RISK. As UNBORED readers know, one of our all-time favorite kids’ movies is The Red Balloon (1956), directed by French film director Albert Lamorisse. What you might not know is that, the following year, Lamorisse released a boardgame he’d invented called La Conquête du Monde (World Conquest); in 1959, it was released by Parker Brothers in the United States as Risk. The standard version is played on a board depicting a political map of the Earth, divided into forty-two territories, which are grouped into six continents; players control armies with which they attempt to capture territories from other players, with results determined by dice rolls. Suggested age: 8 and up. Playing time: No fewer than 120 minutes, though games have been known to go on for a lot longer than that. We also like these variations: Risk: The Lord of the Rings, Risk: Godstorm, and Risk Legacy.

HEROSCAPE. When I was a teenager, I liked Marion Zimmer Bradley’s 1973 science fiction novel Hunters of the Red Moon, in which aliens kidnap talented warriors from various planets — humans, lizard-people, tiger-people, spider-people — and force them to fight each other to the death. Apparently, the aliens have been visiting Earth for centuries — kidnapping samurai, Vikings, you name it. One character speculates that this may be the source of the Norse myth of Valhalla: an enormous hall in Asgard, to which valkyries lead those who die in combat; there, they can continue to feast and fight for eternity. My imagination was captured, which is why I was as excited as my sons about Heroscape, a game that first appeared in stores in 2004. Now discontinued, Heroscape takes place in a Valhalla-like realm where samurai, werewolves, aliens, ancient Romans, Minutemen, robots, and others do battle. The miniature figures are cool, the rules are simple, and the terrain on which each game takes place is fully customizable. Suggested age: 8 and up. Playing time: 90 minutes. But note that if you choose enormous armies, the game will drag on — pleasurably — for hours.

DIPLOMACY. Its board looks like Risk, but in the world-conquest game Diplomacy there are no dice or spinners. There is no chance involved; the only way you can get ahead in the game is by forming alliances with some players against other players, but the only way you can win is by betraying your allies. So there will be hurt feelings, but if everyone stays in character (as Kaiser Wilhelm, say, or Tsar Nicholas), things won’t get personal. I strongly recommend downloading the free Diplomacy program JDIP, and entering all moves into it — on a laptop — while you play. Doing so makes the “adjudication” phase of each move much faster and easier. Suggested age: 12 and up (though I have played with 10-year-olds). Playing time: 180 minutes; though you can set the “victory conditions” in such a way as to make the game end without taking all day.

The post All-Day Games appeared first on UNBORED.

There’s a nice interview with Jim Deacove in Games Journal, in which he talks about how back in 1971 he realized that although he was forever encouraging his two daughters — and kids he taught in Sunday School — to find nonviolent ways to solve problems, and to practice compassion, sharing, and affection, all their boardgames were competitive. Unable to find a single cooperative boardgame out there, he started by changing the rules of Scrabble: “Instead of keeping individual scores we kept a family score. Just that simple rule change created subtle shifts in the dynamics of the game. Some examples… We allowed each other to use the dictionary freely. We permitted helping each other to spell words. We didn’t hide behind our tokens. Not only did we expose them, but we even traded them… Let me tell you that I felt a thousand times better using my mind to assist and share rather than as a weapon.” He also turned Hide & Seek into Lost & Found (where the seeker is rescuing you, not pursuing you); and Cooperative Musical Chairs — where seats are eliminated but players aren’t (so everyone sits on each other’s laps and shoulders). And he went on to invent over a hundred other cooperative games of all sorts.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

GAMES JOURNAL: Don’t you think that co-operative games and the co-operative philosophy will tend toward mediocrity, toward making everyone the same, while competitive approaches bring out individuality, qualities of leadership, etc?

JIM DEACOVE: On the contrary. The games I make and the games we played today allow for the gifted to do their very best and for those less able to make their best contribution too. Each is valued. Those with leadership qualities quite naturally emerged and contributed. What pleases me is that these leaders had to use their abilities in a responsible way that showed caring for others. They are not asked to dominate, exploit weaknesses for self-aggrandizement, manipulate and then defend themselves from others trying to take over and get rid of them. It’s a deeper challenge to the gifted to work with people in a co-operative way. You see, we like to think that co-operative games are for the losers only. Indeed, while a co-operative game does allow for the “loser” to express ability without fear of elimination, a co-operative game also serves the winner, whose character suffers from always winning at the expense of others.

