Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Science Fiction

The best games with a science fiction theme...
Also nominated:

For comparison, the top five games from 2002:

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 11:22 PM 4 comments

Monday, October 30, 2006

Fantasy

The best games with a fantasy theme...

Just missed the cut:

Also nominated:

For comparison, the top five games from 2002... albeit from a slightly different category. Last time around, I got all tricky & came up with "D&D in a board game" as a category instead of fantasy - it was probably the most hated category amongst the Apple Pickers. So, the following five games are in response to my silliness and can not be directly compared to this category:

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 4:00 PM 5 comments

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Innovative

This time I asked the Apple Pickers to choose the board & card games which were major innovations in game design. (I added the following note: "We're looking for games that changed thehobby, re-wrote gaming history, opened the doors for whole new arenas of gaming. While CCG's & RPG's have shaped the hobby in numerous ways,we will be focusing on board/card games.")

Just missed the cut:

Also nominated:

For comparison, the top five games from 2002:

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 2:00 PM 8 comments

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Fillers - 15 to 30 minutes

posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 10:18 AM 2 comments

Monday, October 23, 2006

Apologies

Having some technical/life difficulties right now, which is slowing down the process of posting the Apples Project results.

Go play some games & come back in a day or two. :-)

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 1:37 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Fillers - 15 minutes or less

The best filler board or card games that play in 15 minutes or less...
Just missed the cut:
Also nominated:

For comparison purposes, the top five games from 2002:

It's important to note that this was a subjective category (meaning the Apple Pickers provided their own nominees) and that it is coupled with the list I'll publish tomorrow, which is fillers that take 15-30 minutes.

You must also remember that your group may play a particular game much faster or much slower than the "average" gaming group. In other words, your mileage may vary.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 6:02 PM 7 comments

Monday, October 16, 2006

Trains

The best games themed around trains & rails...
Also nominated:
For comparison, the top five games from 2002:
Prefences were interesting this time around:
  • The Apple Pickers preferred the original Ticket To Ride slightly over Marklin (and substantially over Europe).
  • Transamerica was slightly preferred to Transeuropa.
  • The 18xx lovers were all over the map, naming 9 different versions. The only one that got more than one mention was 1870, which was mentioned three times.
  • Similarly, the crayon rails fans spread out a good bit - but two games were obviously mentioned more often: Eurorails & Iron Dragon.
  • Finally, Santa Fe Rails (the most recent edition) edged out the original OOP Santa Fe. Also mentioned twice was Clippers, which is a non-rail, no-luck version of the same game system.
  • Note: I did not ask for Age of Steam preferences... but should mention that there are a number of maps/variants for the game.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 10:44 AM 6 comments

Friday, October 13, 2006

Word

The best board & card games involving wordplay...

Also nominated:

For comparison, the top five games in 2002:

Weirdly enough, the Apple Pickers slightly prefer Balderdash as a word game (while, as you saw yesterday, preferring Beyond Balderdash as a bluffing game). OTOH, all but one of the Pickers who voted for Montage/Knock-on-Word preferred Montage.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 11:35 AM 6 comments

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Bluffing

The best games that primarily use bluffing as a mechanism...
Also nominated:
We didn't have this category in 2002.

The Apple Pickers preferred the original Undercover to the more recent Top Secret Spies (the extra cards are pretty much despised), the original Royal Turf to the newer Winner's Circle, and Beyond Balderdash over Balderdash.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 12:16 PM 11 comments

3 Players

The best board or card games for a group of three players...

Just missed the cut:

Also nominated:

For comparison, the top five games from 2002:

The Apples Pickers expressed a number of preferences here:

  • They liked "vanilla" Carcassonne & "vanilla" Settlers better for three players than utilizing one or more of the expansions - though not by a substantial margin.
  • Expedition & Wildlife Adventure finished in a dead heat.
  • The original Ticket to Ride was slightly more popular than Marklin... and much more popular than Europe.
  • And, no surprise here, Web of Power is much better liked than China.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 7:45 AM 10 comments

Friday, October 06, 2006

7+ Players

The best board or card games that accomodate seven or more players. (This category did not include party games, as they will have their own category later.)

Just missed the cut:

Also nominated:

For comparison, the top seven games from 2002:

This is the first of many "subjective" categories - rather than providing the Apple Pickers with a list of 7+ player games, they were simply asked to nominate 7 games that they thought were great for 7 or more players. The final voting lists are slightly larger for the subjective categories to allow for the wide variance of answers.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 9:50 AM 5 comments

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Dice

posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 6:30 AM 10 comments

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Action/Dexterity

The best games that use real-time action, dexterity and/or physical interaction with the game or other players as a primary mechanic...
Also nominated:
For comparison, the top 5 games from 2002:

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 7:05 AM 13 comments