Matt's End of Summer Favorites Part 1: Games

Hello dear readers, I hope you are all having a wonderful summer, even as it’s winding down. Though it’s hot and humid here in Southern California, Fi and I are having an awesome summer, editing and writing, but still finding time to have some odds and ends summer fun. We’ve had adventures, saw a book release, and even attended a convention for Halloween events, which for the two of us, you know, is a big thing.

And that sense of summer fun, I guess, is where this month of blog posts is coming from. I couldn’t decide on just one topic to base a month-long list around, so this month I’m dedicating to a few mini-lists of summer favorites. Adventures, hobbies and summer movies, if it’s summer, or goes great with summer for me, it’s fair game.

So, without further ado, I present my first mini-list of the month:

MATT’S 5 FAVORITE TABLETOP GAMES
PICKED UP AS AN ADULT

Yeah, I know, you read this topic and you think, what the hell does that have to do with summer? But stick with me, I guarantee this is going somewhere. Like many a kid born truly pasty, I spent much of my summers indoors for fear of the ever-entertaining sunburns and the threat of skin cancer (which I guess has hit me as a more real threat now than it did as a kid now that my dad's dealt with skin cancer; relax, he's fine).

Because of this, I got rather acquainted with reading and writing, which I guess is a pretty good thing for me, now, and games of all sorts. Video games and computer games were great for me, because I didn't always have the friends necessary to play board games, but even though I could rarely play them I always loved them. Now that I'm an adult and have friends, I've really gotten to embrace my love for tabletop games of all varieties.

And I'll say this. Board games have changed a lot since I was a kid. They've gotten more complex, more in depth, and have a lot more mechanics for creative gameplay than I remember in the games of my youth. While I still love a lot of those classic games (I will destroy you at Monopoly), today I wanted to dedicate this list to a handful of my favorite games I've discovered as an adult.

5. Balderdash

This one's a simple party game. A dealer picks a card from a deck with a set of weird words and their definitions, writes down the word and definition on a slip of paper, and then gives everyone the word. Players write down their definitions, and then everyone votes on which one they think is correct, points going to the definition-writers. It's a basic, fun game. So why does it make my list?

Because it allows me to inspire madness. While other players try to write definitions that other people will mistake for correct, I don't particularly care about winning and try to use it to make people laugh. My definitions have included such bizarre tangents as "a salesman of erotic doorbells" or "the compulsion to show your grandmother a jar of gravy" and "Swedish translation of, Why yes, I would like to see your monkey farm!"

So, naturally by trying to break the game and just have fun, people tend to vote for me anyways and I've won more than my share of times. What do you know.

4. Gloom

This card game might as well be called "Tim Burton: The Card Game", and that isn't a bad thing, really. In it, you're given a family of quirky, vaguely Victorian characters, and it's your goal throughout the game to use cards to lower their self worth as much as possible through a series of mishaps (that may include getting blackout drunk or pursued by poodles, among other things) before killing them horribly, while making good things happen to your opponents' family before they can do the same.

Simple and twisted in its way, the true place this game shines is that it actively encourages storytelling, making you come up with the craziest possible reasons to make these misfortunes make some kind of sense in an overall story. Sure, this part of the game isn't necessary, but it's made for some fun nights at our household trying to figure out just how messed up we could make it.

3. Dead of Winter

This one may prove to be my favorite game ever, but since I've only had it for a relatively short period of time, I can't say for sure just yet.

Like many a modern board game, this one is set in the zombie apocalypse. And having played a lot of zombie board games, I can tell you they usually just come down to either killing a whole lot of zombies, or running away from a whole lot of zombies, with very little personality to the game itself.

Dead of Winter sets itself apart from that in that it focuses more on a community of people just trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. Every game comes with one big group goal to accomplish, while each player has their own secret goal they must also achieve in order to win, which may or may not involve betraying the entire group. It's mostly cooperative, but there's always a question of trust in every game. In addition, there are crises that come up with every round of play that have to be averted lest something horrible happen, and random events, or "Crossroads", that can be triggered under specific circumstances that often offer cruel yet beneficial choices to be made. It's fun, it's hard, it's deep, and each game you play really feels like it could be a movie in its own right.

2. Cards Against Humanity

Possibly the simplest and most offensive game ever made. I'd go into detail with some of the horrible, horrible things my wife and I and our friends have put together, but I try to keep this website at an R-rating, and some of the stuff in this game goes so far beyond that I don't even know where to rate it. The long and the short of it is one player draws a card with a funny prompt, often fill in the blanks, while players play cards from their hands to try and "win" the prompt from the person who played it by playing what they think the dealer will like the most. Generally this game devolves into who can put the most bizarre, sick or hilariously disturbing card down. I'd give examples, but, well, refer to my R-rating comment above, but you can find some great collections of these on Buzzfeed if you search.

I don't think I have ever laughed more in my life than playing this game with friends and family.

1. Pandemic

A dark horse contender for the top spot to be sure, but this is a game that I love so much because it was the first game to introduce me to the concept of cooperative board games. While most board games are literally about defeating the other players, or at least surpassing every player in the game until a set win/lose condition is met, cooperative games give the entire group of players a single goal (and often a ticking clock) and has them work together to try and complete it, lest something horrible happen in game.

In Pandemic we're set as a group of characters working for the CDC, each with a special ability, trying to race around the world curing a number of diseases before they kill everyone on the planet. A simple, classic goal to be sure, but working together to decide how best to work our moves, combined with a constantly changing game board of disease hotspots and outbreaks, has made for many a fun game night, and a strong contender for one of my favorite new games.

Agree? Disagree? What are your favorite board games? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back! 

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)