Family Games: The 100 Best

by Alan R. Moon, Richard Garfield, Susan McKinley Ross

In Family Games: The 100 Best, the top designers and publishers write about the most enjoyable, most cleverly designed titles of the last one hundred years. Their essays cover the spectrum from board games to card games, wargames to miniatures games to role-playing games, including old favorites and little known gems. These are the games that the designers themselves play, the ones that have inspired their most popular inventions. Essayists include such legendary creators as Alan R. Moon (Ticket to Ride), Matthew Kirby (Apples to Apples), Richard Garfield (Magic: The Gathering), Tom Wham (Great Khan Game), James Ernest (Kill Dr. Lucky), Kevin Wilson (Descent), Emiliano Sciarra (Bang!), Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson (co-founders of Games Workshop), and dozens of other noteworthy and award-winning designers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Game Design, Games, Gaming, Ebooks, Reference

400 pages, Paperback

First published August 29, 2009

Reviews

[Adrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure exactly what the point of this was. It's not quite entertaining enough to be read as a piece on its own merits, the choices aren't quite discerning enough or detailed enough in the summary to call it a true recommendation list and it's a bit of a slog to just read start to finish. I guess I did learn about some out of print stuff I'd never heard of, and some of the not-really-review reviews are interesting, but most of them aren't much.

I guess if you want to see what the slightly earlier days of tabletop gaming were like, this will scratch that itch, but it's hard to know why I'd recommend this or who for. Not terrible, but overly quite pointless

[Andrea D. McCarthage · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm just here for Prince Valiant.

[Serge Pierro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This follow up tome to "Hobby Games: The 100 Best" features a collection of games that are supposedly slanted to the "Family Game" genre. For the most part this is accurate, however there are many that seem to fall outside this sphere of discussion. For example, I've never considered "HeroClix" to be a family game, and I doubt others would also. But many of the standards are included, Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, Battleship, etc.

As with the previous volume, it is the insight that is provided by the designers in each of their essays that is the essence of the book. There are some unexpected pairings such as "Scrabble" by Richard Garfield and "Monopoly" by Steve Jackson, both of which provide readers with a perspective about games that serious gamers may have little interest in.

Once again I discovered several games that I was unaware of, as well as writers/designers in whom I was unfamiliar with. This is an excellent companion to the first volume and is recommended for the serious gamer, game designer, or board game fans looking to expand their repertoire.

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good. My love for the subject probably tacks on about an extra star, though. Half of the essays are rather dull affairs, combinations of rules explanations and cliché “I loved playing this as a kid” stories. The other half, though, are either great introductions to games I’d never heard of (and tend not to get attention on Cult of the New–trending sites like BoardGameGeek) or are particularly novel examinations of familiar games. James Ernest’s essay on Candy Land in particular is not to be missed.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there were less surprises for me here as opposed to the Hobby Game 100, I still enjoyed this book. It made me want to play more games with Kyla and Tate(and eventually AC). As much as you'd think that we get games to the table around here, it doesn't happen as often as you'd think.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as Hobby Games: The 100 Best, but if you liked Hobby Games, then you'll like this one too.

[Betty]

Similar to the Hobby Games volume, different games reviewed by different game designers. Many popular Boardgamegeek games, more than the roleplaying etc. emphasis of the first volume.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trite and vacuous.

[FranklinTV · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sequel book that is also a nice dip in often to read an article or two book, just not as good as the first.