Honourable Mentions
There were some other games that almost made the list. I was contemplating recommending Inis as a replacement for Risk, but the truth is I haven’t actually played a game of Risk to completion and as such I don’t actually know if it’s true. Also our review of Inis has been on the todo pile for a long time and so I couldn’t actually link you to a more comprehensive analysis. I think it’s probably a decent suggestion but I just didn’t have the confidence to say for sure.
For Battleship I was going to recommend Captain Sonar but really the only connection between the two is ‘submarine captains trying to land a kill before their opponent’. Plus it just needs so many people to bring out the most in it. The other alternative was Treasure Island which I played at a convention once and hated, but apparently a large part of that can be explained away by a terrible rule book. I have a copy of my own now and I’ll revisit it when time permits. Again, the fact there are no reviews available for either of those also tempered my desire to put them on the list.
For Yahtzee I was going to recommend Escape: The Curse of the Temple but the real-time aspect is just so heavily emphasised that I think there would be a large amount of culture shock. None of the other Yahtzee inspired games we’ve discussed on the blog (CV, Roll Through The Ages, Elder Sign, etc) are anything I’d really particularly want to play myself on most occasions.
I almost suggested Nmbr9 for Connect 4 but as I was writing my justifications down I thought they felt a little thin. I also thought about suggesting Jamaica for Candyland but I haven’t ever played Candyland to know if the comparison is reliable. I’ve actually played fewer classic board games than you might expect and a lot of the ones I have played aren’t really well known. Do you remember Ghost Castle? Key to the Kingdom? I owned and played those. Hero Quest? Well, the chances you know someone with a copy are already pretty slim. My copy is long gone.
Charades almost got a mention, along with Concept but I think that’s stretching both the definition of ‘classic board game’ and ‘games I think you’d love’. In the final consideration, I wasn’t sufficiently convinced of either.
That List in Full
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