As we start the new year let me introduce you to some games we have discovered in 2009 and will be playing a lot of in 2010.

Dread Pirate

For Christmas, my sister gave me the board game Dread Pirate. I had only played the game once before at one of April’s game nights almost a year ago. At first wife showed little interest but by the end of the game she wanted to play again (and we did the next two nights).

In the game you play a pirate with the goal of becoming the Dread Pirate and collecting the most treasure (jewels and gold doubloons). With the roll of a die you can steal, raid, or trade with the other players. The game is simple yet so much fun.

Telestrations

Wife received this game on New Years Eve as a Christmas gift from the Genna’s. She read the directions while the rest played Mille Bornes. I must say that this was/is one of the funniest games I have ever played.

Telestrations mixes Pictionary and the game of telephone. Each player has a word and writes it down. The word must then be drawn and then guessed as the drawing pads moves around to different players. The pieces of art and guesses are hysterical. All I can say is the phrase “Party Pooper” will live in infamy.

Mille Bornes

The first time we played this game, our friend Vince swore that is would be a ton of fun. After he spent the better part of 20 minutes trying to teach us the game we finally got into it and understood what needed to be done (even though we figured out all the rules weeks later).

Mille Bornes is a racing game with cards. The entire point is to collect as many points as possible by playing different cards. You earn point by “driving” a certain distance (around 700 miles). During the game you can also stop the other players movement with cards such as out of gas or a flat tire. I must warn you that you might want to make sure you do not play all the stop cards because you can end up never moving.

These are just three of the games we have so far discovered. Comment below if you have any others you think we should know about.