Several of these games are my favourite because they are ones that my wife will play with me. She really enjoys board games and has even gotten into a few of my fantasy ones (name Castle Panic and 5-Minute Dungeon), but those aren't really her thing. So, if I'm buying a non-fantasy game, it's likely going to be one that she'll play with me. This is one of her favourites. It's a card drafting game where you are drafting rooms, roof tiles, special abilities, and decorations to make the most asthetically pleasing home. There are a few things to really like about this. The art is vibrant and colourful. There are some really creative powers you can get, like a contractor or an interior designer who can help you get extra points for certain rooms or let you move rooms around. All in all a cute, family friend game for the HGTV fan in all of us.
This is a game that I wanted to like even more than I did, but it still a really good game. Pursuit of Happiness is an interesting take on a worker placement game. The workers you place are the time (you use little wooden hourglasses) that you "spend" on different activities. You might get a job, a spouse, start a project, buy a car, join a roleplaying group, or any number of different activities you could participate in in real life. Depending on what you do with your life, you'll earn "victory points" in the form of long term happiness. Whoever is the happiest when they die, wins. Want to live longer than everyone else? You better work hard to exercise, eat healthy, and take care of yourself spiritually. Want to die young in a blaze of glory? Yup, you can win that way too. It's a fun game about living life, but it's a little bit too long.
Love cats and cute illustrations? Always dreamed of being a crazy cat lady who collects costumes for your feline? This is the game for you. In Cat Lady, yo uare striving to be the craziest cat lady with the most cats (don't forget to feed them!), most costumes, most catnip, and most kitty toys! Cards are set up in a 3 x 3 grid and on your turn you choose one row or column to add to your hand (toys, catnip, costumes) or play area (cats and food). After you pick a column/row, the next player cannot pick the same one (unless they have a spray bottle and can scare the wooden kitty away from blocking them). In the end you score points based on how many cats you feed (and there are many different abilities and ways each cat scores), how many toys/costumes you have, and having catnip mulitplies by the number of cats fed. Whoever scores the highest, is the craziest cat lady. This is a fun, simple to set up and play game, with cute art.
Are these first few games giving away the fact that I enjoy cute, cartoony art? Again, it's the kind of thing my wife is usually into (and come on, I like it too!). Sushi Go! is no exception. Another card drafting game, although different from Cat Lady. In this game you each start witha hand of cards, choose one, and pass the rest on. You might hope that certain cards come back to you later to get the sets that you want. Basically, the cards are these cute little anthropomorphized sushi types and you are trying to collect different sets of them to score points. Each type of sushi scores points differently (some you need exactly 2 or 3, some you need as many as possible, some you need more than everyone else, etc). Don't forget about the puddings - they don't score at each of the 3 rounds (like the other cards do), but they can get you a whopping 6 points at the end of the game if you have the most! It's a cute, silly game about collecting sushi. Since you're passing cards around to others, there is an element of screwing others over, but it really depends on your grade group.
This is a tough game because I'm not sure if it's better than 10-7 on this last, or if it's just the pure nostalgia factor. This is THE game that got my wife and I into board gaming with other couples. Some of our best friends (the godparents of our children) have played this game with us numerous times until 2 or 3 in the morning (that was the pre-children days). One of designer Uwe Rosenberg's most well known games, Bohnanza puts you in the exciting job of bean farmer! Another card collecting game, you need to "plant" beans of the same time into the same bean field. The more beans in a field, the more coins they're worth when you harvest them. Throughout the game you will need to trade beans with your fellow farmers or you'll end up harvesting before you want to. I think the enjoyment factor of this game really depends on your game group as well. If your group won't make IOU trades or just give cards freely, it's not that fun. Really going after each other takes the fun out of the game. Living life as a relaxed, generous bean farmer is much more enjoyable.
Ever wanted to be part of a good heist but didn't want to deal with the messy aftermath of jailtime or death by mob? Burgle Bros is the game for you! This is the firtst co-operative game on my list, which is crazy because I'm co-op-a-holic! In Burgle Bros, you play a team of thieves (think Oceans Eleven) trying to rob a building of some type. There are many characters to choose from and they each come with varying player powers and abilities. The buildings are arrayed in 4 x 4 (or sometimes 5 x 5) grids of tiles. As you venture through the buildings and explore these tiles, you may run into security defenses (laser sensors, heat sensors, motions sensors, cameras) or rooms that are easy to hide in (the lavatory). Beware! The guards will be chasing after you. The guard AI is very simple - a card is drawn from the guard deck that points them towards a certain tile. They move in the shortest line to get there. Once they're there, they choose a new tile to head to. You need to try and stay out of the way. If you set off an alarm, they move even faster! This is a really fun and strategic co-operative game that is great for those people who aren't into science fiction and fantasy. It has a very nostalgic art style that is really enjoyable as well.
