With everybody home, some of us in more crowded conditions than we’re used to and all of us feeling cut off from a lot of our social activities, I want to talk board games.
Wickeds, tell us–
What was your favorite board game as a child?
Edith/Maddie: Clue, because I could sneak looks at my siblings’ score sheets and add to my own knowledge. When my older sisters accused me of cheating, I told them the whole point was to be a detective. No surprise I now write crime fiction.
Liz: Clue was mine too! My dad and I played it all the time, and I remember when it came out as a video game. Loved it. Monopoly too!
Jessie: I was never a huge board game person but I did like Scotland Yard, a detective game.
Julie: Jessie, I’ve never heard of Scotland yard, but would have loved it. I had different games for different eras. Trouble was a favorite, Clue (of course) and Masterpiece.
Barb: My family wouldn’t play Clue with me because I always won. My favorite game was Monopoly.
What is your favorite game as an adult and why?
Edith/Maddie: It’s not exactly a board game, but I have to say Wise and Otherwise, where each person makes up the end to an international proverb and tries to bluff against the real ending.
Sherry: I still love the original version of Trivial Pursuits — I’m not that good at it, but have always loved trivia games. I also like Rummickub — I need to pull it out of the stack of games in the basement.
Liz: I still love my old favorites, although I recently discovered a really fun game called Mysterium. It’s kind of like Clue but the ghost talks to you!
Jessie: I love a game that I play with one of my sons called Quip Qubes. It is a sentence building game made of dice with words printed on each side. You try to make the longest sentence possible with the multiple dice in each roll. My son and I are very loose with any grammar rules and instead try to create the most poetic or imaginative or simply the most ridiculous sentences. We write them down in a small notebook with each turn and have a delightful record of play going back for several years.
Julie: Liz, we’ll need to play Mysterium at the next Wicked retreat! All of these games sound like fun. And Sherry, my friend Amy has tried to get us all to play Rummickub for years. I live Trivial Pursuit, but Apples to Apples is a favorite these days, since everyone can play.
Barb: Yes, definitely Mysterium at the next retreat. My favorite game as an adult by far is Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. The board is a map of London. The players work collaboratively to solve a mystery consulting clues all over the city. We used to vacation with friends and I have such happy memories of playing it on summer nights.
The board game I won’t play no matter how much people beg me is:
Edith/Maddie: Risk. Just…no. Everyone is out to get me. Which is literally true!
Sherry: Scrabble — I still have trauma from playing it with my older sister and getting beaten so badly.
Liz: I still can’t play Cribbage.
Jessie: I don’t know how to play cribbage either, Liz! I guess I will play just about anything if I am able to knit between turns!
Julie: Jessie and Liz, I’ll teach you how to play Cribbage. My grandfather taught me. I haven’t played in years, but love it. I won’t play Cards Against Humanity. It just sounds…mean. But lots of people I know love it.
Barb: Any version of Trivial Pursuit aside from the original. I am a purist. ( I would like to get in on that Cribbage lesson, btw.)
I think the prettiest board for a board game is:
Edith/Maddie: Scrabble. So simple and elegant. Plus…words.
Sherry: I think the old tin Chinese Checkers games were pretty even though we never had one. Also, Candyland — it was so cherry and hopeful.
Liz: Oh, Candyland was another of my favorites!! I also love the Chutes and Ladders board.
Jessie: It isn’t really a board game but I love my Mah jongg set! All of the carved pieces are just lovely.
Sherry: Liz, I almost said Chutes and Ladders — it was a fun board and game.
Julie: Did any of you play Masterpiece? I barely remember how, but do remember reusing some of the paintings in my Barbie house between games.
Barb: Julie, I can just see the pictures in your Barbie house. I have to agree with Edith on Scrabble. My mother-in-law had a beautiful edition.
Readers: Same questions to you!
