Taboo

Taboo is one of those rare jewels among board games that while being extremely simple in its rules and concept, it provides to be extremely fun while playing it. It is essentially a word - guessing game; some players try to describe some words while their partners try to find out which word is being described every time.

The game requires a minimum of 4 people to play, split in teams. Each player picks up a random card with words, when their turn comes. He then tries to describe the top word in the card to their teammate(s). Below the word to be guessed there are several words that are usually extremely helpful in describing the keyword on the top. The rules of the game forbid the usage of these words or their derivatives while describing.

The fun part comes usually from the improvised descriptions players use to bypass the restrictions of using the forbidden words. To do that, they often employ techniques as referring to common past experiences they have had with their teammates or people they all know about. Thus the game often degenerates into re-living the memorable moments of the players' common past, which tends to be very entertaining. The game is fast paced as there is a time limit and each team tries to guess as many keywords as possible within this time limit to earn more points.

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The Settlers of Catan!

The Settlers of Catan is an astonishing game that you can enjoy during your stay at home. Four players, a board that represents an island, a card repository, a black pawn, two dice and there you go! The purpose of the game is to build villages, cities and roads, and expand your territory in order to reach a specific amount of points which makes you a winner.

Use the land materials wood,stone,wheat and wool that you get from the hexagons that produce them, in order to build, exchange them with your opponents, trade with the bank and ports that are near your buildings. But beware...the thief might take half of your goods when a seven is rolled on the dice! A very enjoyable, interesting board game to spend one and a half our with your friends and family.

View more photos from our last playing session.

Ratings:

Fun factor: High. The players' interest rises as soon as many points are gathered and they reach the winning level. Dice rolls can completely change the outcome quickly.

Cost: Normal. The price is pretty standard for board games of this type.

Complexity: Medium. Someone has to play it 2-3 times in order to learn the rules well and play quickly.

Duration: 60-120 minutes. It depends of how experienced the players are. Occasionally dice rolls can prolong the game.

Replayability: High. Random distribution of tiles on each game completely changes the strategy needed to win.

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Jeopardy!

"Jeopardy!" is a very popular american TV quiz game testing the players for their knowledge in a variety of topics. Unlike traditional question games, the clues in "Jeopardy!" are the answers, and the players have to find the corresponding questions.

Jeopardy! gained worldwide hype this past few weeks after a competition between IBM's supercomputer Watson against the best human Jeopardy! players. More than a decade after the battle between "Deep Blue" and Garry Kasparov over a chess match, a machine wins again over humans. Watson's superior artificial intelligence along with several Terabytes of data helped him prevail over two Jeopardy! champions.

The popularity of the TV show has led to the development of several other versions of it, including PC and console games as well as board games that can be used to experience the game at home with your friends.

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Monopoly and variants

Monopoly is perhaps the most well-known board game around the world. It is named after the economic concept of monopoly, which refers to a single entity dominating a market. The origin of the game concept can be traced at early 20th century, but its modern version appeared on the 1970s.

Monopoly takes place on a specially designed board that contains property squares which represent valuable entities a player can buy and use to make money. Most of these entities are areas or streets, depending on the game version. Some squares can be also railway stations or other public companies. Players move around the board (using a pawn representing them) and can buy areas they land at, if they are still unclaimed. Players can also buy houses or hotels in some of the areas they own to increase their profits. If the pawn lands in an area that another player owns, some rent must be paid. If there are houses or hotels, the rent is substantially higher. Finally there are some chance cards that enrich the game with random effects. If a player runs out of cash and properties he is eliminated. The last one standing wins! Detailed information about the game can be found here.

The game has countless fans all over the world that spend a lot of time playing it. It is especially popular among families, helping kids to learn how to perform money transactions in the process. Due to its popularity, a large amount of variations has been created to make it more interesting. Many people believe that monopoly is the king of board games.

Ratings:

Fun factor: Medium. Game can be quite funny, especially the first few times playing it. However after a few rounds it gets a bit monotonous. It is arguably a rather luck-based game, though it still allows for strategic decisions.

Cost: Low. Everything needed to play is conveniently sold in one package. There are tons of monopoly variations one can find.

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Complexity: Low. Monopoly is easy to learn, 1-2 games are enough to get a feel for it.

Duration: 10-15 minutes to setup. Each round lasts 1-3 hours.

Replayability: Low-Medium. After a few play throughs, the same situations appear again and again. House rules can help alleviate this problem. More complex versions of monopoly are substantially better in this regard.