This is a solo only game but, if you know me, you know that's perfect! There aren't too many solo only games, but this one was one of the first and best out there. In the game, you play as Friday, desperately trying to help Robinson Crusoe survive being shipwrecked on your island. This is a deckbuilding game and Crusoe starts off really awfu land stupid. No, seriously, you're starting cards say things like "stupid" and have a negative score. Well, as you face your first encounter (you have a choice between two), you find that losing is actually important. When you l ose an encounter, your health drops but you also are able to scrap those awful cards from your deck. When you win an encounter (say, a battle against cannibals), you turn that card 180 degrees and add it to your deck as a new card (say, vision - a card that gives you a good fighting score as well as the ability to look at your next three cards and change their order). Through a mixture of fighting power on the cards (the number) and card abilities, you battle through three increasingly difficulty levels of the jungle and then take on two pirate ships. This game is HARD, at least at first, but so fun. It's a deckbuilder - what's not to love???
My best board game memory of all time came playing this game. We were having a game night with our Bohnanza friends and we'd begun expanding our horizons into other games. In Flash Point, you play as a team of firefighters entering a burning building and trying to save people. You have a set number of action points (different for each type of firefighter you choose) and you spend those to move, carry out survivors, chop down walls, and extinguish smoke and flames. After each player's turn, the fire spreads through the use of dice (or dice and cards if you have the amazing Tragic Events expansion). As the fire spreads explosions take place and people can be killed. Well, that's what was happening to us during our game. We had lost a few people to the flames and the building was burning down quickly. We took a time out (which I realize you can't really do during a fire, but, we were playing a board game) and regrouped. We talked strategy, decided that we were going to use our abilities in their best way (certain firefighters are better at moving, some at putting our fires, some at carrying survivors). Then, we jumped back in and we rescued every last person in that building! It was a very satisfying moment, the most so in my board game career. There aren't too many moments that have made me feel like a hero without a sword.
This might be stretching the no-fantasy a little bit, but I don't really think so. Yes, some of the art on the tiles contains giant spiders and wizards and hobbits, but nothing about the actual gameplay is connected to fantasy (unless you have the giants expansion, which I don't). In essence, this is a tile drafting game. Each rectangular tile has two squares on it that can be one of several different landscapes - crops, fields, forests, water, caves, and swamp. You are trying to get like-landscapes grouped together and as many crowns as possible (crowns show up on some of the tiles). For each group of land that is connected, you score numbers of tiles multiplied by number of crowns. So, if you had 5 forests with 3 crowns, that's 15 points. My best score for one section 65 points - 13 forests with 5 crowns. Not too shabby! You take turns choosing tiles and whoever picked the lowest numbered tile (usually with the fewest crowns) gets to pick first next time. So, if you jump on a tile with two crowns, it's probably the highest numbered tile meaning that you'll be picking last next time. That's part of the strategy. Did I add that you need to fit these tiles in a 5x5 grid? Yes, that's part of the planning as well. This is my absolute favourite quick game to pick up. You can play a game in 15 minutes, there is lots of strategy, and the art is vibrant and stunningly beautiful. This is probably my second most played game of all time.
And now onto my most played game of all time! Whoonu will probably not show up on the BGG hotness anytime soon, but is my go to game for hanging out with new friends (and old!). Whoonu is basically Apples to Apples but instead of matching a card to another card, you match a card to a person. So, if it were my turn, players would choose a card from their hand that they think I will like the best. Do I like country or rap? Waking up early or staying up late? Ketchup? Robots? Spiders? The player then ranks the cards from most liked to least and players score points (collecting numbered chips). After everyone has had a turn, you count up your chips and see who won. This is an amazing game for getting to know new people. We just had two couples over from our new neighborhood that we had never spent time with before and we started the night with this gem. After a few rounds and many laughs (because, when someone chooses a card you don't like, you mock them relentlessly), we switched the game around. Now, you chose the card you think the player will hate the most. Equally fun, equally easy to mock. This game isn't in print anymore, but if you find it at a garage sale or for a good price on Kijiji PICK IT UP! Seriously, this game is great for getting to know people. But, I guess, if you hate people, it might not be for you...
There you have, my top ten games that are not fantasy or science fiction. I really had to think about this because I'm a giant fantasy nerd, but it was a lot of fun and a very good chance to think about myself as a gaming. Reminds me why I love this hobby so much!
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