My favorite as a child was “Sorry.” Grew to like Monopoly, and still like it, but it takes forever to play it. My all-time favorite is Camelot. Notice that they’re all Parker Brothers games? My dad worked there and we got a discount! BTW, the newest book in my Witch City mystery series, “Murder, Take Two,” features the great game of Clue prominently!
Lucky you, Carol!
Monopoly…hands down. Scrabble #2. Clue would have been #2 by it it wasn’t yet created back in the day.
I used to lose miserably at Monopoly to my older sisters. Right before I went bankrupt, I would change all my money to ones just to feel richer!
What was your favorite board game as a child?
Sorry and Trouble
What is your favorite game as an adult and why?
Bananagrams – it’s a fun game to play with a group
The board game I won’t play no matter how much people beg me is:
Twister
I think the prettiest board for a board game is:
Most were unique in their design – but if I had to pick, Chutes and Ladder
I love Banagrams, Dru. And Twister as board game stretches the definition, methinks!
We loved playing Monopoly (I was usually the banker) and Clue when I was a kid. We also had a bought game that had like BINGO cards but the spaces were cards. You shuffled the cards and each player picked a card and everyone got to put a chip on it if you had that card. Just like BINGO you could say before starting if it was a full card game, straight line game or maybe a diagonal line game. The first one to get that requirement won but instead of yelling BINGO you yelled the name of the game which right now completely slips my mind. We also had a homemade marble game that my Dad made. It was a piece of board painted with four starting places, entry places and home places. The idea was to race around the board and get your four marbles from starting place to the safety of home without being knocked of and sent back to start. I still have these last two games but they are buried in a big chest. This post reminds me and I need to dig them out. Thanks!
2clowns at arkansas dot net
How lovely that you still have these games. The marble one sounds fantastic!
I played Monopoly as a child, and like playing Scrabble as an adult. I won’t play Trivial Pursuit since I do not keep up with recent pop culture. And I agree with Sherry that the Chinese checkers game board is the prettiest. We had one in our family.
I used to keep up with pop culture and now I’m all, “Who even is that?”
I have great memories of my mom setting up the card table in the “TV room”. Every kid in the neighborhood would come (this was in Ohio winter’s). We’d play Monopoly for hours. In the evening everyone got called home for supper. The board stayed up and we started again the next day. Sometimes a game went on for days! The one I won’t play is Risk. Only played as an adult and we fought constantly about the rules. My last time one guy got so angry he threw the board and all up in the air. The adults were much worse than us kids!
Adults can be way more intense about games than kids.
1. Loved Clue. And Scotland Yard. And my father and I played Trivial Pursuit.
2. I still like Clue. We broke out Scotland Yard when I was up with my sister and that’s still fun. And I’m always up for a game of Trivial Pursuit. I also like a game called Dominion, which is not played with a board, it’s cards. I’m not very good at it, but I like it. Unfortunately, no one else in my house does. I played one with some co-workers called Ticket to Ride and that was fun.
3. I’m with Edith – Risk. Just…no. And oddly, Scrabble. I stink. Math and words should not mix.
4. Candyland is indeed cheery. And the cards for Dominion are beautiful.
“Math and words should not mix.” LOL
As a kid, I loved Monopoly and Clue. Monopoly was pretty easy to play by yourself, too, so I would. (My brother was seven years younger than me, so we couldn’t always play games together, at least not at the same level.)
Rummikub is my mom’s favorite, so we play it a lot. I also enjoy Wise and Otherwise, although it’s been a long time since I played that.
I’m not a fan of Qwirkle, mainly because of how long it takes my mom to take a turn. We are always waiting on her. It’s boring.
We have many “arguments” about how long it takes people to take their turns, especially during Scrabble where we do resort to the hourglass thingie.
1. Didn’t play board games much as a child. Relatives would get me one for Christmas or birthday but my grandmother was more a card player. Great memories of playing Fish!
