Oh I so wanted to buy Ubongo a few weeks ago but my husband prefered a catan game. Is it a nice game?

Sibylle

Okay, it's not just because I live here but that Louis XIV looks darn cool!

How funny - the Australia game is made in Germany and I've never heard of it (I'm an Aussie) and I like my board games - have you ever played 'Squatter' ? That's a true-blue aussie game about sheep stations

I love board games but I obviously don't have quite the selection that some do. I think the Ticket To Ride looks fun :)

We played Ticket To Ride: Europe recently - some fun differences (apart from the fact the map is in Europe!) from the original game.

and... Did you meet Pevans???! Enquiring minds want to know!

Timothy

Sounds like so much fun. I love funagain games! All of our favorite games have come from there. I don't have any of the ones you listed so I am going to go check them out!

My husband has been obsessed with "Ticket to Ride" now for months. Online gaming, playing during his lunch breaks, begging me to play in the evenings when I'd rather be KNITTING. Looks like you had a great time, what did you do with the boys while you played?

It sounds like a lot of you are gamers. I would like to get our friends into board and card games, but a lot of these games sound complicated. Any suggestions for a good game to ease my husband and his friends into this hobby? To give you an idea of where we are, my husband is a wicked Spades player and is just starting to get the hang of different dominoes variations.

Hey all, thanks for tolerating my little content switcheroo. For those who are curious, I was at the Gathering of Friends, which is an invite-only "convention" of German/Euro-games enthusiasts organized by game designer, Alan Moon (author of Elfenland, Union Pacific and Ticket to Ride, among others).

Ticket to Ride is lots of fun and I like the Europe version a lot too. Ubongo was a riot, with everyone trying to do the little Tetris-y puzzles as fast as they can and screaming "Ubongo!" It was my husband and not me who played Louix XIV, so I can't share any personal experience with it, but it got a lot of plays all week, so it must have been pretty good. Jambo was another one that I heard great things about but didn't get a chance to play. Everyone I talked to who played it loved it.

If you're trying to convert people over to the EuroGame scence, the best place to start is with Settlers of Catan (1995's German Game of the Year), which really started the big explosion in Germany and America. It's loads of fun and isn't complicated or intimidating at all. Another good one is Carcasonne, which won game of the year a couple of years ago and is also a great starter game with simple rules, but a lot of tactical possibilities. If you're looking for a fun card game, try Wyatt Earp, which is a "western outlaw" themed rummy game. Check www.funagain.com for these games and tons of others. Have fun getting started!

Sounds ilke a lot of fun! So cool that Ticket to Ride has a Europe version, we liked the US one. Another site for gamers: www.boardgamegeek.com rates games, shares photos, etc. (I'm wendymc there)

Wow! Seems like I need to start a new blogring - knitters who play boardgames :) (or boardgamers who knit)

Doh, I never answered the questions about what the boys were doing while we played games. The gaming area is "no children allowed", so hubby and I traded off days and nights. I was out with the boys during the day and he stayed up in the room with them in the evenings. Someday they'll be old enough to play all these awesome games with us!

I just want to second the recommendations for Settlers of Catan and Carcasonne. Those are our favorite two! There can be a lot of rules to learn for some of these games, but our son has been playing these two with us since he was about 10 and even my mother loves Carcasonne. Ticket to Ride, Europe is on my wish list, along with another Carcasonne expansion set or two.

My boyfriend and i are keen game players and we have played many of the ones mentioned above. My current favourite is memoir 44 i think its really good fun, what did you think of it? Its nice to see that there are so many people out there with such a keen interest in boardgames. Perhaps there is some link between knitting and boardgame geeks!

Emily, I liked Memoir 44 a lot. I really enjoyed Battle Cry, so I was excited to try this out. It's interesting that there are different kids of units in this one and lots of the cards seem to work better. I do have a little more of a problem with the theme though. The Civil War seems more distant and less awful, horrible than WWII to me. Not that any war is anything but awful and horrible, but it seems as our technology progesses, our wars have become more inhumane and brutal. Frankly, I'm surprised to find myself able to play any sort of "war game" since I'm pretty anti-war, but I definitely enjoy the structure of the game and some of the historical aspects. One way I deal with the theme is that I usually try to play "the bad guys" so I don't have to feel so bad when I lose. ;0)