You know something, life is too short to be serious all the time. No wonder, then, that people have realized that the changes in our society and the tragedies that have come from terrorist attacks around the world are reflected in board games on the market today. Titles like Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble, Battleship, Stratego, Outburst, That's Life, Apples to Apples and Password, are still among the most popular sellers in America.
However, while the sleeping giants try each year to redevelop their classic games, other manufacturers are busy coming with new titles like Cranium, Wings of War, Farkle, World of Warcraft and Pandemic. Scrabble is still one of the most popular board games of all time. Initially, one would choose seven tiles at random from a bag and see if they could create words. Players would build out these words from tiles already on the board and competing for the most points, based on the numbers assigned to each letter, and special places on the board that awarded double or triple points, try to out score their opponents . Over the years, new versions of Scrabble have emerged to encourage a whole new generation of board buyers. For example, there are games of Scrabble board games as part of the Presidential edition, where one must try to win states, win points to win popular votes and then become Commander in Chief.
There is also an edition of Star Trek-Scrabble where players can consult dictionaries from the "Klingnon" vocabulary and thus can win, "Tribble" points.
There are also a number of special editions for children, such as Scrabble Me, Scrabble Junior, Scrabble Junior 2009, and many others. A Milton Bradley game called "Upwords" has won wide popularity as a concept similar to Scrabble, except that players earn points by stacking letters on top of one another and take more than one word changes at once. After the takeover of the company's Milton Bradley, Hasbro has re-christened the game "Scrabble Upwords.
Now we must not forget that when talking about board games, everyone knows Monopoly. The Monopoly board game is the best selling game of all time, selling more than 200 million copies since 2004. Players accumulate wealth by buying land around the monopoly board and the collection of taxes from other players who land on their properties. The game continues and will until all players have gone bankrupt, except of course for the winner. There are literally a monopoly games made for the whole world! Some versions are sensible upgrades such as the popular Monopoly Here and Now World version, where instead of buying the railways, a player winds up buying famous buildings and monuments, or there is the "City of the Game", where players create urban landscapes in center of the board, rather than on the plaza outside, or there is "Here and Now World edition for those who have plans for world domination.
You can also buy games theme after the Atlanta Braves, under the Fisheries, The Simpsons, about cats, about dogs, The Beatles, A Christmas Story, U.S. Coast Guard, Twilight, GI Joe, James Bond, Harley Davidson, I Love Lucy, Las Vegas, Disney, NHL, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Seinfeld, Pirates of the Caribbean and much, much more.
The 2009 American International Toy Fair in New York has introduced some great new board games this year. "Pants of Fire" (3 or more players, ages 10 +) is a fun game of storytelling, where a player writes short stories about each of the three themes highlighted. For example, a "bad day" or a "first job", and the other players must guess if the story is true or false. " Another fun table game just out is "The Pressure Point" (3 to 8 players, ages 10 +) where players are in a race against the clock to answer a list of questions as quickly as possible, while other players bet on the number of correct responses that the players give. "Masters of Venice" (2 to 5 players, ages 10 +) is a strategy game where players must act as 15th century Italian merchants trading spices, silks, precious stones, iron and grain, while playing others like a gondolier. And another one called The Settlers of Catan is really exciting.
Even more pioneering is the NEW DESIGNER award which is given to someone with only one or two success stories published, including ghost stories, likeEdward Beck who designed "Domain and Conflict of Heroes". Some of the most innovative games out of this year include, Android, Battlestar Galactica, Domain, Tails of Snow and Space Warning. Some of the new BEST FAMILY GAMES include: Formula D, Pandemic, Say Anything, Sorry Sliders and the Stone Age.
So as we can see there has been a shift in the types of games even though the "classics" remain in vogue. This can only grow faster and wider in scope as our world evolves in whatever direction it may. So are board games passe and a thing of the past? I think not!
