Top Board Games for Fall Fun!

Oct. 9, 2015

WHAT STICKS

Some table games age so well they never go out of style. Beyond chess and checkers — two of the enduring basics — there are several games ideal to have in your household stock to accommodate impromptu gaming sessions.

Amazon’s top-selling table games include Monopoly, Battleship, The Game of Life and Trivial Pursuit. Then there’s Scrabble, the classic word-building game that just won’t die; it’s said that one-third of American homes have a Scrabble set. The game is produced in 29 languages and sold in 121 countries. It’s a favorite of club and tournament play and has even been the focus of two daytime TV game shows.

WHAT’S NEW

If you’re looking for something new, there’s plenty to choose from, with more table games being developed every year and showcased at places like Gen Con, the Indianapolis tabletop gaming convention.

This year’s Gen Con featured a host of new games, several of which have already broken out in gaming stores nationwide.

Vault Wars is similar to the TV show Storage Wars — if it took place in a fantasy universe where the contents being auctioned off belonged to slain heroes. Will you bid for gold or old dwarven junk? You’ll only find out when you actually get into your vault.

Sapiens is a domino-style game set in caveman times. Up to four players install tiles in a modular board, collecting food points and seeking caves, but it’s not as easy as it sounds, since your fellow players — uh, cavemen — can block your path — with bears.

Zombies are still big news, with shows like The Walking Dead keeping their legs; Dead of Winter is the perfect new board game to keep up with the trend and fit in with the change of seasons. It’s played on two levels. Players work together as a team and also trying to fulfill one secret individual objective. The main goal is to battle zombies, but with everyone able to sabotage everyone else, that’s never simple.

This year’s movie themed games include the wildly anticipated Aliens vs. Predator: The Hunt Begins, a skirmish tabletop wargame with game pieces for one or more players (no pals around? Yes, you can fight on your own!).

WHAT’S FESTIVE

Andy Bultman definitely knows table games. He’s owned the Rocking Horse Toy Companies in Harbor Springs and Petoskey for 34 years and he’s got a few favorites as far as what’s selling in his stores.

Good for the season’s worth of holiday parties are games that encourage lots of banter, friendly arguments and action. Bultman suggests a few games in particular that work well with groups of friends.

“Spot It and Ring It are both great cardmatching games,” he said. “Spot It is really fast and Ring It is from the same company; I think Ring It will be really big this fall and winter. It adds a bell that you have to bang on as you’re making your matches.”

Bultman also suggests the dice game Tenzi, which can be played by four to six people.

“Tenzi involves different colored sets of 10 dice,” he explained. “It’s kind of like a variation of Yahtzee, but faster and with a lot more noise and dice flying all over the place!” Amanda Smith, manager of Toy Harbor in Traverse City, also seconds Tenzi.

“That one’s great,” she said, “super fast, plus it’s easy for a wide range of people to play.”

WHAT’S LOCAL

Also popular at Toy Harbor are a few difficult-to-find card games: one called Wizard, which Smith said is like a combination of Euchre and Hearts, with added strategy and betting, and Dutch Blitz, a four-deck card game popular among the Dutch and Amish communities.

“We have a lot of people coming in specifically to get that game,” Smith said.

Ticket to Ride is a big favorite at Rocking Horse.

“You’re basically traveling across the board and you have to ‘build’ your trip with card draws from one end to the other,” Bultman explained. “It’s very, very popular. We have both the U.S. and the European editions.”

Bultman and Smith are both Catan advocates, too.

“It’s a lot like those building videogames that are so popular now, but as a board game; you have to build and defend your territory,” Bultman said. “That one’s a steady seller for mostly adults and teens, and there are even local groups that hold Catan nights.”

One of Smith’s biggest sellers is a locallymade game called CAMP, from Education Outdoors in Eastport.

“It’s a really fun board game with some trivia, mostly facts about wildlife and the outdoors. I think the reason it’s so popular here is that it has all the things in it that make northern Michigan unique,” she said.

Top Games in Petoskey

1. Spot It
2. Settlers of Catan
3. Ticket to Ride
4. Mancala
5. Tenzi

Top Games in Traverse City

1. Settlers of Catan
2. Camp
3. Wizard
4. Tenzi
5. Dutch Blitz

*Compiled from an informal poll of local toy store owners.