Ever since my first semester of college, board games have quickly become a favorite pastime of mine. They have provided me with great social experiences- I have become good friends with the people that I regularly play with, and the general atmosphere is relaxed yet enthusiastic. Which is somewhat strange, when you consider that a large amount of the board games involve some form or another of treachery or sabotage. Take Scrabble, for example- you had the perfect 7-letter word lined up, and all of a sudden someone blocks you off by placing “cat” right in the middle of where you were going to place it. But I haven’t played Scrabble in a while. The board games that I play are more strategy-oriented, and less well-known, than the board games that you commonly hear about. I could try and fit them into one broad category, but I may as well let them speak for themselves. So the following is just a small sample of the games that I like to play, and that you should play too:
Scotland Yard: I’ll start with a game that is rather easy to learn and pick up, yet fun all the same. Its rules are indeed quite simple: one person plays as the mysterious Mr. X, a dastardly criminal who comes with his own hat (seriously- this game comes with an actual cap for the player to wear), while up to five other players play as policemen chasing him down across the streets of London (aka the game board). Mr. X’s starting location is secret, and Mr. X moves in secret, only revealing his location a few times during the game. The catch, however, is that while the police may not know where Mr. X goes to, they will almost always know how he gets to those places- after each move, Mr. X denotes whether he took a taxi, a bus, or the Underground to get to his new location. Since certain modes of transportation can only go through certain locations in London, the police use these clues to help figure out where the criminal is and where he could go. This is a classic game of cat and mouse, and can get incredibly close towards the end. The suspense that this brings plus the simplicity of the rules make this game great for inexperienced players.
Mansions of Madness: Similarly to Scotland Yard, this game pits one player against a team of up to four others. In this game, however, the lone player is not running from his opponents; rather, they are trying to stop the other players in their tracks. See, this game is an RPG-lite: there is a dungeon (some sort of haunted house/estate, which makes up the game board), a dungeon master (the “Keeper,” who (mostly) dictates the mysterious happenings and monsters throughout the game), multiple different scenarios (one of which is chosen beforehand by the Keeper, deciding which game board tiles, items and story beats are used) and a bunch of heroes (a group of specialists who have been sent to investigate said house/estate for whatever reason provided by the scenario). Now, note the word “investigate”: the heroes do not start the game knowing what they must to do win, but instead have to collect clues scattered throughout the game board, unlocking locks and solving puzzles (which are done by solving actual, physical tile puzzles) along the way. The Keeper, on the other hand, knows exactly what they must do, but they cannot simply kill off all the heroes, as the Keeper has a special win condition of their own (which depends, like most of the game, on the chosen scenario). So yes, it is possible to have a game of Mansions of Madness where there are no winners. Oh, and I should mention that this all takes place within the mythos of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, so the stories and designs of the game are inspired by his works, bringing a great atmosphere to the game. Considering that this game can sometimes take around 3+ hours to play, it is a great way to spend an afternoon, or even an evening, if you have the time.
Citadels: And now, for one of my favorite board games, which technically doesn’t involve any sort of board at all, funnily enough. Each player acts as a fantastical medieval-era noble, in charge of creating a city that’s better than any of the other players’ cities. They do this by constructing “districts”- cards that represent different buildings (manors, churches, taverns, etc.) or other features that a city might have, such as a park or a great wall. To build a district, you must pay a certain gold (in-game currency) cost, which is conveyed on each district card. After that district is built, however (done by placing the card face up in front of you), its cost now represents the number of points that it is worth at the end of the game. So one must find a balance between building low-cost districts to complete your city quickly (as the game ends once someone builds eight districts) and having districts that are worth more points. There are also special districts which provide certain bonuses to help you throughout the game. But in essence, this is all secondary to the main mechanic of the game: the different role cards and how they are chosen. Throughout the game, players will play as one of eight different roles: the Assassin, the Thief, the Magician, the King, the Bishop, the Merchant, the Architect, and the Warlord. These roles have certain powers associated with them: the Merchant, for example, gets an extra gold during their turn, and receives one gold apiece for each “green” district that is in their city at the time (as districts are categorized into different colors). Other roles, however, have more menacing powers- the Warlord, for example, can pay to destroy another player’s district, and the Assassin can choose a role to assassinate, causing whoever has that role to miss their entire turn. Note the wording of that last phrase; the assassin cannot name a player to assassinate, but rather a role. That is because these roles (which are themselves represented by cards) are constantly changing hands from round to round, and in each round there is at least one role that is not in play. Roles are chosen at the beginning of each round in secret, with the order of who picks their role first being determined by whoever last played as the King. After everyone has chosen their role, the roles get called out by the King in order, from the Assassin to the Warlord. Thus when a player chooses his role, they must not only consider what power works best for them, but also the actions of the other players- if you have a lot of “green” districts, for example, you may want to pick the Merchant, but on the other hand whoever picks the Assassin may want to assassinate the Merchant, wanting to stop you from acquiring the gold from those districts. Thus this leads to bluffs and double bluffs and a whole bunch of head games, which is as infuriating as it is ingenious. I’ve ended up writing a bunch more about this game than I ever expected to, but I just love it so much that I can’t help but gush about it. It just contains a bunch of hidden depth that I did not expect playing before playing it. There are a bunch of different game-winning strategies, and every game that I have played so far has played out differently. And I haven’t even touched upon the expansion, which includes a whole new set of role cards with their own powers. Seriously, Citadels is great stuff.
There are more board games that I’d love to talk about, but I don’t want this article to take up the whole page. So keep an eye out for future posts- there are countless board games out there, so it’s not like I’ll be running out of stuff to cover anytime soon.
Always Be Shuffling,
-[Witty SciFi Pun]
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