The 40 Tabletop Games you Must Play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWB8uG3vS44

The 40 Tabletop Games you Must Play

Presented at PAX East 2018 on Sunday morning in the Arachnid Theatre!

These may not be the top 40 board games ever designed, nor is it the top 40 influential or otherwise important games. If you aspire to really understand tabletop, or if you have visions of designing your own games, these are the 40 games that, if you play them, will give you the widest possible perspective on what it means to make a good game (and what "good" even means). Join the GeekNights crew for an exploration of the boundaries of tabletop gaming. There are some gems in there.

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I know this is old but I rewatched a version of this presentation recently when PAX (or was it MagFest) put it out on their channel. I just want to add a small note on on the etymology of “Elk Fest”. While I can’t explain why it’s still “Elk” and not “Moose” in english, I think the original german name “Elchfest” is a reference to the “Elch Test”, a kind of safety test for cars for situation involving rapid swerves (e.g. to avoid hitting a moose on the road). In the 90s Mercedes A-Class car infamously had a disastrous showing in those tests, which became a punchline of basically every german speaking comedian for years.

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Rising an old thread to share a laugh. Myself, @Apreche, @SkeleRym were playing a game of America at PAX East 2017 (might have been 18 but its blurred in my head). In the game we identified a card that was printed incorrectly that stated that the PEZ factory was located on the West side of the Mississippi rather than the east side. We threw the card away, made the change for future people playing that copy of the game and redrew another card.

I mention this because on Jet Lag they actually went to the PEZ place that was on the card and had a rush of memories coming back on this benign issue on a game we played years ago.