Growing up, we used the terms 'board games' and 'card games' to categorize things like
Monopoly or
Rook. More recently, the term "
tabletop games" is used, which encompasses a wider variety of games- board games, card games, dice games, miniatures games, tile games . . . anything you play on a table.
Tabletop gaming is a most excellent hobby. It's easy to see why the industry has been
growing substantially in recent years. There are many pros to such games:
- mental exercise/challenge (the strategy in some games can be intense)
- social interaction (actually interacting, not staring at a screen, as the above article mentions)
- creativity/imagination
- entertainment
- variety (a well-constructed game can lead to unique experiences and hilarious moments)
- teamwork (depending on the game)
- learning (the right game can spur reading and math (addition, probability, counting, etc.) development and teach history, geography, science, literature . . . you name it)
- one TED talk even claims it
can make a better world
Personally, I like this hobby for the first two reasons: I love working the brain and getting to know people in a casual, friendly environment. Doing both at the same time explains why it's one of my favorite pastimes. This hobby has helped form many
fond memories and
great relationships for me, and I hope to design a game in 2018 (using books like
Game Design Workshop to guide me). There's a lot of
good in games.
If you're in the market for tabletop games, use
boardgamegeek ("BGG") first as your reference. It has information, reviews, and rankings. Game review videos by the
Dice Tower (I enjoy Tom Vasel's thoughts) and others can be found through BGG and
Youtube;
Watch It Played is handy to learn how to play a given game. Lists of award-winners can be found
here. For purchasing, I've experienced great customer service for over 10 years from
CoolStuffInc, and recommend them heartily. I've heard
Cardhaus is also good, and there's always
Amazon. For price comparisons across vendors,
BoardGamePrices is great.
Below I link to most games I've reviewed to date (
collectible games and
children's games have their own pages). This list is updated as I review more titles. Happy gaming!
Great Games
Good Games
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