2. As an upper teen the board game, Aggravation, was super fun with Grandma and I loved so much I purchased one years later from a thrift shop. Later, I loved (Original) Trivial Pursuit, Aggravation, Clue, Yahtzee, and Scrabble. Unfortunately, divorce and moving made all my board games disappear.
3. Risk. Never again.
4. I think the Candyland game was the prettiest.
Wow! Risk is not a popular game with this crowd.
Being an only child, I never had anyone to play board games with. My parents weren’t board game players. I guess I must have played with someone because I remember being relatively good at Monopoly, but it took so long to play that friends could never stay that long!
As an adult, my husband and use to play Parcheesi, but somehow we got away from it.
But my parents and I would play 3-handed rummy a lot. Later, I learned Euchre. Yes, it’s possible to play it 3-handed, also.
I can’t believe it’s taken this long for someone to mention Parcheesi. I had forgotten it entirely but played for hours as a child and with my own kids.
As children we played Michigan poker and loved it. Spades, hearts, parcheesi and scrabble. I played
Monopoly, trouble, and lots of card games with my girls and they liked Michigan poker as well! I play bridge and sometimes shanghai with my bridge buddies ! We tried Mexican train dominoes the last time we went on a weekend trip and that was fun as well! I love any games but am better at word ones than math ones. Oh and we played Quiddler for awhile. It’s fun
I don’t think I know what Michigan poker is.
I played a lot of Monopoly as a child but rarely won. Candyland always seemed so beautiful to me, and I was jealous of other kids’ sets. Nowadays, we play Sorry! as a family and, though not strictly board games, Exploding Kittens and Telestrations.
I had to look Exploding Kittens up!
I don’t know about a board being pretty so I’m going to skip that question.
As a kid, we played lots of games. There was Sorry, Trouble, Clue, Candyland, Checkers, Chess, Life, Scrabble and Monopoly. But my favorite was Risk. Because as one who dreamt of world domination as a career choice, what better practice than destroying everyone else in the game and taking over that world? We loved Trivial Pursuit when that came out as well. And though they weren’t board games, we loved card games like UNO and War, Rummy and Go Fish.
As an adult, I don’t play board games anymore. I don’t have kids or close by nephews or nieces so I am not drawn into endless games with them. And I don’t know any adults that have game nights. The closest I come is taking part in trivia nights at my favorite local restaurant where I’m part of a team that dominates the competition most weeks. Before it got cancelled due to the pandemic, we’d won 7 out of 10 weeks to kick off 2020. The team has won at least 75 times over the last year plus.
I am so impressed with your trivia team. I know a lot of trivia, but I’m not sure I could retrieve it under pressure.
I played most of the same games as a kid and we played board games with our son all the time.. Because my “office” is in my son’s old room; on the top two shelves of the book shelf beside me are Clue, Stop Thief, Mystery Mansion, Scotland Yard, Why, Fu Manchu’s Hidden Hoard, as well as more traditional children’s games. We don’t play Scrabble any more because my son was on a team and is a shark. We also won’t play Monopoly with my husband because he is a shark and gloats a lot. My grandmother was a card player, too, so I learned to play Canasta, Pinocle, and Cribbage before I was 10 years old. Clue was my favorite growing up and we drew secret passages between the rooms so we didn’t have to take so long to get clues. Merrily
Oh my gosh I loved reading about all the games! I grew up with 10 brothers and sisters and we played games all the time! Clue, Sorry, Aggravation and Risk were favorites. We played a lot of card games.
My gran & I played cards double solatire, cribbage,
She also had a real old Bingo game we would taken out for. Special and we would play that. Password. Like the TV show
Is fun. We have monopoly and lift kid board games and card games like old maid, crazy eights…
Husband & so have been sick 😷for weeks feel ok a few hours then coughing & aching sore throat wiped out😯 just can’t do.anything..🤒😷 let the child on the computer🙄 glad we are home🌷
Kathy levernier
Gkathgoldin@yahoo.com