In 2000, the cooperative boardgame Lord of the Rings made its appearance — and thanks to its popularity, the notion that cooperation is as much fun as competition filtered out from the culture of groovy parents with young children into grownup boardgaming culture. In Lord of the Rings, each player takes on the role of one of five hobbits; the object of the game is to destroy the ring before the ring bearer is captured by Sauron. Where does the conflict and challenge so necessary to a fun game come from? During each turn, a player must flip Event Tiles — some of which cause bad events to happen to the group of hobbits, others of which cause good events to happen. Players are rewarded for working together and using teamwork and strategy. There is no incentive for selfishness, and there are opportunities for dramatic rescues and even self-sacrifices.

Since then, a number of cooperative games for grownups and older kids have become popular. Here are a few that my family enjoys.

PANDEMIC. Diseases are breaking out around the world, and the players — each of whom is a disease-fighting specialist (Operations Expert, Scientist, etc.) — must work closely together to eradicate them. The game has beaten my family’s efforts several times, which just makes us more eager to play again. Suggested age: 10 and up. Playing time: 60 minutes.

SHADOWS OVER CAMELOT. Each player is one of the knights of Camelot (or King Arthur), and you fight the forces of evil — plus invading Saxons and Picts. For advanced players: there’s an option to have one player secretly be a traitor, which is a mind-blowing twist. Suggested age: 10 and up. Playing time: 90 minutes.

MUNCHKIN. It’s Dungeons & Dragons as a card game, i.e., without role-playing or a dungeonmaster. You develop a character — an Elf wizard, maybe, or a Dwarf thief, you acquire magic weapons and armors and other useful stuff. And on your turn you always fight a monster and search for loot. This game is actually semi-cooperative: Although there can only be one winner, along the way you can help other players out. Very clever and funny writing on the cards. Suggested age: 10 and up. Playing time: 90 minutes

Here are some other popular cooperative boardgames for grownups and older kids. Please note that I have not played these games, and that they might be violent or otherwise inappropriate for your family!

Betrayal at House on the Hill, Arkham Horror, Vanished Planet, Somewhere in China, Vampire Hunter, Inkognito, The Republic of Rome, Doom, Descent, Break the Safe, Forbidden Island, Castle Panic, Battlestar Galactica, Defenders of the Realm, Ghost Stories, Space Alert, Sentinels of the Multiverse, R3d Nov3mb3r, and Yggdrasil.

PS: We recently purchased R3d Nov3mb3r, and it’s really fun so far.

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BLOKUS (pronounced “block-us”) is a puzzle-strategy game. The pieces are very beautiful, so it’s a pleasure just to sift through them. Although it is a competitive game, you often find yourself suggesting good moves to the other players — because it’s a puzzle, and it’s stimulating to solve it. Each player has a set of 21 tiles; at the start of the game each player places a piece on their corner of the board. Each subsequent turn you place any one of your tiles on the board so that it touches any of your own pieces at a corner only. The object is to place as many of your tiles as possible — while blocking your opponents from playing, if possible. Suggested age: 6 and up. Playing time: 20 minutes.

PARTY PLAYOFF asks the players to vote on 32 contenders in a tournament bracket. What makes the game absurdly amusing — you’ll find yourself laughing a lot while you debate, sometimes laughing at yourself for arguing insane points — is the fact the 32 contenders can be anything from “Elton John” to “the Cookie Monster,” or from “string cheese” to “a Frisbee.” A contender (“Elton John,” say) advances to the next round in the bracket when they receive a majority of the votes of the players; the players vote based on a question — for example, “With whom [i.e., Elton John or the Cookie Monster] would you rather be stuck in an elevator?” Before the game begins, the contenders are drawn randomly from a pool of 500 tiles, and placed on the bracket in one of four categories. Each player then makes their picks and writes them down; at the end of the game, they get points if the contenders they picked make it to the championship round, the final four, and if they win the whole thing. During the game, you’re trying to persuade the other players to vote for your picks — no matter how absurd it may be. Suggested age: 10 and up (though the younger the players are, the more you’ll want to sift through the options in advance — it’s a party game designed for adults). Playing time: 30 minutes.

