So we are going to look at a number of classic board games and see how well they hold up now. Am I still interested in playing them myself still? Or are they games that I’ve played and I’m done with now.

Uno

Uno is a simple game with simple rules. You play down a matching color or number. It is pretty typical, and really is what so many card games are based off of. Which means that there is take that, you can skip someone else’s turn, make them draw, sometimes draw four, or reverse it away from them.

This is a game that I rate pretty lowly at this point. It is an okay one growing up, but there are so many more card games that I’d play now. Something like Ohanami is just as simple and way more fun. And games can take a long time, or be over really quickly. Is there strategy, a tiny bit, but sometimes it is just luck.

Grade: 3/10

Skip-Bo

Now we move to another pretty simple card game. This one is about putting cards down in numerical order to get rid of your pile of cards. But there are Skip-Bo cards that can be used as any number. When you can’t play anymore, or don’t want to, you discard a card to one of three discard piles you have. You can use those cards to help play out more cards later, assuming the card you need is on top of the discard.

This game is generally play out everything that you can, and then wait for your next turn. But sometimes you don’t want to because you don’t want to leave your opponent(s) opportunities to play down a card from their pile. So you might pull back a little bit. And adding cards to your discard pile is also an interesting decision space in the game. I’d play this one again, though it is very light and simple.

Grade: 5/10

Dutch Blitz

Much like Skip-Bo where you are trying to get rid of all of your cards and putting them down in numerical order, you do that with Dutch Blitz as well. Except that Dutch Blitz is done in real time. You flip two cards from your pile and you can play the top one down. The game is fast and hectic, and can reach a situation where no one can play at which point you flip one card before flipping two again.

This is another one that I wouldn’t mind playing again. I likely won’t pull out my copy of the game though, because the game is just okay. It is a speed game that works for some quick entertainment. And it is again really easy to learn and play. It won’t be for everyone, though, because of that real time speed aspect.

Grade: 5/10

Yahtzee

Now, this one is going to be the highest graded game on the list. I think in 2020 it was in my Top 100, just barely, or just missed it. Yahtzee is a fun roll and write game where you are trying to get certain rolls of dice. It might be sets of numbers, or a run, or a full house, or all of the same number, a Yahtzee. And depending on what you get determines where you can place it on the score sheet.

My family and I play this one often. We kind of have it down to a science knowing what the odds are on certain rolls and what roll is the best one to go for in a given situation. It makes the game kind of silly because we can make snap decisions on what to do, when to push our luck, and stuff like that. I dropped on my list because I have played it a lot, but it is still a fun one.

Grade: 7.5/10

Scrabble

Not too far behind Yahtzee is Scrabble, another game I’d play again for sure. It is a lot of fun to try and come up with good words. But that’s not how you optimize Scrabble. It is about scoring as many points as you can with the words that you have. So if you can build off of what other people have done to create multiple words at once, that is how you do well.

And while I like Scrabble, I do think that it has diminishing returns. Or more so, skill level for the game matters a lot. Using all your letters can score you a ton of points, but that is tricky. So setting it up that your opponents can’t score well and that they’ll give you spots to score a lot is more what the game is about. Vocabulary doesn’t matter, it’s more about knowing the board and how leverage scoring.

Grade: 6.5/10

Clue

Another one that I don’t mind, are there better deduction games that don’t having you roll and move, for sure. And it sucks if you get stuck without being able to try and find out information, but the game is still interesting. And when you play, you start to realize how you can get information not on your turn. How you can create scenarios where it is meaningful information to help you narrow down things quickly.

This is like Scrabble. There is the game you are playing that you can play easily. Then there is the game that you can play which will get you the win. So you need kind of the same level of skill for players, otherwise some players will have a distinct advantage as they play. And the roll and move and potential dead turns isn’t fun.

Grade: 6.5/10

Monopoly

Monopoly is a classic game of too long game play and not enough interesting choices. You roll the dice, you move, you buy the property, if you can, and if not, it goes up for auction. That is a rule that no one remembers, though, and that makes Monopoly take forever. And even with that rule the game is way too long for the decisions that you make.

