Top Three Board Games

Cat[0] and Tomasino[1] both recently phlogged about
their top three favorite board games. I have decided
to share my three favorites as well. So, without
furtherer preamble....

1. Go (いご) / Baduk (바둑) / Weiqi (围棋)

 Go is by far my favorite board game. In general I
 tend to be a big fan of abstract strategy games.
 Go is the grand-daddy of them all.

 I have read no less than seven books filled with
 strategy, tactics, common plays, etc. That is not
 even to mention the books and websites filled
 with go problems/puzzles. After all that I am a
 fairly low ranking player. At this point, for
 those familiar with the ranking system, I hover
 around 12/13 kyu.

 I have never played a game the can be so different
 from play to play with such endless variation. I
 always walk away from every game having felt like
 I learned something or saw something new. It is a
 slow patient game that is extremely brutal once you
 know what you are doing (and I only just barely
 qualify).

 In go two players take turns playing pieces on
 the board. Once placed, pieces do not move. They
 can be removed if captured, but otherwise remain
 in place. However, capturing pieces is not the
 goal of the game. The goal is to control the
 largest amount of teritory. Final scores,
 depending on the scoring system used, can also
 incorporate the number of captives though. The
 standard size board is 19 x 19. I tend to play
 a lot on 13 x 13. 9 x 9 is also available as a
 size on which to play quicker more tactically
 oriented games.

 The rules to go are very simple, but the
 strategy is infinitely complex. It is said that
 there are more legal board positions than atoms
 in the known universe. My favorite go saying,
 there are many, is: "Lose your first 100 games
 quickly". The point being, you are going to lose
 a lot at first as part of the learning process.
 Get what you can out of them and then move on
 to, hopefully, applying that knowledge and
 defeating your opponents.

 If you have not played and are on linux, most
 systems have gnu-go installed. It is a decent
 start to the game. I highly recommend reading the
 wiki article[2] about the game as it is a good
 place to learn the rules and some basics of
 strategy and tactics.


2. Ricochet Robots

 Ricochet robots[3] is another thinking game. This
 one is more social... to a degree. It can support
 any number of players.

 In Ricochet Robots the game board is a grid. On
 the grid are walls, open space, and target icons.
 Four robot pieces are placed on the board in
 random locations. These robots are four different
 colors.

 At the beginning of a round a marker token is
 flipped over (or otherwise revealed). The token
 will match one of the target icons on the board.
 The icons have an image and are of a color. The
 goal is to get the robot of that color to that
 specific target icon.

 To do so you move robots. Once a robot moves in
 a direction it keeps moving in that direction
 until it hits a wall or another robot. That
 counts as one move. You repeat this until you
 get the correct colored robot to the correct
 target icon. You may move any and all of the
 robots regardless of what color the goal is.
 In doing so you can use robots to set up
 blockades to get the correct robot to its
 destination.

 Now for the fun part: you do all of this in
 your head. You do not actually move the robots.
 Once someone thinks they have a solution. They
 call out the number of moves they think it takes
 to complete the round. If they are the first
 person in the round to do so, they flip over
 a sand timer that goes for one minute. Everyone
 has that minute to figure out a path with fewer
 moves to the goal than the one that was called
 out. The original caller is also allowed to call
 out new numbers if they have optimised their
 route as well.

 At the end of the timer, the person with the
 lowest number of moves called shows everyone
 their path. If it is valid, the robots are moved
 and the next round is started with the robots
 in that position. If it is not valid, then the
 person with the next highest number goes.

 At the end of the game, the player with the most
 tokens (having received them for winning the round)
 wins.

 I have played this game with upwards of 20 players
 at once and had a great time. I also play it with
 my wife quite often on our own. It scales well
 and is great fun... for the type of person that
 enjoyes this sort of thing. My parents hate it.


3. Cosmic Wimpout

 Cosmic Wimpout[4] is a dice game created by deadheads.
 The baords that I have, which are not required for
 play, are screen printed cloth. The pieces are any
 random markers a person has. My wife and I collect
 little trinkets to use as pieces. Often stones,
 computer parts, figurines, etc.

 It is a simple game that is fun to play. You roll
 dice and keep score based on various rules. You
 are often presented with the ability to keep
 rolling, and risk losing the points you accumulated
 for that round, or bank your points.

 This game can also support a large number of
 players. I have played with around 15. It is a
 good game to take with you on trips or camping
 since it can fit in a small pouch and support as
 many people as you have with you.



[0] cat: baud.baby:70/0/phlog/fs20190528.txt
[1] tomasino: gopher.black:70/1/phlog/20190529-board-games
[2] Go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)
[3] Ricochet Robots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_Robot
[4] Cosmic Wimpout: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Wimpout