TICKET TO RIDE is so popular that it seems silly to describe it, but I will anyway. You’re competing to connect cities — on an old-fashioned map, of the US (and southern Canada), or Europe, or other places depending on which edition you buy — via railroad. Players are issued colored train pieces, and dealt train car cards; they’re also dealt “destination ticket” cards, each of which shows a pair of cities on the map representing two end-points that players are secretly attempting to connect. On your turn, you may draw railway car cards, draw additional destination ticket cards, or play some of your collected railway car cards to claim routes on the board. Longer routes are worth more points than shorter routes, but are trickier to claim. You’re awarded points for having successfully connected the destinations on the cards, and there’s a big bonus awarded to the player who has the longest continuously connected set of routes. Suggested age: 8 and up. Playing time: 45 minutes.

CARCASSONNE is a tile-based boardgame in which the players take turns building a landscape map of a medieval civilization — adding roads, farms, cities, cloisters. After placing each new tile, the placing player may opt to station a “follower” (a “meeple” — which is boardgamer slang for a little person-shaped playing piece) on a feature (city, road, cloister, field) of that newly-placed tile. The rules are simple, no one is ever eliminated, and the play is fast. The game ends when the last tile has been placed. At that time, all features (including fields) score points for the players with the most followers on them. Suggested age: 8 and up. Playing time: 45 minutes.

PIRATEER. A fairly simple game that we’ve found addictive. Four small fleets — including pirates — tack up and down the board, capturing each other’s ships and attempting to bring a load of treasure back to their own home port. Your ships’ movement is restricted by dice rolls, trade winds, and currents. The game is out of print now, but if you can find a copy snap it up! Suggested age: 8 and up; still fun for 12-year-olds but we played it a LOT more when my sons were 8 and 10. Playing time: 15 minutes.

My family likes APPLES TO APPLES a lot, and so does Elizabeth’s — so she wrote this entry. The game consists of two decks of cards: Descriptions (glamorous, ridiculous, offensive) and Things (Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Challenger explosion, poodles). Each player has a hand of description cards that they can use to find the best match to a Thing card. The referee who turns over the Thing card (who is also the person who won the prior round) gets to decide which description is the best match. My family allows players to advocate for their choice. In other words there’s lots of persuading, arguing, and good-natured yelling. APPLES TO APPLES is a serious vocabulary booster, but my family doesn’t care about that. What we love are the hilariously goofy combinations that can result. The person who reaches a predetermined number of matches (my family plays to 7) wins. You need at least 4 players but the more the merrier. 30 minutes. Recommended ages are 10 and older, but we’ve played it happily with 7 and 8-year-olds.

PS: This is Josh. I just want to add that once a round of the game is over, you can play another game-within-the-game where you each read out the words on the cards you’ve won. My family has discovered that sometimes the list of words paints a flattering or unflattering portrait of you! For example, when I played against my son Max recently, the cards he won were HANDSOME, INTELLIGENT, FUNNY, and so forth; my cards were DIRTY, NOISY, CRAZY…

The post After-Dinner Games appeared first on UNBORED.

Greater Midwest LEGO Train Club photo by Peter Schleisman

Believe me: I know The Battle of Helm’s Deep LEGO set is awesome. But I also know that after the happy hours you’ll spend putting it together, it will either sits somewhere unused or get wrecked and tossed into a crate of LEGO bricks that have met a similar fate.

You probably have already found ways to turn all those stray bricks into cool creations. But if you are in need of a little inspiration, here are some of my family’s favorite LEGO resources.

• Brickmania is an online resource for custom-designed (and crazily expensive) kits. They also have custom Minifigs and an arsenal of Minifig weapons that are either cool or disturbing, depending on your views. While their internet store is the easiest way to purchase Brickmania products, they also show up regularly at amateur LEGO train building events across the country.

Photo by Peter Schleisman

• LEGO train clubs are amateur organizations devoted to creating warehouse-sized LEGO trains. Google the name of your town and “LEGO train club” to see if there’s one near you.
• Brothers Brick is another website that reviews new LEGO kits, gives you instructions on how to customize your own kits, and (best of all) is a showcase for amazing LEGO creations.

