For old times’ sake, let’s look fondly at ten of the greatest board games of all time:
10. Mouse Trap. This game taught us the meaning of the slow, tantric crescendo. That’s because the first 99 percent of the game was a boring, play-bynumbers hopscotch. But then it got to mouse trap time, and it was allllllll worth it.
9. Connect Four. Despite the quick setup time, easy rules, and fun gameplay, Connect Four always seemed suspiciously mathy. And now, be honest—did you ever realize your kid sister was about to deliver a four-in-a-row knockout punch and then release the trap on the bottom, spilling all the pieces on the table and denying her that big crowning moment? Hey, I’m not proud of it either.
8. Battleship. The best part of Battleship was those hard, plastic cases the game came in. It was like its own luggage set and it was hard not to feel important when you flipped one open and began fiddling with all the pieces inside. Kids, those are what we used to call laptops.
7. Uno. Now, Uno wasn’t really a board game, but whenever it was Board Game Time there was always that one whiny kid who begged everyone to play Uno instead. But no one would. That’s why it’s called Uno.
6. Risk. Turns out you can’t dominate the world in an hour. As a result, committing to a game of Risk was committing to giving up your entire evening. Games could go until three, four, five in the morning, with the first person out at 9 p.m. sitting bored on the couch flipping channels for six hours. Too bad, man. Shouldn’t have challenged Siam.
5. Candyland. This game required no reading, no writing, no strategy, and no decision making at all. You just flipped over a card, looked at the color, and moved your piece to that color. That’s it, really. Candyland ranks high because it’s a gateway game and gets people interested in the harder stuff.
4. Trivial Pursuit. The hardest stuff of all. I’m talking about the original, heavy-box Genus Edition here. You know you’re playing that one when the questions are impossible and everybody feels like an idiot without any pie pieces. Props to the first person who proposes ditching the board and just asking questions.
3. The Game of Life. If you can believe it, Milton Bradley himself created The Game of Life way back in 1860. Now, the game is more than a little preachy—I mean, if you don’t go to college, have lots of kids, and drive around buying insurance and suing for damages, then you probably won’t be able to end up in a beautiful white plastic mansion at the end. But there was something special about all the kids getting to act grown up for an hour.
2. Clue. This dark and bloody board game about mansion murder was always a winner with happygo-lucky kids on Saturday afternoons. Yes, Clue was a tense and quiet hour of private note taking, raised eyebrows, and suspicious glances. A nice break from running around the backyard with untied shoelaces and runny noses anyway.
1. Monopoly. After everyone is through fighting over the Free Parking rules and who gets the best token, this game was usually all about the lateinning game-changing trade. It’s the three-way deal that gives the richest player all the railroads to seal everybody’s fate or the tired person who gives up at midnight and just trades away Boardwalk to meet the rent on Kentucky Ave.