Maybe if the game played faster it’d be better for me. But it isn’t that, and never will be. Yes, it is extremely popular because everyone knows it. And there is a Monopoly for everything. So if you want a copy, it is a game that people know how to play, even if they don’t know the actual rules.

That is the one thing cool about Monopoly. People know how to play the game, not because people read the rules. Monopoly’s rules are an oral tradition at this point. That means that rules might vary from teacher to teacher. It doesn’t make the game any better, but it is interesting.

Grade: 1/10

Life

While I do like Life better than Monopoly, Life has less decision making space than Monopoly. In Life you spin a spinner and something happens to you. Never versions offer some choices. Like what house you buy, you draw two and buy the cheaper. Why, because how much money you have at the end of the game is what determines if you win.

Why do I like it better than Monopoly, all be it barely, because it tells a silly story. You spin and move, sure. But you spin and move and get a job, a house, a spouse, kids, and a lot of other random things that happen. So at the end of the game, you have a story that you can tell about your family. Is it a dumb game, yes, but it is silly as you play.

Grade: 2/10

Rummikub

Now we come back to another game that I generally like the puzzle of. You create sets of tiles based off of number without repeating colors or runs in colors. The game play is pretty simple. You build off of what is already out there, and draw a tile each turn. Your goal is to get rid of all your tiles. But if you can puzzle out a way to move those sets around into runs or vice-a-versa, that is so much fun.

Rummikub really gives you a way to feel clever. Now to do that it is basically causing every player at the table to have analysis paralysis. Especially late in the game when there are a ton of tiles on the table. But it is a simple game and easy to teach. And it feels enough different from a lot of classic games that it works.

Grade: 5/10

Set

Finally we have Set. This is a game where skill matters a ton. Some people are good at pattern recognition and others aren’t. You are looking at a 3×4 grid, I think or maybe 3×3 and looking for a set of three cards that match up some way. They can be completely different in every way. Or they need to match exactly one thing. or they need to match all but one thing. It is tricky to explain without the cards.

This is a game that I kind of like. It’s tricky, I like it because I am very good at pattern recognition. It isn’t a great game, but it is one that works for a wide audience. Though, sometimes that audience will get stomped.

Playing Set growing up, I’d generally play with two cousins. I forget how many possible sets you can get, but on average, I’d probably have 70% of the sets, my other cousin would get 28% of them, and the third player would maybe get one. And that was his goal in those games, get a set. So, Set is not a game that everyone will be as good at.

Grade: 5/10

There we have it. 10 Classic Games with a quick review on all of them. Are there any games from your childhood that you still play? Are there any that you won’t play? Let me know in the comments below.

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Games can be split into four different categories in my opinion. There are light weight, family weight, medium weight, and heavy weight games. And for me, that goes from the least complex to the most complex games. I am sure that other people might have an extra category at the end of super heavy weight games for the 18XX games and Train Games (not Ticket to Ride), where you playing in a very heavy economic game and you might actually need a calculator to figure out what is going on, on your turn, not just to add up scores at the end of a game.

Let’s first talk about why games are split into these categories. There are a ton of ways to sort or categorize games such as by some mechanic in the game or the theme of the game, but where those tell you some about the game, the weight of a game is really to help you determine the complexity of the game. The heavier a game is, the more complex that it’s going to be, and the more time commitment is going to be needed for learning the game and possibly for playing the game. However, not all games that have a lot of rules have a high weight to the game. Gloomhaven, for example, on Board Game Geek, is rated at a 3.79 out of 5 for weight, which puts it at a medium heavy, and it has a pretty hefty rule book.

What is a Light Weight game?

A light weight game is going to be those filler sorts of games. Something Tsuro, is a light weight game because the rules are simple to teach and the game is easy to play. Party games also fall into this category as you can generally pull them out and get them taught and to the table in five minutes. People aren’t likely to have many questions either about them when you are playing them. And if there is a question that comes up, the rules are likely so simple that you don’t need to look up anything and can just answer it. Kids games would also fall into this category, though, not all of them. But simple games like Chutes (Snakes) and Ladders or Candyland, that people normally think of, are so simple that you really just do what the game tells you, versus make any decision in the game. That’s another area where the complexity of the game is pretty low, even in Tsuro, you have three tiles and while you have some choice at the start of the game, the choice doesn’t matter much then. And in the later part of the game, the choice matters, but you have an obvious choice so you don’t have to think about it much.