Family portrait by Henrik Schleisman

• The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide by Allan Bedford is stocked with fun ways to get started building your own LEGO creations.

The post LEGO Inspiration appeared first on UNBORED.

Boardgames get rebooted, too! Here are a few of my family’s favorite examples. What are YOUR favorite rebooted boardgames? Please tell us!

RISK: GODSTORM. You’re playing RISK but on an awesome, Robert E. Howard-type map, where Greeks and Celts and Babylonians and Norse and Egyptian armies can summon up to four gods apiece to help them in battle. Most awesome feature: When your armies are defeated, they are transported to the Underworld… where they continue to battle! Suggested age: 10 and up. Playing time: 120 minutes if you hustle; faster than old-fashioned RISK but still a long game.

RISK: LEGACY. What an amazing, crazy twist on this classic boardgame! By opening the box, you and your fellow players are committing to playing 15 (quick) games of RISK — and as you play it, you permanently alter your particular copy of the game! You’ll add major and minor cities, you’ll get to choose the names of the continents, make particular territories more or less valuable than other territories, and so forth. Also, as you play the game the rules begin to change! And mysterious new features, that were sealed into envelopes and compartments within the game box, are revealed! The figurines are super-cool too. Suggested age: 10 and up. Playing time: 60 minutes (per game; but you play 15 games! so block out a bunch of weekends on your calendar).

PS: I’ve been playing RISK: LEGACY with two 15-year-olds, a 13-year-old, and a 12-year-old. The 13-year-old won the first game, and the 12-year-old won the second. So despite the semi-complex new rules, it’s fun for everyone.

STRATEGO: LORD OF THE RINGS. A classic two-player boardgame with a Lord of the Rings twist. As previously mentioned, STRATEGO is one of my favorite classic boardgames. But this rebooted version makes intuitive sense, both to me and my kids. The only problem is that if you’re particularly attached to a LOTR character — Legolas, say, or Gimli — then you might find yourself protecting that piece at the expense of trying to win the game! Suggested age: 8 and up. Playing time: 45 minutes.

The post Classic Boardgames, Rebooted appeared first on UNBORED.

What are YOUR family’s favorite two-player boardgames or cardgames? Please tell us!

Below are three of my family’s favorite two-player games.

STRATEGO is a strategy boardgame that was designed in 1908 by Mademoiselle Hermance Edan; it was originally sold in France under the name L’Attaque. Stratego as we know it was licensed by the Milton Bradley Company back in 1960. Each player controls 40 pieces representing officers and soldiers in a (Napoleonic) army; the awesome part is that players cannot see the ranks of one another’s pieces — you only find out what a piece is once it attacks you, or vice versa. The objective of the game is to find and capture the opponent’s Flag, and one of my favorite parts of the game is hiding your flag at the beginning. Suggested age: 7 and up. Playing time: 45 minutes at most.

ZOMAX. This is a game that never succeeded in the marketplace, so it can be tough to find copies. (I’ve found them on eBay, and now own several.) The game design is amazing: a vertical metal board, with magnetic tanks and planes and boats. You can see what your opponent’s terrain looks like, and where her capitol city (your target) is located, but you don’t know where her pieces are. As you move your pieces around the board, your opponent’s pieces are magnetically repelled and they pop off. Fun! Suggested age: 8 and up. Playing time: 60 minutes, or faster if one player is really awesome. Note that it’s a two-player game, but because the board is so large we have often had two-man teams play.

MEMOIR ’44. A WWII-themed strategy boardgame where you recreate the terrain of famous battles, troop placements, and objectives of each army. The game pieces are the best part — very detailed miniature army figures, tanks, etc., which is a big part of the appeal. You start the game by choosing a scenario representing a battle from World War II; the terrain and starting positions are laid out according to the scenario. Command cards are used to order your troops to move, battle and/or execute a special command. The object of the game is to be the first to win a set number of Victory Medals. Lots of strategy involved — how best to use your resources to overcome both the terrain obstacles and your opponent’s forces? Suggested age: 8 and up. Playing time: 60 minutes. Note that this game seemed like it would be too complicated for 8-year-olds, but it isn’t!

