We spend a lot of time playing and discussing Go. Like the people of a city, who have all we need only a couple of stops east or west on the subway, we don’t often pause and wonder what lies outside the metropolitan bounds.
What other interesting and challenging board games have we never played, or even heard of?
My idea is that we come up with a list of games and variants, along with where on the Internet they can be played (if possible). Then we’ll collect them into a chart, and once someone plays one of the games, they’ll cross that one off on their own chart. We intrepid adventurers will try to gradually complete our charts – just like birdwatching, but without the rain~
Here are some of my ideas to start us off. This is a wikipost, so anyone can add to it c:
Do you include awele, checkers (or draught?) backgammon, mahjong, risk and monopoly, as board games?
Why limiting to board games, if some of these are not, or if we could find some interest in card games for ex. ?
I don’t have time for a list now, but for correspondence mode there is https://www.littlegolem.net/ offering a bunch of different games. I’m active there too (as are a few others from OGS.)
I played mancala on an internet site many years ago (I had played it for a few years as a child, although most people in the U.S. had never heard of it in those days). I think the site was Java Games.
World of Warcraft isn’t a board game. This challenge is specifically for board games (well, really for “table games”, with some leniency for card games, mahjong etc.)
An elegant game that looks similar to chess on the surface, but plays more like go in the sense of simpler piece rules and strategy-tactics balance. (more whole board thinking and recognizing shapes and less brute force reading).
The same site is the best place to play it online currently.
You could play Chu Shogi on 81dojo.com before, but I think they removed it. You can use hachu to play Chu and Dai Shogi against the computer: http://hgm.nubati.net/HaChu.html
One can play just about any chess variant imaginable on the Game Courier. Of course, I don’t think we should add every variant they have to our list (nor would it be practical), but if there are any chess variants people do want to add, they can almost certainly be played there.
A thread (or just using this one) would be easiest for me, though a group is valuable for giving exposure and collecting a list of interested players, so I would do a thread, and add a supplementary group if so desired.