What is a Family Weight Game?

So just by thinking what is a bit more complex than the light weight games, you can start to figure out what family weight games are. The best way to describe it is that these are the games that you play with your parents if they aren’t board gamers growing up. Or growing up only played a few like Skip-Bo, Uno, Rummikub, and Yahtzee. The latter two would actually probably fall into the family weight category. But more modern games that are family weight would be things like Carcassone, Ticket to Ride, and Catan. These games have more complex rules than light games, but generally there aren’t edge cases where you have to remember that something only happens in a specific situation. These games also start to offer meaningful decisions. Yes, they are generally not that complex, but Carcassone gives you choices when you place figures like knights, farmers, thieves, and monks (if I have the terms correct). In Catan you determine where you start and where you build towards, and in Ticket to Ride, do you take those train cars you want or do you play a route before someone else can get it? But the decisions are still pretty simple and you can probably do either option and end up being fine in the game. These games also can still end up with a run away winner. Other games would something like Sushi Go! Party, Pandemic, Dominion or Welcome To…

What are Medium Weight Games?

Again, we’re taking it up in complexity of game play and learning. These games still aren’t too difficult to learn, but there are going to be more moving parts. Xenoshyft: Onslaught would be a good example of this. Where Dominion is just a deck builder that is pretty easy to each, Xenoshyft actually has you doing something more in the game, and you are faced with more decisions than just buying a card worth points, a card worth money, or a card that draws you more cards. Another game that would fit into this category is Seven Wonders. Much like Xenoshyft builds upon the fundamentals and adds in more to deck building, Seven Wonders is a more complex card drafting game as compared to Sushi Go! Party. You also start to get edge cases in the games where certain cards together interact in a way that you can’t just naturally figure out. But there aren’t so many of these that once you’ve played the game a few times that you won’t know what is going. I actually think that Gloomhaven falls into the heavier side of Medium Weight games. There are certainly a good number of rules, but once you know them, you can play without looking things up, and it doesn’t take too long to know the rules once you start playing. I’d also put a game like Pandemic Legacy in a medium weight game. The rules don’t vary greatly from base Pandemic, but since the rules are changing, you need to remember everything that is going on.

Finally, What are Heavy Weight Games?

Again, not too difficult to figure out, but these are the games that you have a lot of text on a lot of cards, there is a lot of complexity in these games. I would put games like Cry Havoc and Root into this category where you have asymmetrical powers. Because of this, each person has edge cases that are different than other people at the table. And you need to teach each character separately. These games also have a lot of what I’d call book keeping. That doesn’t always mean taking notes, but it means that there are a lot of phases and some of the phases are resetting things to a starting turn point. Two good examples of this are a couple of cooperative games from Portal Games, First Martian and Robinson Crusoe. In these games, there are certain game events that happen at the end of every turn or end of every round that you need to do. Star Wars: Rebellion is also a heavy game with asymmetrical goals going on, though the actions of the players are pretty similar. But there are a lot of decisions that you have to make in the game, and if you mess up a single decision that can cost you the game. Even a game that is generally panned like SeaFall can fall into this category because the rules are complex (some do to poor writing), but the game offers a ton of tactical decisions that you have to think about.

Finally, let’s talk about what this means for your gaming collection. Do you need a game(s) of each type? I don’t think that you do, if you know your gaming group will never want to play a light filler game, why do you have one of those in your collection or go out of your way to buy one? The same goes for very heavy games, if I know that I don’t want to play a highly tactical war game, I don’t need one in my collection just so I have one just in case. That said, I would try and keep a good variety in your collection that makes sense for the gaming group that you have. For example, according to Board Game Geek, out of the 253 games that I’ve rated on the site (or own), 3 of them are over 4 for weight, so pretty heavy. 23 of them are at 1.25 or lower (1 is the lowest possible number) and all of those are extremely light. That means that I have a lot in the middle, though I tend to skew lighter as those games are easier to get to the table with my gaming group.

So, what does your collection look like? What’s the average weight of the games that you like, do you skew more towards heavy games or do you find your collection to have a lot of filler and party games you can pull out any time?

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