PS: UNBORED designer Tony Leone plays MEMOIR ’44 a lot with his son Luciano, who started playing at age 6. They have added two new rules. Parachute drop rule: On Turn 5 (say) you hold a pre-determined number of troops in your hand over the board, then release the onto the board. If they land in a territory that you control, they get to stay there; otherwise, they’re captured and removed. Reinforcement rule: Decide ahead of time that, for example, on Turn 3 you get to add (say) a tank and a platoon. Tony and Luciano also use Airfix military figures (1/72 scale) to customize the game!

Note that we also dig: MAGIC: THE GATHERING, CHESS, BACKGAMMON, the cardgames CRIBBAGE and CASINO, the code-breaking game MASTERMIND, OTHELLO, and a few others not mentioned here.

Two-player games that sound good, but which we haven’t tried (yet): DOMINION, STONE AGE, FORBIDDEN ISLAND, LOST CITIES, CARCASSONNE: THE CASTLE, TWILIGHT STRUGGLE, ANDROID: NETRUNNER, MAGE WARS, HANNIBAL: ROME VS. CARTHAGE, TZAAR, YINSH, SPACE HULK, AGRICOLA, HAMMER OF THE SCOTS, and BLOKUS DUO.

Oh, and here’s a two-player game that I remember liking but haven’t played with my family (yet): GO.

The post Two-Player Boardgames appeared first on UNBORED.

Still, we do enjoy a good prank — so we have included several favorites in the book. For example, pages 122–123 demonstrate in careful detail exactly how to short-sheet a bed; and pages 136–139 demonstrate how to build a remote-controlled water blaster!

The spread below is from the Great Britain edition of UNBORED. In that part of the world, they call short-sheeting an “apple-pie bed.”

Click on image for larger version

For April Fool’s Day, here are few other pranks from UNBORED…

A dutch oven is a cast-iron cooking pot with a tightfitting lid. It’s also a prank you can play on someone with whom you are sharing a bed — a sister or brother, say. You fart under the covers, then pull the blanket over your sibling’s head, trapping them in the foul-smelling cavern of doom.

If you’re not sharing a bed with someone, you can get into someone’s bed, fart, then slide out quickly while tucking the blanket down tight behind you. (My brother Patrick learned this trick at boarding school, and played it on me when he was home.) If you do this moments before your victim gets into bed, they’ll be in for a smelly surprise.

A Reverse Dutch Oven is when you fart in the bedroom, then dive into your own bed and get under the covers where its not stinky.

Tie a short length of string or thread around a large plastic cup, and secure it with strong tape — you’ll want to leave a few inches of string hanging down. Fill the cup halfway up with water, open the door of a kitchen cabinet, and place the cup on a shelf inside. Shut the cabinet door most of the way, then tape the other end of the string to the inside of the door. Shut the door. The next person who opens the cabinet will be splashed — this prank is particularly effective if the shelf is above the victim’s head.

Remove the lid of your toilet’s tank, and set it aside — be careful not to drop it. If you see a small water feed tube leading from the inlet valve (at the edge of the tank) into the overflow tube (sticking up at the center of the tank), you’re in luck! Flush the toilet, and you’ll see that water comes shooting out of the small tube. Unclip the tube and redirect it, so that it’s sticking out over the edge of the tank, aiming straight at you. Carefully replace the tank’s lid, so that it holds the tube in place; you may need to enlist an accomplice to assist you.

If your kitchen sink has a handsprayer, wrap a rubber band a few times around the spray head, so that the trigger is forced down. Aim the sprayer nozzle at yourself, then skedaddle. The next person who turns on the sink will get soaked.

Fill a large plastic cup about halfway with water, and carry it sneakily into your room. Using several thumbtacks, fasten a six-inch long piece of cardboard above the door, to the underside of the doorframe; make sure you do this on the opposite side of the doorframe from the hinges! Four inches or so of the cardboard should extend into the room. Take the cup of water outside your room, and close the door behind you until it’s slightly ajar; the cardboard will now be supported by the top edge of the open door. Stick your arm through the opening and carefully place the cup of water onto the cardboard platform — you may need to stand on something to reach that high. Lurk nearby.

