Top 10 Board Games of 2010

2010's crop of new board games included themes for just about everyone: We were treated to games about painting a cathedral ceiling, exploring monster-filled dungeons, running a busy Chinese restaurant, drafting the U.S. constitution, solving a murder, and much more. It was another great year for gamers.

Here are my picks for the 10 best board games published in 2010. What do you think were the best new board games of 2010? Please share your thoughts here!

You might also be interested in my picks for the best card games of 2010 and the best easy-to-find games of 2010.

Image courtesy of Queen GamesFor 2 to 4 players, ages 10 and up. Designed by Wolfgang Panning, Marco Ruskowski and Marcel Süsselbeck, published by Queen Games.
In this excellent family strategy game, players are artisans who work to restore the fresco in a Renaissance church. With the help of five workers, players plan each day by choosing from such tasks as buying paints in the market, mixing paints to create additional colors, restoring part of the fresco, and painting portraits. The first decision you make each day is when to start work -- an earlier time has benefits but also causes workers to be less productive due to lack of sleep. Fresco is a beautiful, engaging board game.

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Board and Card Games Timeline

Games have existed in some form throughout human history, but only have been commercially published with the goal of selling them to a wide audience since the 1800s. These are my picks for the most culturally and historically significant games published since 1800.

If you prefer, you can also experience this list as a 14-week series of free email newsletters. A daily version is also available.

1800 - 1849

1850 - 1899 1900 - 1919 1920 - 1939 1940-1949 1950 - 1959 1960 - 1969 1970 - 1979 1980 - 1989 1990 - 1999 2000 - present Honorable Mentions

The games on the Honorable Mentions list didn't make it into the Top 50 for various reasons, but deserve to be mentioned as culturally and historically significant modern games.

Games by Publisher

The games listed here are also listed on a separate page organized by game publisher.

It goes without saying that this list is subjective. It was written with an admitted U.S. bias. If you think I've missed an important game or included one that shouldn't be there, please post a note in the About.com Board and Card Games Forum.

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Best Board Games of the 2000s

Remarkably, traditional board games are thriving even as electronic games become more and more sophisticated. Today's board games are better and more diverse than ever, with games suitable for everyone from players who just want to relax and laugh to those who seek deep strategic challenges. Here are my picks for the best board games published from 2000 through 2009.

What do you think were the best board games of the 2000s? Share your thoughts here.

Image courtesy of Rio Grande GamesFor 3 to 5 players, ages 12 and up. Designed by Andreas Seyfarth, published by Rio Grande Games.
Players compete to run successful plantations, growing corn, coffee, sugar, tobacco and indigo. On each turn, players choose from several roles (such as the mayor, builder, or captain), and each role gives them different abilities. The goal is to use these abilities to construct buildings and ship goods efficiently, becoming the player to earn the most victory points. Puerto Rico won the 2002 Deutscher Spiele Preis, the 2002 International Gamers Award for Multi-Player Strategy Game, and a 2002 Meeples Choice Award. It was also my pick as the best board game of 2002. The card game version, San Juan, is also excellent.

View the original article here

Board and Card Games Timeline

Games have existed in some form throughout human history, but only have been commercially published with the goal of selling them to a wide audience since the 1800s. These are my picks for the most culturally and historically significant games published since 1800.

If you prefer, you can also experience this list as a 14-week series of free email newsletters. A daily version is also available.

1800 - 1849

1850 - 1899 1900 - 1919 1920 - 1939 1940-1949 1950 - 1959 1960 - 1969 1970 - 1979 1980 - 1989 1990 - 1999 2000 - present Honorable Mentions

The games on the Honorable Mentions list didn't make it into the Top 50 for various reasons, but deserve to be mentioned as culturally and historically significant modern games.

Games by Publisher

The games listed here are also listed on a separate page organized by game publisher.

It goes without saying that this list is subjective. It was written with an admitted U.S. bias. If you think I've missed an important game or included one that shouldn't be there, please post a note in the About.com Board and Card Games Forum.

View the original article here

Determining a Board Game's Value

Determining the value of a particular board game can be a tricky proposition. It's certainly more of an art than a science.

Many factors need to be taken into consideration, including the age of the game, how rare it is, what condition the box and playing pieces are in, and what market it's being sold in. (What I mean by what market it's being sold in is best illustrated by this example: Fireball Island can sell for less than $5 at a thrift store, but it can go for $50 or more at an online auction.)

How rare a game is generally determines the value of a game more so that its age. Monopoly sets from the 1950s generally are not worth much at all, because there are so many of them available.

Meanwhile, a seller on eBay turned down $700 (in December 1999) for a copy of the 1963 Hasbro Creature from the Black Lagoon game, one that's much less common. (The seller also claimed another copy of the game had sold elsewhere for $1500.) Other interesting prices on eBay: Roy Rogers Rodeo Board Game (1949), $280; Blade Runner Board Game (1982), $305; Hasbro's Merry Milkman (1955), $127. The rare 3M game Jati always fetches top dollar at eBay.

So how do you go about figuring out how much your game is worth?

Price guides are a good place to start, and the best one I've found is Bruce Whitehill's American Boxed Games and Their Makers, 1822-1992. It's an encyclopedic work required for any serious collector. In addition to pricing information, it includes many related topics, including tips on how to store your games and a chapter about the game industry during the 1900s. Another good choice is Board Games: With Price Guide by Desi Scarpone.

Another good way to develop an estimate of your game's value is to search eBay's completed auctions. Doing so will give you listings of prices that were offered for board games at previous auctions, but keep in mind that not every transaction ended in an actual purchase.

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