Do you like to play board games? Are you looking for some new titles? I personally really love all things gaming. A few good games that I’ve played and/or learned about recently that are a lot of fun…

Zombie Dice:

It’s quick, fun, and easy to play. Basically, you play as a zombie, and you have dice that have a brain, an explosion that’s supposed to represent a shotgun, and a set of footprints on each die. Depending on what you roll shows whether or not you a) ate the person’s brain, b) they shot you, or c) they got away. You pick three dice out of a cup, roll them, and then based on what you roll you can either keep going or tally up your score–you get points for how many brains you eat. The person with the most points at the end of the game wins!

If you’re looking for a game with a little more intrigue, perhaps you could try…

Coup:

Coup is also very fast paced, and a lot of fun to play. You are the head of an Italian family, and in an intense power struggle with, well, all of the other people you are playing with, who are also heads different Italian families. This game uses cards with different characters on them, and each of the characters have different moves that they can do, all of them pretty much involving whether or not they are going to steal your or another person’s money, which is given to you each round with cardboard coins that come with the game. Each player is given two cards, one face up, and one face down. The fun part is tricking other players into thinking that your face down character is different from the character you may actually have.

You can chose to fake out the other players by using moves that other characters have, even if they aren’t a character you actually possess. But, other players can call you out, and if they are correct, you will lose the character that they call out. If your accuser is incorrect, then they lose a character instead. The last person standing is, of course, the winner.

And, if you’re into really complex games…

Betrayal at the House on the Hill:

This game is pretty complex and involved… It’s almost RPG level as far as board games are concerned. You’re part of a group that is investigating a haunted house. (Think Scooby Doo or even Supernatural.) Each member of your party has different skills and you move around using cards with different scenarios. As you move through the house, you draw board pieces that actually determine the way that the house is put together. At some point there is a betrayal in your party… each time you play, the game goes a different way, and there are a number of scenarios that you can play through. When I played with my family around Christmas, my dad ended up turning evil, and invisible. He stalked through the house and ended up killing off our entire party! It is a really fun game, but I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners. There are a lot of things you have to keep track of, and the game can run really long, depending on the scenario that gets picked.

Do you have any board games you played recently that you really liked? Any you would recommend playing? Let us know in the comments, we at the library would love to hear from you!

– Shannon, Highlands-Shelby Park