In 2008, the sale of boardgames jumped 23.5% to 8 million. This may sound odd, considering that we’re in a recession and all, but it seems that Americans are cluing into the fact that a Scrabble board game costs a third of the price of a new video game and can provide just as much entertainment, and more social entertainment to boot! Video game sales have been growing too, but only by about 7% each year. Given their higher cost, they’re bringing in .4 billion annually. Families operating on tight budgets are realizing that now is a great time to set their sights on affordable family fun with some classic board games. Here are some selections for the “Best Games of 2009.”
Sometimes the best way to find exciting new boardgames is to see what the best sellers are over at www.amazon.com; the Internet’s biggest online marketplace. Currently, their top-selling boardgame is The Settlers of Catan, an award-winning strategy game that has players collecting resources to build roads, settlements and cities. Amazon calls this game “fun and engaging for both children and adults” and they say the game can be played in hundreds of different ways. Their second best selling game is Quiddler, where players are dealt point-awarded alphabet cards, which they must use to create a word with only one discard. Bananagrams is a very similar word game that doesn’t require a pen or paper, doesn’t take too long to play and comes in a neat banana pouch.
The 2009 American International Toy Fair in New York City introduced some great new boardgames this year. Pants on Fire (3 or more players, ages 10+) is a fun story-telling game, where a player writes brief stories about each of the three topics revealed. For example, a “bad date” or a “first job,” and the other players have to guess if the story is “true or false.” Another fun boardgame, Pressure Point (3 to 8 players, ages 10+) has players racing against the clock to give answers down a list of questions as quickly as possible, while other players bet on the number of correct answers they think the player will give. Masters of Venice (2 to 5 players, ages 10+) uses games strategy where players must act as 15th century Italian merchants trading spices, silks, gems, iron and grain, while playing alternate characters like thieves, harbor masters and gondoliers. Time’s Up: Title Recall (4 to 8 players, ages 12+) is a fun party game that asks players to guess the famous person associated with famous books, movies, songs and albums. A new 10th anniversary edition of Time’s Up has also been released this year.
The Dice Tower Game Awards has identified some of the top boardgames of 2009. Their site says, “The BEST GAME OF THE YEAR award goes to a game that is the ‘cream of the crop’… this is a combined result of the games’ physical presentation, strategic choices, and most of all - a sense of fun.” This award goes to Agricola, Battlestar Galactica, Dominion, Pandemic and Stone Age. One of their goals is also to reward SMALL PUBLISHER awards to new up-and-coming developers who may get overlooked in the shuffle because they have five or fewer published games. This award goes to Galactic Emperor, Snow Tails, 2 de Mayo, Pizza Box Baseball and Tinner’s Trail. Even more cutting edge is the NEW DESIGNER award given to someone with just one or two hits published, including Ghost Stories, Timber Tom, Dominion and Conflict of Heroes. BEST GAME REPRINTS were awarded to Formula D, Chinatown, Chicago Express, Cosmic Encounter and Talisman. Some of the MOST INNOVATIVE games to come out this year are Android, Battlestar Galactica, Dominion, Snow Tails and Space Alert. BEST FAMILY GAMES include: Formula D, Pandemic, Say Anything, Sorry Sliders and Stone Age.
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