Feel Good Friday - Board Games

 

For this week's Feel Good Friday, I'm going to share some of my favorite board games with you.  I love board games.  I grew up on Monopoly, Sorry!, Clue, Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land.... you know, the usual games.  Thanks to the explosion of the board game industry over the last 20 years or so, I have so many other choices.  Some of the games we've found on Kickstarter.  Some we've found through friends.  Some of them have been thanks to YouTube videos and BoardGameGeek.  Regardless of how they were found, the games below are all ones that I love to pull out to play whenever we get the chance.

7 Wonders is one of the first games I remember playing when we started gaming hardcore.  You play one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World (though, as expansions have come out, there are more choices for Wonders).  It's a card drafting game for 3-7 players, played over three Ages (rounds).  You are trying to build your Wonder by using various material cards, as well as build an army, generate science, build enhancements to your region and create Guilds that will all give you points at the end of the game.  Once you learn the game, it goes fairly quickly - usually 30 to 40 minutes for a 3 or 4 player game.  But the first time, when trying to figure out what various icons mean, it will take longer to learn.  I love it because it's quick, it's fun and it is something I know so well I can play without having to overthink things.  (Note: The picture link above is for the second edition.  I have not played this edition, so my review is based on the original.)

As a general rule, I don't like horror.  My imagination is too vivid and I end up being convinced that Jack the Ripper is going to come down from the roof and enter my 9th floor apartment (seriously, that thought kept me up when we lived on the 9th floor in Philly).  Arkham Horror, however, doesn't trigger that.  I don't know why, but I'm glad because it's one of my favorite games.  We have both the 2nd and 3rd editions of the game (the picture link is for the 3rd edition) and I will happily play either one of them, or any of their variants like Eldritch Horror or Final Hour.  We own most, if not all, of the expansions for the third edition and a few of the expansions for the second.  What I like is the fact that this is a cooperative game.  Instead of trying to beat your fellow players, you are trying to keep an ancient evil from awakening by working together.  You get to play one of many characters, each with special abilities.  You have a character card with your stats and abilities in front of you and you can enhance those stats as play goes on, giving you a better chance to defeat any monsters you come across. The second edition is one (fairly large) board, with expansions sometimes adding more boards.  If you have a relatively small table that you game on, this one isn't the better choice.  The third edition made the board modular and streamlined the rules a bit.  Which one I play is determined by whatever mood I'm in at the time.

I'm a DC girl.  I like Marvel, but there's something about the DC characters that just resonate with me more.  So when I found out that Cryptozoic created a card game based on the DC Universe, I had to have it.  They have several versions out there (the original, Teen Titans, Forever Evil, Dark Knights Metal, the above mentioned Rebirth, as well as a slew of card packs you can add to your game).  You can actually combine some of the games to play mega games, though we haven't tried it yet (and probably won't... there are a lot of cards in each game as it is.)  And each iteration has streamlined and perfected the game a little more while adding new elements that add more to the game.  My favorite is Rebirth because, unlike the others, it has a cooperative campaign version.  As I'm getting older, I'm finding that I prefer cooperative games over competitive because there's less likely to be hurt feelings that way.  The goal of the games are all to defeat heavy hitter supervillains (in Forever Evil, it's superheroes), while using points on buy more cards, attacking the villain or your fellow players, and defending yourself when you (inevitably) get attacked.  If you like DC and like deck builder games, I highly recommend it.

Clank! was the game that introduced me to deck builders and it's still one of my favorites out there.  You are competing against your fellow players to make your way underground to a dragon's lair, grab a treasure and make your way back to the exit before said dragon kills you.  Along the way, you have the chance to pick up other bits of treasure that help your overall score at the end of the game.  There is also a sci-fi version, Clank! in Space, as well as various expansion boards for both versions.  It's one that can be played fairly well as a two player game as well as playing it as a four player game.  The original Clank! and it's expansions are all single boards, whereas Clank! in Space is modular.  The best part of all of it, though, is the various fantasy and sci-fi nods that the games give in terms of their cards.  That and the flavor text.  It's just fantastic!

The last game I'm going to share today is one that started out as a Kickstarter game.  Call to Adventure tells a story in the cards that you choose.  Rather than using points to purchase cards, you cast runes based on the cards you have to see if you succeed in gaining a card that catches your attention.  Each one adds a little more to your story, and if you've a writing bent, can give you some wonderful ideas of a character's story arc.  At the end of the game, you score your cards based on what are on them (as well as experience points that you can gain during the game).  For me, it's more about the art and the story being told than it is about winning the game.  Like the others games on this list, there are some expansions: Name of the Wind (which Amazon has as a bundle with the base game) and The Stormlight Archive, which I have yet to either play or purchase but will probably be one of the next games I pick up.

So those are some of the (many) games that make me feel good when I play them.  Please share some of your favorites in the comments.  They may be something I already play, or they could be something I'll have to put on my ever-growing "To Buy" list. 

* All links above, except for the link to BoardGameGeek, are affiliate links on Amazon.  I will earn money from any purchases you make directly from the links.