The Board Gamesbook
Thematic Games Rules
Games with a flavour...
- Ancient Empires: a strategy board game for 4 to 7 players, which models the growth and interaction of ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean
(designed by Steven Mathers)
- Culture and Conquest: build an ancient empire by rolling dice...
(designed by Lloyd Krassner)
- Dragon Poker: players use cards to construct a dragon and provide it with treasure
(designed by Lloyd Krassner)
- GobCon: a non-collectible card game of the Goblin Convention; participate in games, buy noticeable items, play tricks on your opponents
and use your friendship with members of the Lair to gain Goblin Points
(designed by The Goblin's Lair)
- Mesopotamia: a free game about the birth of civilisation
(designed by Garry Stevens)
- Mighty Realms: a boardgame in a medieval fantasy setting. The players rule a kingdom, they
manage and expand it, move armies into battle and crush enemies
(designed by Fabrice Cambounet and Frédéric Dabard)
- Spiele aus Timbuktu (http://mschacht0.tripod.com/downloadgods.html): rules and graphic files for the outsold commercial card game Gods
(designed by Michael Schacht)
- The Lord of the Rings Boardgame: you've seen the rest... now play the weirdest!
(designed by O. Sharp)
- 1st Alamein: an educational 2-player operational level military history game simulating the historical decision-making situations of Allied
and Axis commanders in Egypt, in July 194
(designed by Lou Coatney)
- Assault on Belgium: a one-turn mini wargame featuring the German conquest of Belgium in 1940
- Battle for Moscow Game: a free historical wargame of the German Army's struggle to defeat the Soviet Army and capture Moscow in 1941
- Cold War Naval Battles: a series of three boxed card games for two to six players based on a 1980's sea power with an emphasis on action
(designed by Dan Verssen)
- Combat Zone (http://home.att.net/~edwhitey/czone.htm): a table top board game of violent field acquisition for 2 to 4 players. Players design teams of characters who compete in
a sport that has been described as a cross between rugby, soccer, polo and gladiatorial combat
(designed by Ed Walker Games)
- Final Decrees: a board game based on a monstrously incompetent bureaucracy. 4 to 5 players play the upper echelon of the various departments.
The player with the least blame at the end of the game wins
(designed by Carl Visser)
- Frontier Post: a set of wargame rules to play out most of the Boer War battles - "Talana Hill" is the first one available
(designed by Robert Laing)
- Grand Tour: match vehicles with routes to vist the most cities
(designed by Lloyd Krassner)
- Hexwar: a Game System for combat strategy in the genre of a post WWII technology battlefield
(designed by Jeremy Lindsey)
- Slarge!: a set of miniatures rules for an unusual sports game (a cross between icehockey and baseball?)
(maintained by David Ferris)
- Speedway: a fun and fast racing game using simple equipment
(designed by P F Dwyer)
- Squares: The US Civil War Game: a two player, abstract recreation of a classic Civil War engagement between the Blue and the Gray
(designed by G Myers)
- Syndicate Wars: a card game, using black & white pictures, situated in the 40's, when the Mafia began to organize themselves in "Syndicates",
with famous names like Charlie "Lucky" Luciano and Benjamin "Bugsey" Siegel
- Talk.Bizarre: The Board Game: a non-serious game based on the Usenet group of the same name
(designed by Michael Rigler)
- Tank Commander (http://www.teamfrog.com/tankcom.ht): simple rules for tank battles between the Royal Ruritannian Army, and the forces of the Empire
(designed by Paul Arden Lidberg)
- Battle Platform Antilles: a solitaire game pitting the player against an automated platform of destruction
(designed by BattlePlay)
- Generic Space Combat 2: a game of space ship miniature battles
(designed by Thane Morgan)
- Herbs: Janitors Rule, OK!
(designed by Michael Petty)
- LNL - Laplace, Newton & Lagrange: ship-to-ship combat in space
(designed by Joshua Howard)
- Metal Talon: a futuristic wargame with dynamic pieces for 2, 3, 4, or 6 players
(designed by Jonathan A. Leistiko)
- Monsters Ravage Japan: "monsters arise from the depths of sea and the forests of the Land of the Rising Sun to destroy the biggest city of them all
-- Tokyo"
(designed by J C Connor)
- Robo Battle Pigs: a simple strategic combat game, for 2 to 4 players
(designed by Randy Cox)
- Rumble: a fast-paced game of superheroic combat
(designed by Ben)
- Run, Hippy, Run!: a game of capitalism let loose on the globe; exploit people and resources to advance your corporation
(designed by Henry Ponopscotch)
- Sizzlin' Starships (http://www.teamfrog.com/starship.htm): simple rules for spaceship fighter combat between the forces of the Star Rangers and the Evil Kraut Empire
(designed by Paul Arden Lidberg)
- SPACEFARER Starship Simulator (http://home.att.net/~edwhitey/synopsis.htm): table top game of miniature combat between starships
(designed by Ed Walker Games)
- Starmada: a board game of starship fleet combat including ship design and campaign rules
(designed by Daniel S. Kast)
- Superhero Gladiators: the world's least expensive collectible card game
(designed by David L. Van Slyke)
- The Helios Project (http://www.rinc.or.jp/~adrian/projecth/index.html): application of the materials presented in the rest of SF2D&I to Science Fiction games, game miniatures, game counters and
short illustrated backstory
- The Stars Our Decimation: a space fleet combat board game
(designed by Charles Oines and Matt Klestinski)
- Trash Wars (http://home.att.net/~edwhitey/trash.htm): table top game of miniature combat between robots
(designed by Ed Walker Games)
- Warp War: SF tactical starship combat with diceless resolution
(designed by Metagaming Company)
- Cube Digger: a three-dimensional seek-and-find game for two players
(designed by Jonathan A. Leistiko)
- Currents: a cross between air hockey and that old Parker Brothers board game Bonkers!, except it allows up to four players, uses a relatively
cramped playfield, and contains extra levels of antagonism and randomness
(designed by Jason McIntosh)
- HipBones: a set of "multi-media" type games inspired by Herman Hesse' Glass Bead Game
- Matrix Games: different to normal wargames and role-playing games - you simply use words to describe why something should happen, the Umpire
decides how likely it is, and you roll a dice
- Misq: a card game for 3 to 6 players where players try to make a set of 4 or 8 with the help of the special cards
- Surprised Stare Games: make Hesketh's Christmas Lottery and Hesketh's Legacy
- Tiger Hunt (http://home.att.net/~edwhitey/tiger.htm): "a wild, man eating tiger is loose in the jungles of India"... a game for 2 to 6 players using a chess board and either chess
pieces or miniatures
(designed by Ed Walker Games)
- Trolley Car: a game for 2-6 players in which two trolley lines compete to be the first to cross contested intersections
(designed by Rick Heli)
- Tunnel Trouble (http://home.att.net/~edwhitey/tunnel.htm): table top chase game for 2 or more players. Players create a deck of tiles that are laid out in a maze pattern, then race
from their home bases on the edges of the maze to the center
(designed by Ed Walker Games)
- Verba volant, Scripta manent: a game of letters and bluff, a kind of liar's dice with words. Better played with cards, but
can use Scrabble tiles
