Hot Summer Games

Dateline: 07/11/99

Summer's here -- and when it gets too hot or too wet outside, the best shelter is shelter with board games. But what board games should you have on hand?

One mark of a game's greatness is it's replay value -- which can be measured in whether you would take it along with you if you were headed to a desert island for an indefinite length of time. So far, 15 visitors to this site have shared their top five Desert Island Board Games.

Here then, to help you stock your game shelves for summer days that need to be lived indoors, are the most popular picks. Interestingly, an ancient game (chess) and a very modern one (Settlers of Catan) each check in with six votes; the next set of games (Diplomacy, relatively modern, and Go, another ancient classic) had four votes each.

Chess (6 votes)

David Dunbar, About.com's Chess Guide: "For my five games, I'd bring five chess sets, since I'd hope to convert everyone else on the island into chess fans and hold a tournament. Chess is sublime -- a wonderful creation of the human imagination that combines elements of sport, art, and science in a totally addictive package." (Note that for purposes of calculating vote totals, David's five chess sets only counted as one vote.)

Tyler W. Brooks: "Chess is my favorite game. ... The game is easy to learn, yet there are many strategies."

Settlers of Catan (6)

Mike Petrucelli: "Yes, yes, everyone loves this game. But there's a reason for that. A constantly changing board, as well as a good helping of strategy and deep thinking, should keep the dehydration hallucinations at bay."

Jeff Tidball: "Incredible replay value; durable pieces... great game."

Diplomacy (4)

Scott P. Duncan: "Perhaps the best pure multi-player game."

Jeff Tidball: "The problem with Diplomacy is that you've never got enough time to play. On a desert island, you're trying to kill time! The other players would have to be pleasant enough to get along even after a game of Diplomacy, but part of the instructions for the exercise are to ignore any problems posed by the other players, so..."

Go (4)

Lee Edwards: "The deepest and most esthetically pleasing board game."

Brian O'Neil: "Th(is) classic territory-building game ... is perhaps the most difficult-to-master game of all time."

El Grande (3)

Andy Merritt: "Lots of decisions, lots of thinking, and plenty of scope for really clever moves, while there is enough restriction in what you can do at any time to keep the game flowing. A must have."

Greg J. Schloesser: "Simply the best strategy game in recent memory. Always a challenge with agonizing decisions to be made on each and every turn."

Euphrat & Tigris (3)

Ronald Hoekstra: "Very good tile-laying game which I would be happy to play more often."

Brian O'Neil: "There are so many fine Reiner Knizia games to choose from (Modern Art, Medici, Samurai, and the list goes on) that it was hard to pick just this one -- but alas, such is the nature of preparing to be stranded on a desert island. Knizia's games are well-known for their elegance, and even his simplest games like Flinke Pinke (aka Quandry) have an amazing depth to them. But with so much time available to play, the more ambitious and complex Euphrat & Tigris is my clear choice."

Reversi/Othello (3)

Tyler W. Brooks: "Othello is a great game for relaxing. It keeps you occupied without much thought required, though logic is definitely good to have."

Lee Edwards: "Refreshing, whimsical, paradoxical, and delightfully counter-intuitive."

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