Wicketz - the Cricket board game

This cricket board game has been around for many years and has been called, “The most authentic cricket board game ever” (at least by them!).

Produced by RDA Marketing, Wicketz is a cricket board game played on a standard square board with a circular cricket pitch divided into sections. There are two spinners, one for bowling and one to determine out/not out. The other components are a large pack of batting cards, the sight-screens and the player figurines which include the fielders, batsmen and umpires.

The basics of the game are easy to pick up. The bowling side places the fielders into sections of the field and then spins the bowling indicator to produce a delivery - some are good deliveries and some are poor. The batsmen then uses this information to decide which type of shot to play. There are nine attacking shots in various directions, or four defensive shots. Once he has announced his shot, the batsman turns over the top batting card, and reads the results. Depending on the type of ball, the type of shot, and the field placings, there is a chance of runs, or a wicket. If the player is called out, he still has a chance with the "out/not out" spinner. It is also possible to have a solo game.

See the full rules for Wicketz here.

RDA Marketing also sold deck chairs, rollers and a scoreboard.

Would I Lie to You? home game

Based on the extremely popular TV program, Would I Lie to You?, this is a fun bluffing (lying?) game for everyone but especially for fans of the show, as I am.

Royal Game of Ur

I recently saw a video of a curator at the British Museum explaining the Royal Game of Ur, a 5,000 year old game from Mesopotamia.

Click to play video

The game is similar to backgammon - though much older. It uses playing pieces, a type of dice, and players remove opponents pieces by landing on them following a roll of the dice.

RULES:
The Game
1. Each player has seven play pieces; one set is white with five black dots and the other is black with five white dots. The game board is composed of two rectangular sets of squares, one containing three rows of four squares each and the other containing three rows of two squares each, joined together by a common “narrow bridge” of two squares.

2. Moves are determined by rolling a set of four four-sided, tetrahedron-shaped dice. Two of the four corners of each die are marked and the other two are not. The number of marked ends facing upwards after a roll of the dice indicates how many spaces a player may move during that turn.

3. The object of the game is for a player to move all seven of their pieces along the course of the board, then off the board before their opponent. When a piece is on one of the player's own squares, it is safe from capture, but when it is on one of the eight squares in the middle of the board (the shared lane), the opponent's pieces may capture by landing on the same space. This sends the piece back off the board so that it must be restarted from the beginning. This means there are six “safe” squares and eight “combat” squares.

4. When a player rolls a number using the dice, they may choose to move any of their pieces on the board or add a new piece to the board if they still have pieces that have not entered the game. There can never be more than one piece on a single square at any given time.  If a player cannot make a valid move then play passes to the opponent.

5. A player is not required to capture a piece every time they have the opportunity. Players are required to move a piece whenever possible, even if it results in an unfavorable outcome.

6. If a piece lands on the space with the rosette, it is safe from capture. When a piece lands on any of the three rosettes, the player gets an extra roll.

7. In order to move a piece off the board, a player must roll exactly the number of spaces remaining until the end of the course plus one. If the player rolls a number any higher than this number, they may not remove the piece from the board.

7 Wonders

This game for 3 to 7 players was created by Antoine Bauza in 2010 and originally published by Repos Production in Belgium. 7 Wonders is a card drafting game set around constructing the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Resources are traded to enhance your resource holdings while building your wonder; miltary strength is an additional element. The game is one of the highest rated games on the board game discussion website BoardGameGeek. It has won a total of more than 30 gaming awards, including the inaugural Kennerspiel des Jahres connoisseurs' award in 2011. The game has been cited by leading designers as one of the most influential board games of the last decade.

And you can add six expansions: Armada, Babel, Cities, Edifice, Leaders and Wonder Pack.

The Armada expansion is a significant addition to the game.

There is a duet version called 7 Wonders Duel, and you can add two expansions: Agora and Pantheon.

Here is a good introductory video to 7 Wonders.

Source: Wikipedia

Scotland Yard: Hunting Mr. X

This is a deduction game that involves hunting for a spy in London. One person acts as the spy while the other players are detectives on the chase.

Produced by Ravensburger, it was the 1983 Spiel des Jahres Winner.
Here is a video giving an overview of the game.

Click to view video

Scrabble

One of the most popular games of all time that was, like Monopoly, invented during the Great Depression (in 1938). Alfred Butts invented the game based on the popularity of crossword puzzles at the time.

Scrabble is produced by Hasbro.

Clue: The Classic Detective Game

In 1943, Anthony E. Pratt of Britain developed the murder-mystery game Clue (called Cluedo in Britain); commercial production began in 1949. Clue has been one of the most popular board games ever produced.

The game of Clue may have been partially developed from an older American card game called “The King of Hearts Has Five Sons.” In that game, two cards are set aside and the object of the game is to be the first to identify them. A player asks another player if he holds certain cards. If that player has any of those cards, he secretly shows one of those cards to the player who asked the question. Players could keep track of the card requests on paper. These are major aspects of playing Clue.

See this interesting article on Clue and other “deduction” games.

Originally produced by Waddingtons in the UK and Parker Brothers in the U.S. and Canada, both were bought by Hasbro. There is also a smaller card-based version than is good as a travel version of the game.