PGM Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Analog Game Gifts!
Tags: Board Games, Dixit, Forbidden Island, Gamma World, Ravenloft, Roadzters, RPG, tabletop, Ticket to Ride, Zombie Dice
Turkey Day is over once again, which means like it or not we’re into the holiday shopping season. We’re going to be here all this week to give you the low down on the stuff you SHOULD be buying for your loved ones (of course that means people you really love and not just the people you’re expected to love, just buy those people crap.) We’re kicking things off with analog games (board, rpg, etc) but over the course of the week we’ll hit music/movies, video games and all sorts of cool shit.
But let’s take a look at some of the board/card/dice games that would make great gifts! Think we missed any good ones? Let us know in the comments!
The holidays are a time for us to come together, and what better way to do that than with a co-op game! Games where everyone works together for a common goal are rare but provide a unique situation where everyone wins or loses together. In Forbidden Island the players are trying to find lost treasure and get off the island before it sinks into the ocean.
The artwork and components are of super high quality and the whole thing comes in a nice tin. Super affordable as well! This game is perfect for introducing those not used to games since the veterans can help them out and they don’t have to worry about “taking it easy” or letting anyone else win.
Zombie Dice
The perfect stocking stuffer and way more fun than a cup of dice has any right to be. You play the role of the zombies and by rolling dice you’re trying to eat as many brains as possible before getting shotgunned. It’s a fun press-your-luck game that can be taught in a minute and played in about 10.
It’s super cheap and works well for big gatherings since you can play with as many people as you have, since you just pass the cup of dice around the table. I’m sure this can be made into a fun drinking game as well. Full review here.
Dixit
This game is definitely for the more creative people in your group, the more imaginative the better! Each player receives a hand of oversized cards with really beautiful strange original paintings on them. On your turn you’ll tell a story, or say a phrase or word about one of your cards and lay it face down on the table. All the other players then play a card from their hands that best match the story just told. Once everyone has played a card they’re all shuffled and turned face up where the players then bet on which they think the original card was.
The secret here is to be a little vague, cause if everyone guesses your card you get no points. Really you want 1 or 2 people to get it. It’s a game that rewards creativity and imagination, and that’s about the highest praise you can give any game! Full review coming soon.
Resident Evil: Deck Building Game
We here at PGM are big fans of the newish deck building genre of card games. We’ve written a decent amount them in the past, having posted full reviews of both Dominion and Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer. In short you use cards in your hand to buy more cards off the table to add to your deck, increasing it’s power. The new hotness (and just in time for Christmas) is the Resident Evil themed take on the style, and it works perfectly!
Each player will take on a different character from the games to play as, with different strengths and hit points. You’ll be buying weapons and items familiar to fans of the video games and then using those to enter the mansion (represented by it’s own deck of cards) in the hopes of killing zombies and monsters. It may have an offensively generic name, but the game is incredibly fun to play.
Ticket to Ride
I talked about this game during the first column but I need to say it again. THIS IS THE PERFECT GAME TO INTRODUCE PEOPLE TO THE NEW ERA OF BOARDGAMES. Non-gamer? Ticket to Ride. Person who thinks boardgames are all like Monopoly? Ticket to Ride. Mom and Dad at a holiday dinner? Ticket to Ride. It can be taught in minutes and first timers can easily hold their own from the get-go. The lack of confrontation (opposite of Monopoly) keep everyone from feeling ganged-up on and keeps everyone in the running till the end. A classic in the making.Though there are a ton of maps now I still recommend starting with the good ol’ US. The other editions add small rules, though while not confusing, still tack on little extra stuff that easier to dismiss the first time out. Full review here.
Gamma World
We’ve been talking about Gamma World a lot lately on the podcast, and with good reason… you can play as a hawk-man on fire or a swarm of android rats! Of course those are only two of the many options in this light hearted RPG game. It’s based on the 4th edition rules of Dungeons and Dragons, though heavily simplified and given a slightly goofy take.
The really good news is that while Dungeons and Dragons (and most tabletop RPG’s) take a decent investment to get going the Gamma World box set includes everything you need to get a party going except for dice. It’s affordable and more importantly laugh-out-loud fun. Full review here.
RoadZters
Last year I was a big fan of the dexterity game Pitchcar, where you flick a little disc around a track in a race against the other players. I’m still a fan of that game but it’s expensive and sometimes the particle board pieces don’t fit together ultra-snug and caused some discs to fly off into space. RoadZters fixes both those problems by being incredibly cheaper and with track pieces that fit together perfectly. It also uses something they call the “Z-Ball” which is a small marble filled with ball bearings making it roll and spin in controllable ways, so applying spin to it when flicking can cause it to change direction. In addition to all the the cars that represent each player have ramps on the back so you can jump off them!
Castle Ravenloft
A new dungeon crawler that suits between 1 and 5 players, so if you want to play a board game solo this is a good place to start. The game comes with a book of different adventures so each time you play you’ll be chasing down a different objective. In addition to that the board is made of these interlocking tiles that get built as you move through the game, so it’s also random each time.
Based on Dungeons and Dragons but presented in board game form, so fans of the RPG will have a ground of understanding but it’s accessible to anyone. It’s another cooperative game so the players will be working together against the board, so everyone gets to win (or lose) as one. Ravenloft was a popular RPG world back in the day and it’s been quite a successful comeback for Count Strahd von Zarovich and his haunted castle.
The game includes TONS of components and enough replayability to get your going for a long time. Full review hopefully coming soon.
That’s it for this year in the board game world! Of course there are TONS of great games that are on the shelves at your Friendly Local Game Store that are worth checking out, this is just a tiny sampling. Stay tuned to Perpetual Geek Machine for more analog reviews to learn about the best stuff coming out.
Check back tomorrow for another edition to our PGM Holiday Gift Guide!
2 responses to “PGM Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Analog Game Gifts!”
[...] you’re expected to love, just buy those people crap.) We already kicked things off with analog games (board, rpg, etc) but we’ve got a bunch of cool shit to cover over the course of the rest of [...]
Spontuneous-it’s a little different than a strategy game, although strategy is involved, Basically, it asks you to write down a list of words that you think you can provide songs for that the other players can’t. (These have to be songs that at least one other person has heard of.) When you announce your trigger word, the first person to sing a song with that word in it gets to roll the dice and advance on the board. It came out in 2010.
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