Now that summer is fading into fall and there’s less time to be outside in the sunshine enjoying the best type of games, lawn games, people are starting to think about hunkering down for the long, cold, worst months ahead, pondering alternative, indoor diversions like board games. Here is a ranking of the best ones:
Playing board games at holiday gatherings, parties, or anywhere else should be fun. It usually isn’t, because the most popular party games are awful.
In her book The Monopolists, Mary Pilon explores the secret origins of the game Monopoly, which begin with Lizzie Magie, a forgotten feminist who patented her Landlord's Game in 1904—not, as many think, a man during the Great Depression.
The Wall Street Journal's Kevin Clark, who has been pumping out fun, off-color NFL stories all year, has another good one today. It's all about how a handful of Green Bay Packers got hooked on Settlers of Catan, the board game that all of your buddies who are bearded craft-beer enthusiasts are addicted to.
1. Oranges
Everybody knows how to play Jenga, right? The word "Jenga" is Swahili for "build," and the purpose of the game is to pull a brick from the base of the structure and add it to the top without making the whole thing topple over.
Yesterday a reader and I theorized that the Orange properties were the best monopoly to own in Monopoly. And now a scientician has proven us RIGHT!
Chris Haney, the Canadian photographer who invented Trivial Pursuit, passed away at the age of 59. So that's who to blame for all those times you needed an orange pie piece and got stuck with a question about mixology. [Globe&Mail]
