At the retreat where I was last weekend, we spent most of our free time playing games, primarily board and card games. I was in heaven learning all sorts of games. I’m not sure why, but I love those types of games, and I want to stock up on the cool ones for when people come over or we have a game night. I thought I’d share some of them here.

Bohnanza
This game is pretty fun. It seems really simple and stupid when you hear what it’s about, but for some reason it’s a good time. There are various bean (“Bohne” is German for bean) cards of various values, and the idea is to plant bean fields and eventually harvest them for gold. The catches are you can have at most two fields at a time, and you must play the cards in your hand in the order they were drawn. An auction/trade time each turn makes the game pretty interactive. There are also a few expansion packs available to make the game a little more quirky.

Bang!
The Wild West meets an Italian card game. I think the most interesting aspect of this game was that the cards were primarily in Italian with English subtitles. That’s pretty sweet. Very out of American norm. In this game, each player takes on a role. You have at least a sherriff, deputy, renegade, and outlaw. Depending on how many players are in, you’ll have an extra deputy and several outlaws. The only role everyone knows about is the sherriff. You also have a persona, and each persona gives you a different special ability. Play the cards in your hand to shoot your opponents. The sherriff and deputy are on the same team. The outlaws are on the same team. The renegade is on his own team and wants to be the last man standing with the sherriff. If your team kills everyone else, you win. We played this with the High Noon and Dodge City expansions.

Shadows Over Camelot
Now THIS is a board game. I love medieval history, and Arthurian legends are my favorite, so this game is a perfect fit for me. Players assume the roles of several Knights of the Round Table and take turns going on quests. One twist of this game is that you actually play against the game. Each player’s turn involves performing an evil deed (the game’s turn, essentially) and a good deed. Save Camelot before it’s beseiged! The crazy twist is that one of the Knights is a traitor! Figure out who he is before he helps the game destroy Camelot. This was crazy fun.

If these descriptions even remotely interesting, I’d recommend picking them up. If you’re my family…Christmas is around the corner. Well, my family shouldn’t buy Camelot…it’s a bit pricey. I’ll get that one on my own from ebay after I sell my Playstation 3.

-j