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We've got three versions of Ticket to Ride, it's a nice game that doesn't require much math or massive amounts of thinking, takes about forty five minutes to an hour for a game.
We also have The Farming Game, that's a hoot although requires math and takes a couple hours to play. It's trying to make money farming and it's played against the board and not against the other players so there's not a lot of animosity in it.
Settlers of Catan is a fun game, lots of interaction since you have to trade to get the resources to build your villages. Game setup takes a bit of time since there's game tiles and markers to set out, but it's not overly long to set it up. A game takes about a half hour for each one.
Our latest board game is Celestia. It's a simple game and surprisingly fun. Has a little cardboard boat with everyone's marker in it, stacks of points cards lined up, a deck of cards with clouds, lightening bolts, swords and birds on them. Also four dice with the same images along with two blank sides. The 'captain' of the boat rolls the dice and everyone else has to guess if he has matching cards in his hand. If they think he does, they stay in the boat, if they think he doesn't, they take their marker out of the boat and get a points card from the pile the boat is next to. If the captain has cards to match the dice, the captain lays them down and the boat moves up to the next higher stack of points cards and the next player becomes 'captain'. If the captain can't match the cards, then the boat goes back to the lowest level, everyone's markers are put back in and it all starts all over. The points cards have more points the higher up the boat goes and there's a few wild cards and such. It's pretty fun, easy to learn and takes about fifteen to twenty minutes to play a game.
Then there's always poker dice which is great for groups. Giving each player the same number of chips at the beginning and counting them at the end allows winners without gambling. This works for Craps or any card game as well.
It's easy to play Craps on a regular table using a dice cup. However, there may be a bias against playing this game. It can be played with or without a bank (house).
Any number of people can play. It's a simple dice game that can be played with five regular dice when you consider the "1" dice a Skunk.
Each player during his turn rolls the dice and adds up his score. His choice is to keep that score or roll again. He can roll as many times as he wants during his turn, but if he rolls a "1" (Skunk) he loses his score during that turn. If he rolls two "1's" (Skunks) he loses his entire score during that game and he has to start over with zero on his next turn. The first player to reach 100 points wins.
The nice thing is that nobody gets "knocked out" and has to sit on the sidelines while others play through that game. Any player can jump back into the fray by accepting their zero score and starting over.
The simplest games are the most fun when you have a crowd. Skunk is a game that takes less than a minute to explain and understand the rules.
Last edited by Javacoffee; 02-23-2018 at 06:52 AM..
I'm in charge of a games day at a local senior center. We have a core of bridge players and a larger group of people who typically play Rummikub or dominoes.
Several of the latter have asked for some new board games. We have Monopoly and Scrabble, but those haven't been popular.
Could anyone recommend games that don't require the concentration of Scrabble but allow for socializing the way Rummikub does?
We bought our grandson who is 5.5 some board games for Christmas that encourage strategy and cooperative play---good for ages 7 and up and we and his parents have played them with him---and enjoy them...
Battle Sheep---sounds too childish but fun and can be played in individual or team format
Lattice--this is for older age group and we haven't played it yet with him but has great reviews on Amazon and another site that deals with games played all over the world...
Ghost Fighting Treasure Hunters ---this game was created in Germany and won game of the year recently
It might be one your group would discount as too childish because of the "ghost" aspect but it is not that easy to win
Settlers of Catan is a fun game, lots of interaction since you have to trade to get the resources to build your villages. Game setup takes a bit of time since there's game tiles and markers to set out, but it's not overly long to set it up. A game takes about a half hour for each one.
I can't recommend Settlers of Catan without the expansion Helpers of Catan. Settlers is susceptible to players randomly not getting enough resources to build or trade away, so inevitably one player spends the game sitting on their hands for most of it. The expansion cards smooth out the randomness a bit and make the game a little more reliable. I would strongly not recommend any of the other add-ons (Seafarers, 5-6 player, etc.).
I would also recommend Bohnanza as an alternative trading-focused game.
Has anyone mentioned Michigan Rummy? Hmmm. Went Googling and Michigan Rummy does not look like what we used to play. Tripoley is. We always interchanged the names. And after looking again they seem to be the same game. The boards look a lot different now. Ours is a vinyl sheet copyrighted in 1969. And the box says "Tripoley, the Original Game of Michigan Rummy Hearts and Poker".
The last time we played two other couples invited us to do so at a penny a point, which we did not want to do. Not that we are cheap, but we ended up winning all their money. We knew we would. And it was the last time we were asked to play, lol!
The same thing happened with another group of neighbors who insisted on playing Risk at a party. Didn't want to, but... Never got asked to play again when I kicked everyone's butt. Some people really don't handle losing very well.
Around here they play Hand and Foot, which I think is a variation of Canasta.
We play Bridge. Well, my wife plays Bridge. I pretend. lol
KINGS IN THE CORNER (Card game) -- This is played with an ordinary deck of cards with 2 - 4 players. It's quick. It's easy to learn. Easy and fast to teach. Here's a youtube video, but you can google for more. My friends and I are in our 60s. We play this a lot when we get together.
Wow! Kings in the Corner. I haven't played that for a long time. Fun game.
I noticed Trouble mentioned above. We used to have a blast playing it. More fun because you use a plastic bubble to roll the dice. The Pop-O-Matic.
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