Boardgames for Everyone - Find Your Board Game Here

In 2008, the sale of boardgames jumped 23.5% to $808 million. This may sound odd, considering that we're in a recession and all, but it seems that Americans are cluing into the fact that a Scrabble board game costs a third of the price of a new video game and can provide just as much entertainment, and more social entertainment to boot! Video game sales have been growing too, but only by about 7% each year. Given their higher cost, they're bringing in $12.4 billion annually. Families operating on tight budgets are realizing that now is a great time to set their sights on affordable family fun with some classic board games. Here are some selections for the "Best Games of 2009."
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"Considering what it would cost for four people to go to the movies, boardgames are a deal," says Toy Industry Specialist Chris Byrne. He adds that historically, recessions have never cut into the profits of family games. During World War I, the hot game was Parcheesi. During the Great Depression, the Monopoly board game won its most devoted fans. So what games are hot ticket items during today's recession? Byrne says games like Blokus, Settlers of Catan and Wits & Wagers are some of the hottest selling games for 2009. If you're looking to buy games, then here are some of this year's favorites.
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"I don't think board games are going away," says Toy Industry Specialist, Chris Byrne. "In a screen-driven world, we really need human interaction -- that is something that board games have that hasn't been replicated." Over the years, boardgames are famous for surviving economic downturns. Parcheesi and the Monopoly board game fared particularly well during wartimes, for instance. Despite the onslaught of video games and the constant stream of blockbuster movies coming out, Byrne says that many families find good, old-fashioned board games to be less expensive and even more fun.
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Whether you're having a couple of friends over, hoping to break the ice at a party, or looking for some post-dinner family entertainment, boardgames provide hours of entertainment. Looking in your closet, you notice the usual suspects: Connect-4, Operation, Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly and The Game of Life. Seems like it's time to update your game collection! As you grow older, you'll need to buy games that are more suitable for parties and group fun. You're in luck, as we've scoured the Internet awards lists, blogs, news articles and best sellers lists to find the hottest games of 2009.

According to Games Magazine, the "Best Game of the Year" is Tzaar, a game about making choices, using three different game pieces to form a trinity and force your opponent out of one type of piece. The "Best Abstract Strategy Game of the Year" is Ponte del Diavolo, which has you building stone bridges over Venice canals to score the most points. Key Harvest won the "Best Advanced Strategy Game of the Year" as you win points by placing tiles on your country board. The "Best Family Game" is Pandemic, which has you racing to cure four diseases before mankind is wiped out. The "Best Family Card Game" is called Palastgeflüster, which involves courtyard martials, kings and magicians tangled in a royal mystery. The "Best Party Game" is Go Nuts, which awards players points by rolling dice and adding up acorns. Additionally, Doris won the best of the puzzle board games and Jumbulaya won the best of the word board games.
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Writers on the site www.about.com recently weighed in on some of their favorite party boardgames and family games of the year. Scene It is a new game that teenagers particularly love that works with a DVD player, where opponents have to guess which movie different scenes are from and shout out answers to movie trivia. There are also variations like Disney Scene It, Seinfeld Scene It and Harry Potter Scene It for the devout fans. Quiddler is a fun word game that works well at teaching kids their language skills. Similarly, Scattergories is a great game for wordsmiths, where players roll an alphabet die and fill out a list based on that letter (like "Sports Teams that start with S," "School Items that start with S," or "Foods that start with S.") Cranium is an amazingly fun game that combines Pictionary drawing, Trivial Pursuit trivia, Charades and sculpting all in one. Them Versus Us is a fun game for households with two guys and two girls, since it's a battle of the sexes game.
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Sometimes the best way to find exciting new boardgames is to see what the best sellers are over at www.amazon.com; the Internet's biggest online marketplace. Currently, their top-selling boardgame is The Settlers of Catan, an award-winning strategy game that has players collecting resources to build roads, settlements and cities. Amazon calls this game "fun and engaging for both children and adults" and they say the game can be played in hundreds of different ways. Their second best selling game is Quiddler, where players are dealt point-awarded alphabet cards, which they must use to create a word with only one discard. Bananagrams is a very similar word game that doesn't require a pen or paper, doesn't take too long to play and comes in a neat banana pouch.

The 2009 American International Toy Fair in New York City introduced some great new boardgames this year. Pants on Fire (3 or more players, ages 10+) is a fun story-telling game, where a player writes brief stories about each of the three topics revealed. For example, a "bad date" or a "first job," and the other players have to guess if the story is "true or false." Another fun boardgame, Pressure Point (3 to 8 players, ages 10+) has players racing against the clock to give answers down a list of questions as quickly as possible, while other players bet on the number of correct answers they think the player will give. Masters of Venice (2 to 5 players, ages 10+) uses games strategy where players must act as 15th century Italian merchants trading spices, silks, gems, iron and grain, while playing alternate characters like thieves, harbor masters and gondoliers. Time's Up: Title Recall (4 to 8 players, ages 12+) is a fun party game that asks players to guess the famous person associated with famous books, movies, songs and albums. A new 10th anniversary edition of Time's Up has also been released this year.

You will be happy to hear Mensa has released the five winners of their 2009 Mind Boardgames competition. Their press release stated: "Mensa Select games are chosen based on a variety of categories including aesthetics, instructions, originality, play appeal and play value." Cornerstone is their favorite of the 3-D strategy building games, which challenges players to have a steady hand and clever mind. Dominion is a strategy game where players try to earn the most victory points by building the best deck including buying action, treasure and victory cards. Marrakech has everyone role-playing salesmen who are rolling dice, moving pawns and making decisions, while trying to outwit the competitors. Stratum has players layering pieces to cover their opponents. Tic-Tac-Ku is similar to Tic-Tac-Toe except that there are nine playing areas.
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The Dice Tower Game Awards has identified some of the top boardgames of 2009. Their site says, "The BEST GAME OF THE YEAR award goes to a game that is the 'cream of the crop'... this is a combined result of the games' physical presentation, strategic choices, and most of all - a sense of fun." This award goes to Agricola, Battlestar Galactica, Dominion, Pandemic and Stone Age. One of their goals is also to reward SMALL PUBLISHER awards to new up-and-coming developers who may get overlooked in the shuffle because they have five or fewer published games. This award goes to Galactic Emperor, Snow Tails, 2 de Mayo, Pizza Box Baseball and Tinner's Trail. Even more cutting edge is the NEW DESIGNER award given to someone with just one or two hits published, including Ghost Stories, Timber Tom, Dominion and Conflict of Heroes. BEST GAME REPRINTS were awarded to Formula D, Chinatown, Chicago Express, Cosmic Encounter and Talisman. Some of the MOST INNOVATIVE games to come out this year are Android, Battlestar Galactica, Dominion, Snow Tails and Space Alert. BEST FAMILY GAMES include: Formula D, Pandemic, Say Anything, Sorry Sliders and Stone Age.
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According to www.squidoo.com writers, the best of the 2009 boardgames is Cranium, a new hot-selling game with a number of expansion packs and subsequent editions. There are four card decks with a typical Cranium game; one that has you sketching or sculpting with clay; one that has you humming, whistling, impersonating a famous person or playing charades; one that acts like a trivia board game; and one that has you unscrambling words, spelling words backwards, guessing definitions and filling in the blanks. Other top games of the year include Scattergories (a word game), Monopoly Deluxe (classic board game), Malarky (a bluffing game), Wise & Otherwise (word game), Pictionary (drawing game), 25 Words or Less: People, Places, Things (word game), If... Questions For The Game of Life (party game) and Loaded Questions (party game).

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Boardgames for Everyone - Find Your Board Game Here

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