Good board games

Hoppit, a 70's classic, is a FIRM favourite in our house for 4 players. Each player has 6 toadstools and 5 frogs. Toadstools move like a chess queen, frogs move by hopping over adjacent toadstools of any color. The objective is to be the first to get all of your frogs to the opposite end of the board. It gets very strategic very quickly.

We also played LINKEE at Christmas, which was brilliant.

I second the Settlers of Catan - great game and lots of add ons. Also played Ticket to Ride USA (the first version), Europe, Asia, and Germany. They are all essentially a variation on the same theme with differences to game play. Recently bought Risk Legacy which looks good although rather complicated.
Another board game we go back to regularly is Fleeced. Wallace and Gromit themed game where you have to try and rustle sheep and stop others rustling more. Great stuff.
Still got my Escape from Colditz board game from 20 years ago. Don't play it too much though as nobody likes being the Germans for some reason.
The grand kids are into Monopoly which is a good game, but spent most of my childhood playing it with my 4 brothers. It doesn't feel the same playing hard ball with the grand kids.

Paully232000 wrote: »

I dont think you can beat the old games, trivial pursuit, monopoly, scrabble, pictionary.

I'm also going to mildly troll here and come out in fairly strong disagreement with posts on the above theme.

As reported in a few newspapers over the last year eg:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/dec/09/board-games-comeback-freeman

Boardgames have had something of a resurgence in the last couple of years and some of the better / newer 'popular' ones around do blow the old ones like trivial pursuit etc completly out of the water (yes there is a lot of dross around so you need to read reviews etc etc)

I think the posters who think the best games you'll come across are all 30 years old and best picked up from the charity shop are definitely missing out on how things are developing and might be pleasantly surprised if they take a peek at current offerings/update themselves

/troll :A

Monopoly and Risk are two of the worst games out there, they both rely on random dice rolls, and they can both drag on for hours after its patently obvious who is going to win. They are a great way to teach children futility and disappointment.

Connect Four is broken, the first player can win every time no matter what the other player does.

The beauty of the 'Euro' game is that what you do on your turn isn't dictated by a random dice roll, you have resources and a choice of how to use them. Sure the resources may be dealt randomly, as in Ticket to Ride and Carcassone, but you can still always do something, instead of just watching another player run away with it.

Have a look at the games at the bottom of the ratings list on BoardGameGeek, I think Yahtzee's somewhere down there too.