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100 Strategic Games for Pen and Paper
If you think that Tic-Tac-Toe or Battleships & Cruisers represent the outer limits of pen and paper games, think again: this collection of 100 games will help to fill your leisure hours for years to come. Most of the games described are brand new and invented especially for this book. Some are related to old favorites but reinvented so that they have become new games.
- GenresGames
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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September 21, 2023A bizarre and extraordinary book.
Many of the games are ingenious. Others are perplexing. Others are daunting. Others are banal, or adorable, or startling in their originality and complexity. Knowing that they all issued from the same mind - that each game was either invented by Joris, or adapted by him from an existing board game - builds a kind of curiosity as you go. Who is this guy? Where does he get his ideas?
You won't find classics like Sprouts. Or semi-classics like Racetrack. You won't even find obscurities like Sid Sackson's Cutting Corners or Hold That Line. Instead, you'll find dozens of games that inventively repurpose their mechanisms, with extra ingredients thrown in. Quite a few feel like parallel-universe versions of Dots and Boxes, curious and clever variations on the basic theme.
I haven't played them all. (Has any reader, I wonder?) And the ones I tried ranged from "very nifty" to "not very nifty at all." But so it is with any collection of this nature.
Don't come expecting a carefully curated museum. It's more like walking into a workshop, with slightly hurried explanations of fascinating works in various stages of progress.
In any case, well worth the adventure!
Many of the games are ingenious. Others are perplexing. Others are daunting. Others are banal, or adorable, or startling in their originality and complexity. Knowing that they all issued from the same mind - that each game was either invented by Joris, or adapted by him from an existing board game - builds a kind of curiosity as you go. Who is this guy? Where does he get his ideas?
You won't find classics like Sprouts. Or semi-classics like Racetrack. You won't even find obscurities like Sid Sackson's Cutting Corners or Hold That Line. Instead, you'll find dozens of games that inventively repurpose their mechanisms, with extra ingredients thrown in. Quite a few feel like parallel-universe versions of Dots and Boxes, curious and clever variations on the basic theme.
I haven't played them all. (Has any reader, I wonder?) And the ones I tried ranged from "very nifty" to "not very nifty at all." But so it is with any collection of this nature.
Don't come expecting a carefully curated museum. It's more like walking into a workshop, with slightly hurried explanations of fascinating works in various stages of progress.
In any case, well worth the adventure!
March 24, 2018
Not everything I hoped for:
-There is a lot of filler that he made up himself
-There is no real organization (is the game symmetric, does it require two colors of ink, etc.)
-He leaves out the classics like Gomoku and Twixt
Still, if I were 12 again, this would keep me entertained for a couple of weeks.
-There is a lot of filler that he made up himself
-There is no real organization (is the game symmetric, does it require two colors of ink, etc.)
-He leaves out the classics like Gomoku and Twixt
Still, if I were 12 again, this would keep me entertained for a couple of weeks.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews