Jenn nagged me into getting - and today, playing - King of Tokyo

[conuly]

God, the rules make it sound interminable, but it's not that hard and it's actually pretty fun. (And I won, so yay!)

Eva is super enthused about our board games right now. I was thinking when I was at the drugstore today, I'm pretty sure that girl has actually never played a game of Monopoly. We had an English travel Monopoly once I got at the thrift store, but it turned out it was missing all its houses and hotels so we never played it.

And you'll never hear me say that our games aren't generally better than Monopoly, but if the girls have friends over it might be nice to be able to play a game those friends are already familiar with rather than having to explain the rules from scratch every time. We have Parcheesi (as we're a 5 person family I keep planning to get a custom-made 6 or 8 person board, so we can have all of us and a guest), and we have Scrabble, and we have Clue Master Detective (more rooms, weapons, and people than standard Clue) but that's about it. (Oh, and we have Uno, I suppose, and Jenga if I find all the blocks. And a chess/checkers set. And cards, and dominoes. And Yahtzee.)

Now that I type it all out, lol, it looks like we have a lot of standard games! So maybe I shouldn't worry so much after all! (But I'm still wondering if somehow the girls are missing an essential part of American life by not playing Monopoly.)

Comments

[zhelana]

Man, monopoly is like the worst boardgame ever. The girls aren't missing anything!

[conuly]

I know, but I still feel like this is one of those things, like watching really awful tv shows, that you just have to do.

[zhelana]

well they'll probably play at someone else's house at some point without you having to invest in the game. :)

[conuly]

That's a fair point.

[kyrielle]

I liked Monopoly as a kid, but as an adult...nope.

Now, Flash Point, or Pandemic, or Tsuro, or.... ;)

[conuly]

Pandemic is on my list to get later. What's Flash Point?

[kyrielle]

Flash Point is a "fire search and rescue" game in which a house is on fire and you are trying to keep the fire under control long enough to rescue the people in the house. It's cooperative, and you can't save the house - the fire is too bad. (Lose condition: too many of the victims die. Win condition: you rescue enough of the victims to win, but not all. I forget what the formal name for rescuing all the victims is, but it's tricky but possible, and not required for the win. There's an 'easy' version with just fire, victims, and people, and then there's a complicated version where you have some or all of: specialist skills, a fire truck, an ambulance, flash points that basically increase the odds of new fire slightly, hazmat/flammable materials in the house.... It's got two house layouts in the basic set (double-sided board), and if you ever get bored with it there are expansions that add new and trickier layouts (we don't have the expansions yet - one is a submarine where the victims are moved to a healing area that can itself be overcome by fire, which is kind of a significant lose condition I assume...).

[rachelkachel]

My great-aunt had Aggravation, a six-player version of Parcheesi. We had a lot of fun with it, and it seems to still exist.

I think a lot of people hate Monopoly, so I really wouldn't worry about it. It's very long and easily causes fights. Especially if you play with the rule (as our family always did) that if the person whose property you landed on doesn't notice, you don't have to pay...

[conuly]

Apparently it's not so long if you actually follow the actual rules on the box.

As for a version of Parcheesi, I'll look into it. But I really want Parcheesi, so if it's too different I'm better off poking somebody on google who's made their own custom board. There seem to be a lot of people who have done that.