whitetruffle

[cju]

Also not really a board game but I really like Eleusis Express and by experience many software developers also do. The Express version is a much simpler set of rules of Eleusis: one of the player choose a rule the cards have to follow to fit in a sequence and other players have to guess it by prosing cards and havint the game master indicate wether the card fits or not. The role of game master is rolling.

It's important to insist that the game master shall not use a rule too much complex (beware "creative" SW dev!). It's almost always harder to discover than expected even with smart people.

http://www.logicmazes.com/games/eleusis/express.html

[eimieimi]

This seems like a good option as it's just cards and we have some already. LOL on the rule part, it does sometimes get too confusing. Thanks a lot for the recommendation we are going to try it tonight with our own team.

[lmcnearney]

It's really going to depend on your group of players. There's a wide variety of board and card games available with different mechanics and play styles.

I can recommend Race for the Galaxy:

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28143/race-for-the-galaxy

Browse around the BGG website, read reviews, look at the top games, etc:

http://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame

[eimieimi]

Wow, this is a great link and the games look good. Thanks a lot!!

[cju]

A great classic: Scotland Yard

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/438/scotland-yard

A more recent board game, also based in London but much earlier : London 1888 Beautiful board. Rules are relatively complex if I recall correctly.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/19991/london-1888

[eimieimi]

Nice! I like the ones that have this London local theme. Thanks for the good pointers.

[cju]

No really a board game but Werewolf (a.k.a. Mafia) is great. It's fun and simple to learn. However it depends a lot on the quality of the game organizer and the athmosphere he is able to provide.

http://www.eblong.com/zarf/werewolf.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_%28party_game%29

[eimieimi]

Seems great for the larger group and I'm expecting one table to have about 10 people so this is good. Thanks so much!

[iamds]

For software developers, the ultimate game has to be roborally

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18/roborally

You play cards to program your robot and drive it round a course.

[eimieimi]

wow, seriously that's too cool! thanks for the recommendation!

[jamesjguthrie]

I still love Monopoly. One of the classics, it will always be great fun.

[eimieimi]

Ha, ha, me too. Maybe a cool version of Monopoly might be fun vs. the traditional board. I think we'll definitely add this to the mix. Thanks!

[Casseres]

Puerto Rico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_%28board_game%29)

Settlers of Catan

[eimieimi]

I've never heard of Puerto Rico, thanks!

[robtsai]

I am a big fan of Agricola. It is for 2 to 5 players. Our group of friends used to play Settlers of Catan, but we switched to Agricola mostly these days.

[eimieimi]

Thanks, both sound like a good one. I'm going to run it by my boss to see if he likes one or the other.

[JoeAltmaier]

Pandemic, by Matt Leacock. Its cooperative - which might make a good team-building exercise.

[alexgaribay]

I don't know if a game with miniatures will be appropriate but Zombicide is pretty amazing.

[eimieimi]

I'll check it out, thanks much!

[Donito]

I stick to the basics: Chess.

[pataprogramming]

Vanilla chess can be a hard sell at game nights. I'd recommend a variant: Bughouse. This is a lovely (and madcap) game that can be played with four people in teams of two.

It's played as two simultaneous games of chess, with one player on a team playing white on one board and the other player playing black on the other. The twist is that any piece captured by your partner can be placed on your own board instead of a normal move (with a few restrictions).

The games aren't synchronized, and you'll need two chess clocks (one for each board) to keep things cracking along. The clocks are usually set to blitz times (such as five minutes per player), and either player on a team running out of time results in a loss.

  http://www.chessvariants.org/multiplayer.dir/tandem.html

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess

Lots of fun, and should be good for a team event.

[eimieimi]

Not a bad idea to mix some traditional games :-) Thanks!

[bdunbar]

If you're open to a card-based game, I think highly of Munchkin.

[alexgaribay]

Munchkin is definitely a lot of fun.

[pclark]

Battlestar Galactica is incredible.

[eimieimi]

Didn't know there was a game version, that's neat. Thanks much!

[dirktheman]

Risk!

[eimieimi]

I personally love this game too!