Zertz and Tzaar from GIPF project.
Ask HN: What are your favorite board games?
51–60 of 64 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite board games?
#52I can't believe that I'm the first to mention One Night Ultimate Werewolf, which has been the consensus favorite amongst my friends for a while now. It has relatively simple rules but very solid strategy (rewards logic and duplicity). The games are short, so you never feel "stuck" on a long game and when you're a beginner, you can rapidly absorb new lessons and strategies and apply them to the next round. The replay…
Seconded. One Night Ultimate Werewolf has been a workplace favorite for well over a year. Recently introduced it to my friends, who are into Mafia (though those games inevitably end up with people upset at each other) and it was a hit. Some reasons ONUW is awesome: - Each game can be completed in 5-10 minutes. - Supports a very large amount of players. We've had 20+ players without any issues (with the expansion pack…
I totally agree with your point about the comparatively low conflict in ONUW. In addition to the points you mentioned that drive this, I'd add uncertainty about your own team membership, and the fact that "good guys" may also be telling lies, so it's not necessarily true that a liar is a bad guy.
These factors prevent people from identifying too heavily with one team or the other, and that issue, for me, is at the heart of why there is less conflict in this game than other Mafia-style games. Right before getting into ONUW we had played The Resistance a bit, a similar game which had some fun moments, but in which we found the conflict potential to be high. Some people would be just dug in on one view, in direct conflict with others, throughout almost the whole game.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite board games?
#53Hanabi: multi-player co-op, and you can see everyone's cards but your own. All about reasoning and inference. Betrayal at House on the Hill: cooperative until it isn't, with a traitor arising halfway through the game. Many novel "haunt" scenarios for replay value. Coup: Bluffing game, where you have a couple of hidden "role" cards, each role card has some abilities, but you can use the abilities of any role as a bluf…
I'll second Hanabi. In addition to being inherently very fun, collaborative games are a great way to bring in people who aren't as into board games and are worried about getting stomped on by experienced players.
An interesting and much more challenging variation for experienced Hanabi players is to disallow people from saying a number or color. You point to a set of cards in another player's hand and that's it. Those cards share some attribute, and all the other cards in the hand don't have that attribute, whatever it is.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite board games?
#54Hard to go wrong with Baduk/Go. Doesn't really scale to groups though. Terra Mystica[0] and Tzolk'in[1] are both low randomness worker placement game that require long term planning and fun mechanics. If war-games are more your speed, Diplomacy[2] and Twilight Imperium 3rd Ed[3] are some of the best in class. Both take all day (or more if you play Diplomacy by mail). I personally like Exocus: Proxima Centauri[4] a lo…
Diplomacy is wonderful. I find it hard to get 7 people to commit to 4+ hours to make it through a game, so the mail option is good, but IMO in person is more fun.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite board games?
#55Hanabi: multi-player co-op, and you can see everyone's cards but your own. All about reasoning and inference. Betrayal at House on the Hill: cooperative until it isn't, with a traitor arising halfway through the game. Many novel "haunt" scenarios for replay value. Coup: Bluffing game, where you have a couple of hidden "role" cards, each role card has some abilities, but you can use the abilities of any role as a bluf…
I'll second Hanabi. In addition to being inherently very fun, collaborative games are a great way to bring in people who aren't as into board games and are worried about getting stomped on by experienced players. An interesting and much more challenging variation for experienced Hanabi players is to disallow people from saying a number or color. You point to a set of cards in another player's hand and that's it. Thos…
> An interesting and much more challenging variation for experienced Hanabi players is to disallow people from saying a number or color. You point to a set of cards in another player's hand and that's it. Those cards share some attribute, and all the other cards in the hand don't have that attribute, whatever it is.
Interesting! That breaks so many common reasoning rules, especially if you're playing multicolor. I can see how that would add a huge amount of challenge.
I'd be interested to see some of the reasoning based on that variant.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite board games?
#56I can't believe that I'm the first to mention One Night Ultimate Werewolf, which has been the consensus favorite amongst my friends for a while now. It has relatively simple rules but very solid strategy (rewards logic and duplicity). The games are short, so you never feel "stuck" on a long game and when you're a beginner, you can rapidly absorb new lessons and strategies and apply them to the next round. The replay…
Is it better than regular werewolf? We play this all the time, but it's a bit ugly for people who get out on the first night. I talk trash most of the time so some people just kill me on the first round because they want their peace :D
I've never played regular Werewolf, unless you are referring to what I know of as the informal party game Mafia (several nights, one killer, several townspeople, maybe one or two additional roles who get special abilities).
In that case, yes much better:
- Everyone is involved start to finish, and a free phone app serves as the emcee.
- People receive cards with (usually) unique roles that furnish them some special information in their own way. I think some Mafia variants have minor special roles, but the makers of ONUW really did a good job thinking of creative ones.
- Many roles involve moving cards around at night, so when you wake up you usually don't know for sure whether you're still the role you thought you were, or whether a card you saw at night is still where it was when you saw it.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite board games?
#57Agricola
Twilight Imperium
Through the Ages
Terra Mystica
Suburbia
7 Wonders
Lords of Waterdeep
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite board games?
#58Backgammon.
It's a good metaphor for life. You have to weigh up probabilities and likely outcomes, know when to take a risk and when to play safe. Sometimes the other player plays better than you, sometimes worse, and sometimes the dice just come along and kick your arse.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite board games?
#59I can't believe that I'm the first to mention One Night Ultimate Werewolf, which has been the consensus favorite amongst my friends for a while now. It has relatively simple rules but very solid strategy (rewards logic and duplicity). The games are short, so you never feel "stuck" on a long game and when you're a beginner, you can rapidly absorb new lessons and strategies and apply them to the next round. The replay…
I made a one night variation of werewolf in React/Node at https://onenightwerewolf.online . Not seeing much play because I haven't advertised it at all.. until um now. Check it out if you like lying to internet strangers.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite board games?
#60Strategy games which are simple to explain, but allow skilled players to compete without getting bored. Go, Scrabble, chess... What modern games are like this? Or, silly games where losing doesn't matter, it's fun anyway. My current favourites are Space Alert and Galaxy Trucker.
I commented it below too, but then I read your comment. I've found Hive is very enjoyable for a chess player (myself) since the strategy is different as the board is the pieces. If you want more level of skill, Terra Mystica was also very strategic balancing territory and resource control.