8 Favourite Board Games ...

Photo Credit: [¯Ô¯] Andy C

If you asked people to name the first board game that came to mind, this would surely be one of the most popular. I’ve now discovered an online version, but I also have a 1960s Monopoly Barcelona set that I found discarded in the street. Now all I need to do is find a few people to play it with me …

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Just as the name suggests, Game of Life is a journey through adulthood (I’m not sure why it misses out the younger years). Players go to university or get a job, get married, have children (which is worth it, as you sell them at the end of the game). I think it has been updated in recent years, which is probably just as well – how many people would get ‘Blackmailed by your butler’?

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Risk is a strategy game where the aim is to achieve world domination. Sounds like fun to me …

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Word fans everywhere love this game. It can get quite vicious though, when people steal a space you’d planned to use for a seven letter word covering a triple word score that would have earned you 300 points …

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Horse-racing fans, this game is for you. Or anyone, come to that. I used to have a copy, and it was one of my favourite games. Totopoly does require some strategy, and you can win either by owning the winning horse, or by having the most money.

Photo Credit: marioman3138

Probably almost as famous as Monopoly, Cluedo has even spawned a TV series based upon the game. Professor Plum, in the library, with the lead piping? Miss Scarlet, in the billiard room, with the dagger? I always wanted it to be Professor Plum – there was something I didn’t like about him.

Photo Credit: David Titford

And now we’re back to the Seventies … This game was much played in our house when I was young. One player picks a secret combination of coloured pegs, and the other has to guess it through a series of moves. With each move, the chooser indicates how many the guesser has picked correctly.

Photo Credit: Leo Reynolds

This was HUGE in the Eighties, and several different versions of the game were subsequently made. My opponents would always pick a sports question if I reached the centre, because I know nothing about the subject. It was fun to see their faces when the answer was one of the few sporting facts I did know …

Are you a fan of board games? Which are your favourites? Would you like to invent a game yourself?

Top Photo Credit: halo969