With our great country markings its 150th anniversary Saturday, it is the ideal time to unveil my selections for the best five games from Canadian creators.
At number five I have Santorini. This abstract strategy game from designer Gordon Hamilton has all the elements of being a classic, and for a while occupied the number four slot on my list.
“You are a god out of Greek mythology,” details www.boardgamegeek.com. “Compete against fellow gods to get a loyal follower on top of a temple on the beautiful island of Santorini.”
That sounds rather overblown, but it is a theme only.
The game is actually one with a simple mechanic that offers a lot of strategy to explore. Each turn you move a man, and then build a part of a stack by adding a tile. The goal is to get your man to the top of a set height stack before your opponent.
Santorini includes 75 wooden tiles; 10 wooden domes; and 4 wooden men. The original game came out in a beautiful all white edition, a more recent edition has a more ‘kid-like’ look that is unsatisfying. I made a set that looks good and works fine.
Simple, challenging, and a solid top-five pick.
I am going back to 1969 for number four with Claude Soucie’s Lines of Action.
Beautifully simple Lines of Action is among the top two or three games you can play on a standard 8X8 checkerboard with a standard set of checkers.
The object of LofA is to get all your pieces into a single connected group. A group of pieces is connected if they occupy an unbroken chain of adjacent spaces, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
A checker moves exactly as many spaces as there are checkers (both friendly and enemy) on the line in which it is moving. For example, Black may open with c8-c6. Black’s checker moves two spaces because there are two checkers in the line (c8-c1) in which Black is moving. A checker may jump over friendly checkers, but not over an enemy checker.
A checker may land on a square occupied by an enemy checker, resulting in the latter’s capture and removal from the game. Of course this reduces the number of checkers the opponent must connect.
Just a great game that is a true classic fit for this list.
The game at number three is actually number one in my heart, but after my son suggested I might be biased on this one, I reassessed. The game is crokinole that has its design credited to 1876, close to the start of our country.
Players take turns flicking disks on a board, trying to score points by hitting a 20-point spot in the centre of the board. If an opponent’s piece is in the board you must hit it, the stipulation being that contact with the other teams’ pieces must be made in order for the disk to remain on the board afterward. Although the game uses quite a bit of skill to flick the disks, there’s a very significant strategy element to the game.
A game where skill wins and you can practice to get better. Such a great game to enjoy.
At number two is a game which was a phenomenon when it came out.
Trivial Pursuit was created in December 1979 in Niagara on the Lake in Ontario, by Canadian Chris Haney, a photo editor for Montreal’s The Gazette, and Scott Abbott, a sports editor for The Canadian Press. The game was released in 1982, and was a massive success.
In North America, the game’s popularity peaked in 1984, a year in which over 20 million games were sold.
The game generated a number of expansions; including specific themes such as sports and film.
The game doesn’t appeal to all, but there is a huge social aspect to game play and the general knowledge requirement intrigues. It had to be in my top-five.
And that brings us to number one, a game which started it all in terms of table hockey taking the spot.
The Munroe Table Top Hockey Game was released in 1932. The game would be familiar to anyone who has played a modern table hockey game, although the Munroe version had stationary pieces (no slot to move down), and the players were representational, not realistic as they are today.
The game used spring action players and a pinball type release for puck (which is a small ball bearing), 36” long x 14” wide x 5” high at the center. Nets were made of cotton. The players were represented using a wood top and a wire for the hockey stick. The playing surface is made of veneer, sideboards were made of Masonite. A true collectible for fans of dexterity sports games.
“In December 1932, during the great depression, Don Munro had no money to buy his children Christmas gifts. Instead Munro went into his basement and transformed his wife`s ironing board into a hockey game,” noted www.boardgamegeek.com in terms of the lore of the game. “This game is a variation of a modern table-top hockey game. Made by Munro Games Ltd. of Toronto, Canada.”
Today slot hockey is played worldwide, has an international governing body, world championships, and an effort to see it an Olympic sport.
And of course hockey is almost synonymous with Canada so the founding Munro version is a worthy number one.
I do hope that is this year of celebration board gamers try out as many of the top-15 games reviewed here the last three weeks as they can, you will find a tonne of fun in the process.
