Favorite German Family Games

I've only played Amun-Re once, and it was a while ago. Besides that I started learning it after midnight. It was actually the game that persuaded me to create that rule.

I recall it being pretty intense, awfully layered and Euro-y. Having said that, it was definitely highly interactive and well-designed in a top-shelf Knizia way. I don't remember whether I liked it or not though. I remember very little about the experience, honestly.

It's also on the gather-unto-me-Reiner list that I've been working on.

A decade-old German family game I still own and pull out is Around The World in 80 Days. It doesn't get mentioned much, but everyone I've played it with has liked it. Its a race game where you don't necessarily want to be the first to finish. Its better to race for least time spent than to place.

Tigris and Euphrates, El Grande, Bohnanza, Vinci, and RA have a permanent spot on my shelf.

Hansa (NOT Hansa Teutonica) is a solid light Euro. It's an Uberplay title, so it must be out of print. But I imagine it's easy to score a copy on ebay, the BGG marketplace, etc.

I taught Hansa to a bunch of folks at a recent con, and they all loved it. I forget that I've been in the hobby longer than many people, which means that I tend to lug around games that some people have never seen.

I'm an Amun Re fan, but I'm strangely attracted to almost all auction games. When I was a strict Euro player, it was in my top 10. Now, not so much. But I'd definitely still play it.

Others worth playing and owning: Medici, Aladdin's Dragons, Cartagena 2, Dawn Under (painful memory game), Dragonland, Jambo, Niagara.

Here's a couple of popular ones from back then, that I didn't like. Alhambra has a terrible rep on this site, and I would rather play almost anything else. But a lot of folks like it. When it came out, you couldn't get away from it.

Bang! is another one, that came about that same time, ten years or so ago. I'd play Alhambra before I'd play Bang!, but again, a lot of folks like it.

Bulwyf wrote: Old school family friendly euros? How about Take it Easy or Ricochet Robots?

In the 2p category I liked The Settlers of Catan the Card Game and Lost Cities.

-Will

I think I'd rather douse myself with gasoline and play "Toss Me The Lighter: The Self Immolation Game" than Ricochet Robots. Others seem to like it but that game does capture just about everything I don't like.

Good Recomendations: Bohnanza without question or reservation. The 10 Days In X series I thought was good for families. I also liked Zooloretto though my wife hates it.

Amun-Re is a pretty good game with lots of interaction, highly recommended. Cyclades owes it for its ingenious auction mechanic. Of course you don't use the result of said auction to destroy your enemies, but you can say the same about every other German style game anyway. It's also quite clever that the game consists of two "eras", and the initial setup of the second era depends on the actions of the players in the first one.

In fact, I would recommend almost all the high-ranked Knizia games from before 2005 (+ Pickomino from 2005), maybe with the exception of Samurai, it's just way too abstract and math-y, even by Knizia's standards.

Also, almost every "big" game by Bruno Faidutti from that period (although arguably his games are not "German-style" games, and deserve a separate genre of their own). Citadels, Mission: Red Planet, Boomtown, Dragon's Gold, Queen's Necklace, Valley of the Mammoths, Fist of Dragonstones, Castle, Draco & Co., Democrazy; these are the ones I would pick up without hesitation given the opportunity. What they all have in common is tons of AT-style special ability/action cards (very uncommon in classic German-style games), lots of direct interaction, and even more chaos.

Additional recommendations from BGG's "strategy game" section (up until 2005):
- Die Macher
- El Grande
- Genoa (in AT circles a very underrated game of brutal negotiation)
- Wallenstein
- Tikal
- Princes of the Renaissance (not to be confused with The Princes of Florence)
- San Marco (an El Grande-style area majority game with a very interesting mechanic)
- Santiago
- Antike
- Vinci (the predecessor of Small World)
- Chinatown (a brutal negotiation game)
- Domaine (or Löwenherz, of which it's the "streamlined" version)
- Primordial Soup (nice and chaotic area control game)
- Evo
- Carolus Magnus
- Condottiere
- Serenissima
- Lost Valley (German-style adventure/exploration game)
- Babel
- Hoity Toity
- Goldland (German-style adventure/exploration game)
- Intrigue
- Siena (one of the most unique games ever: the gameboard is an actual fresco, and it works surprisingly well. Unfortunately the production and the rulebook were less than perfect, so it fell into obscurity, but I would pick it up in a heartbeat if I saw a copy somewhere.)

Additional recommendations from BGG's "family game" section (up until 2005):
- The Downfall of Pompeii
- Manila
- Ubongo
- Cartagena
- Saboteur
- Fearsome Floors
- Pirate's Cove
- Lifeboats
- Around the World in 80 Days
- Inkognito
- Mississippi Queen
- Key Largo

Don't have a lot to add: I'm with the consensus on this. Ra, Bohnanza, Citadels, Attika and the like are great games and personal favourites from this era.

I'd second wice's suggestion to have a look at negotiation games Santiago and (Traders of) Genoa. The former is a surprisingly brutal game when played with the full complement, and the latter does a fascinating job of creating a miniature supply and demand economy.

It breaks my heart how "German-style" games used to be about using (or inventing) all these awesome mechanics of interaction and conflict (auction, bluffing, trading, negotiation, etc.) without resorting to the obvious "I attack you, we both roll a die, higher wins" solution, while now it's all about being the first to solve a resource-conversion puzzle, preferably on separate boards, without any chance of influencing the other players.

wice wrote: It breaks my heart how "German-style" games used to be about using (or inventing) all these awesome mechanics of interaction and conflict (auction, bluffing, trading, negotiation, etc.) without resorting to the obvious "I attack you, we both roll a die, higher wins" solution, while now it's all about being the first to solve a resource-conversion puzzle, preferably on separate boards, without any chance of influencing the other players.

That's kind of the reason why I started this thread. I think those are about to fade away and I wanted to see if there are any that would be worth getting. With companies losing the license to print/supply games, with the focus being on new rather than back-catalogs from both consumers and publishers and a general shift in overall game design trends I wanted to see if there were any diamonds in the rough so to speak.

Around the World in 80 Days sounds good. My store actually has a copy of the game on their shelves...Despite our local taste-maker Barnes giving it a '2' on BGG.

Has anyone played Journey to the Center of the Earth? What about Caribbean?

And that date range was just to give an idea of what I was looking for, not a hard and firm period.