Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Strongly Themed Games

posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 10:28 AM 4 comments

Monday, April 23, 2007

Kid & Adult Friendly

posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 11:30 AM 3 comments

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Nasty

posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 12:16 PM 1 comments

Monday, April 16, 2007

Young Children (6 & under)

The best games aimed at children age 6 and under...


Just missed the cut:

Also nominated:

There are no comparison games, as this category did not appear in 2002.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 9:41 AM 3 comments

Monday, April 09, 2007

Brain-Burning

The best games which can cause serious brain stress...

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 9:35 AM 5 comments

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Gateway

The best board & card games to introduce non-gamers to the hobby...


Also nominated:
For comparison purposes, the top five games from 2002:

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 1:24 PM 5 comments

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Long Learning Curve

The best games which require multiple plays in order to play well...

Also nominated:

This category did not appear in 2002, so there are no comparison results.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 1:22 PM 2 comments

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Elegant

The best board or card games that are elegant in design & play...
Also nominated:

There is no comparison - this category did not appear in 2002.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 9:48 AM 4 comments

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Beautiful

posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 2:10 PM 5 comments

Monday, December 18, 2006

Wargames Eurogamers Love

The best "wargames" that attract the attention & admiration of Eurogamers...
Also nominated:
This was not a category in 2002, so there is no comparison available.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 2:45 PM 4 comments

Monday, December 11, 2006

Worst. Game. Ever.

Well, not really.

But these are pretty bad.
This time around, the Apple Pickers simply nominated up to 7 of their most detested games... and those receiving 3 or more votes are listed here. The "winner" had four votes, so you can see that "ugly is in the eye of the beholder" and, probably more important, that there isn't any real consensus on what constitutes the worst game ever.

OTOH, I could never play any of these games again and be a very happy individual.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 12:07 PM 9 comments

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Significant Other

The best board & card games to play with your spouse and/or S.O...

Also nominated:

For comparison, the top five games from 2002:

The Apple Pickers stated a number of preferences - but remember that these preferences are for playing with spouses/s.o.'s and not other gamers:

  • Mystery Rummy #1 (Jack the Ripper) was the most popular, though #3 (Jekyll & Hyde) wasn't far behind. Interestingly, all 4 games were mentioned.
  • The ONLY version of Ticket To Ride to receive votes was the original game.
  • "Vanilla" Carcassonne was the popular choice, with the Inns & Cathedrals expansion and the stand-alone Castle game tied for second.
  • The ONLY version of Settlers of Catan to receive votes was the original game.
Not surprising that the most stripped down versions of these games were chosen to play with non-gamer s.o.'s...

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 10:09 AM 10 comments

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Long

The best board & card games that take 3 or more hours to play...
also nominated:
For comparison, the top five games from 2002:
The Pickers indicated a slight preference for the newest version of History of the World and the American edition of crayon rails (Empire Builder). There was a dead heat between Civilization & Advanced Civilization, with one participant so turned off by Advanced Civ that he refused to vote for the combination.

There was also a lot of griping from the Pickers about how games made it onto the nominations list - "It NEVER takes us 3 hours to play [blank]." Remember, the nominations were compiled from lists of seven games chosen by the Pickers based on their personal experience with these games.

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posted by Mark (aka pastor guy) at 8:20 AM 3 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

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

Thursday, October 12, 2006

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