Stick small pieces of dry spaghetti into a banana and leave overnight. Whoever bites the banana will think it is full of worms. PS: Among college students, this is also known as the “Vegan Roommate Prank.”

The post Have an UNBORED April Fool’s Day appeared first on UNBORED.

Organized by the YouTube channel Geek & Sundry, TableTop Day is “a reminder to spend more time and strengthen the bonds with the people who matter most, our friends and family, by playing games together.”

As the official WEBSITE NOTES: “Tabletop gaming promotes many positive social and cognitive benefits like increased communication, team work, planning, and is an excellent stress relieving activity for all ages.” UNBORED strongly agrees with this notion.

If you enter your zipcode at the TableTop Day website (tabletopday.com) you can find info about any TableTop Day events near you.

The organizers of this new holiday ask that anyone who plays a boardgame today and shared the experience via social media should use the hashtag #tabletopday.

In my household, five people — a 12-year-old, a 13-year-old, two 15-year-olds, and a 45-year-old — will be continuing a 15-game series of RISK: LEGACY that we’re playing every Saturday. Shown in this post are a few other boardgames that members of my household have been enjoying lately.

The post Tabletop Day! appeared first on UNBORED.

When I was a kid, my friends and I used to spend entire afternoons (that’s probably an exaggeration!) playing a clapping game called Concentration. There are a lot of different ways to play: some use numbers and counting patterns while others rely on categories and words.

You need at least two people to play Concentration. You can play it anywhere it’s okay to be noisy–at home, on the bus, even at dinner.

Try this:

The basic point of Concentration is to keep your clapping rhythm going while you are also thinking up a word for the category that’s being “called.” (Stick with me: this will become more understandable as I describe the game.)

Step 1: Practice your clapping rhythm, which should follow this sequence.

• Slap your knees with both hands.
• Clap your hands together.
• Snap your fingers, first one hand and then the other.
• Practice until your entire group can easily do the completed rhythm (Slap, Clap, Snap, Snap) several times in a row.

Step 2. Assign someone the job of being the game leader to get the game started. After several rounds of the clapping sequence, the leader says “Concentration is the game/ Keep the rhythm all the same.” Each syllable should fall on a slap, clap, or snap. “Con” “is” “keep” and “all” should coordinate with slapping your knees with both hands. “Cen” “the” “the” and “the” should coordinate with clapping your hands together. “Tra” (say it “tray”) “ga” (gay–we’re making the word “game” into two syllables) “rhy” and “sa” (say) should coordinate with snapping one finger. “Tion” “me” (pronounced “m”) “thm” and “me” (m) should coordinate with snapping the other finger.

If that sounds too complicated, just mess around fitting the words with the clapping sequences. Chances are you’ll figure it out immediately.

Step 3. After saying “Concentration is the game/Keep the rhythm all the same” the leader calls out a category. The category can be anything: vegetables, cities, teachers names, sports, movie stars, whatever you want.

Step 4. Moving around the circle, each person calls out an answer to the category. The game ends when a player either can’t think of something for the category or the rhythm is broken.

Here’s a numbers version of Concentration from “Zoom,” courtesy of PBS and YouTube. (Note that they do two slaps and two claps.)

The post Concentration Clapping Game appeared first on UNBORED.

Via the blog Instructables

Boiling eggs wrapped on onion skins will give you offbeat Easter eggs.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Eggs
• Onion skins (pieces as large as possible)
• 20 cm (8 inch) squares of cloth
• Rubber bands
• A pot of boiling water
• Some vegetable oil

CLICK HERE for instructions.

Via the blog Thrive

Easter eggs made of Jello! Gorgeous and delicious.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 8-3/4 cups Boiling Water
• 7 pkg flavored Gelatin, 1 each of the 6 different colors of the rainbow
• Egg-shaped molds
• Cooking spray
• Kitchen syringe

CLICK HERE and maybe also HERE for instructions.

Via the blog WikiHow

These Easter eggs look amazingly like LEGO. But note that they’re not edible, because of the paint.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Boiled eggs
• Small raised mints
• Red, yellow and blue craft paint
• Paintbrush
• Craft glue
• Wire cooling rack or baking (parchment) paper

CLICK HERE for instructions.

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