Apples to Apples (4 stars)

Apples to apples is a great party game. Its really a card game rather than a board game, and even people who shrug at board games generally like it. Typical playing time is 30 minutes. While any number of people could play it, its best for 5-7 people. There are two sets of cards: one with nouns and the other with adjectives (the nouns also have some associated text and the adjectives have synonyms). Players take turns being the dealer. The dealer places an adjective face up. The players then choose a noun from their hand (of 7 - replenishable at the end of each turn) that they feel matches the round best and place it face down. When all have done that, the dealer gathers those, mixes them up and chooses the best in her opinion. The players can debate the selection a bit to add some spice to the proceedings.

The opposite viz. crab apples can also be played - place a noun and match it with adjectives. Extension packs and a set for children is also available.


Seven of us once played it recently, and what different people got as correct made for interesting discussion:

• One who got the least, a female, won "Masculine".
• Then one had: Nerdy, Stunning and Patriotic.
• Another had: Animated, Desperate, Soft, Speedy.
• Next it was: Ordinary, Expensive, Horrifying, Obnoxious
• The fifth had: Delicious, Charming, Colorful, Talented, Cuddly
• Sixth got: Perfect, Sensitive, Sweet, Rich, Handsome
• Finally, the winner had: Luscious, Radical, Wicked, Corrupt, Scary, and Odd.

Though the clustering seems odd, hopefully a man (or a woman) is not known by the adjectives he (or she) wins at apples and apples. Hope you enjoy the game.

It can be a fun project to convert the game into other languages.

Lost Cities (4 stars)

Lost Cities has been my favorite two player game for sometime. The plus points are that it does not go on for too long (30 minutes at most), and often people who do not like board games also readily play it (because they like it). Its essentially a card game with a small board which can be replaced by any board with five spaces. Five because you can launch expeditions to up to five cities. The better your expedition is, the more points you get (including double, triple and quadruple if you are ready to boast early on that you will do good). There are also penalties for not completing an expedition. Its that simple! No complex rules at all.

There are no dice to bring in extra chance (besides what naturally comes about by having a deck of shuffled cards). BUT, and that is a big but, if you think that you can just be logical and win, it generally does not happen. At any point you have access to seven cards and you have to decide which of the different expeditions to feed AND simultaneously try to keep the opponents' expeditions in check. That tension means you have to take chances. So though a straightforward game it is extremely fun to play.

In principle you can use a standard deck of 52 cards and mimic this game with four expeditions. But having five expeditions provides that extra edge. With four expeditions it can be like a series with just two matches. Neither here nor there.

The game won the International Gamers Award in 2000. You can also try playing it online at flexgames.com.

Settlers of Catan (5 stars)

Settlers of Catan is by far my favorite board game. We encountered it a few years back and it continues to remain the favorite. The standard version is for 4 people, with the minimum age around 10. Extensions are available, and you can easily change some rules if there are only 3 of you. A typical game lasts about an hour.

The players compete to acquire resources and construct roads, settlements, cities etc. There is also an amount of chance since you use two dice at each turn to determine who gets what resources. In that respect it is like many other board games. But there are three main factors that make it very interesting and why everyone feels that they can have a chance of winning each game: (1) the board setup is random, so that everytime you play, it IS a new game (there is a Nexus One app available that allows you to get a more balanced board), and (2) you can trade resources, and only the player whose turn it is can trade so that each time you have a possibility of acquiring points, and (3) there are many ways of acquiring  points to take you to victory.

Incidently, Amir Khan once said on his blog that he likes to play Settlers of Catan a lot.

Due to the large number of possibilities the first time you play it seems a bit daunting. But it is worth every bit of you time and effort. The game was apparently invented in Germany to teach about capitalism. It has one the 'Spiel des Jahres' (game of the year) award in 1995.