Life After Monopoly
by Larry Levy from HuzonFirstGames.com

So what is this revolution in board games anyway and where did it come from? Strangely enough, the answer is Germany.

You see, German families spend as much time playing games as Americans do watching TV. They think it's a great way for the whole family to participate in a shared activity. Naturally, there is a much larger and more dynamic gaming industry over there than here. That, combined with some very clever game designers, has produced a new kind of board game:

* Much shorter (many games take an hour or less);
* Much less luck (most games don't even include dice);
* Much more player interaction (the games are highly social, and not just in the way party games are);
* Much nicer components (some are downright beautiful and almost all of them are a pleasure to play with);
* And much more innovative (no endless Monopoly clones here!).

Well, you may be thinking, that's very nice for the Germans, but how does it affect me? After all, most Americans don't particularly Sprechen Sie Deutsch. That's where a company called Rio Grande Games comes in. For the last several years, Rio Grande has been importing affordable English language versions of the best German games. They feature the same great components and the identical gameplay, but the rules and all the text is in English. The games have been a great success and can be found in numerous game and hobby stores throughout the country.

To make things even easier, there are several sites on the Internet which sell these games. In addition to the Rio Grande games, they feature a wide variety of games from German gaming companies. Thanks to the rules translations which are included with these games, they are usually almost as easy to play as the English language games.

Moreover, there are quite a few American companies who have noticed the success of the German gaming model and have produced their own, German-like games. These too can be bought over the web.

So throw away those Genus IX Trivial Pursuit cards and donate that Othello set to charity. The golden age of boardgames is today.

Want to read about some of these great new games? Check out Games for the Almost Adventurous