When people think geeks and gaming, they often associate the name with video games. But what a great many onlookers don’t realize is that many board games also have factored into our utter geek fandom. In other words, when not controlling pixels or polygons, these games are the next place you were likely to find us, gathered around a table, Mountain Dew in hand. Here are 10 board games, card games, and tabletop games that geeks just love.
Warning: video below contains a large amount of f bombs and shouting.
A board game that is so famous and well known among geeks, it has gotten expansions. It is a strategy game and one that has amassed a MASSIVE (and sometimes famous) following. Can’t mention nerd games and not mention this one first.
Watch the win above to see just how gratifying a game it can be to win.
You can argue that tabletop games are not board games, but they are. You lay something on the table, and you have little figures that represent you. Even if most of the gaming goes on within the mind, without the tabletop map, figures, and dice, it wouldn’t exist.
Also, if there is THE nerd game beside the one mentioned above, it is D&D and shall remain forever so. All hail the show Community for their AWESOME D&D episodes.
Say what you want about this game being mainstream and I should have brought up the Game of Thrones board game here or something. Nah, games like that would not exist had not Risk laid out the groundwork first (and many, many years ago). A board game about world domination that people play feverishly for hours (and sometimes days)?
Only a non-nerd would’ve skipped Risk. Risk set the tone for many of the games you see now of a similar ilk.
Sort of like Dungeons and Dragons with less imagination, with some elements of some other famous nerd games interspersed, Hero Quest is made even cooler when you realize it was born from the “Warhammer” fictional universe. A universe that still has legs today.
Plus, with a name like Hero Quest, they knew nerds wouldn’t be able to avoid it.
Some people may want to scream hogwash and ask why a game with a sloppy license thrown on it isn’t here. Don’t you realize, Clue is pure geekery. You use deductive reasoning to figure out who murdered someone. While it may be disguised as a mystery, this is a game that would not exist had nerds and geeks not embraced it and made it as beloved as it is today.
Also, can I mention the BRILLIANT Clue movie? Used that video for a reason.
A classic, D&D style game, but played in Victorian era with your enemies being very much based off the work of horror author H.P Lovecraft. Where many of the above mentioned games were player versus player, Arkham Horror makes you work together with a team to fend out whatever horrific beast or gothic terror you are facing off against.
Very creepy and atmospheric, and definitely a must-play for nerds.
More of a card game, but I will put it here to ease the troubled minds of the geeks who may feel the urge to take to our page and mention this glaring omission. It is essentially like Magic the Gathering but with focus more on the strategy and infrastructure than magic and dragons. Speaking of which…
I wanted to save this and the above game for a piece on collectible card games, but it seems the risk of catching heat for the omission is stronger than the need for them to have their own list. If you are on this site, you know enough about Magic the Gathering that I don’t actually need to tell you about this massive, nerd devouring game.
Who doesn’t want to be involved with solving the problem of a massive disease wiping out mankind? Well, I don’t, as that seems awful lofty, but based on the popularity of this board game, many do. Pandemic places you in ultimately what is the scariest and most realistic scenario of all the above mentioned games. You need to save the world. While that sounds cliche’, this time it is from a terrible disease and not dragons or poor infrastructure. What’s so cool about Pandemic is it’s a lot like D&D in the sense that it works best as a co-op game.
Pokemon
‘Nuff said.
So what is your favorite table top, collectible card or board games? Take to our comment thread below and let us know! They might just make it onto a second list.
[image via Reccess.net]
Tags: board games, clue, feature, Games, games nerds, geeks, list, nerd games, nerds, original feature, original list, risk, settlers