Games that end in 0

It's traditional this time of year for gaming bloggers and podcasters to publish their "Best Games of the Year" lists -- and I plan to give mine early in the new year. I'm waiting a few weeks until the official end of the year, however, in case I get a few more plays in during my vacation. (You never know how one more play might change my feelings towards a game.)

It's also an end-of-the-year tradition for many folks to give a retrospective list of the "Best Games From ... " fill-in-the-blank ... five, ten or twenty years ago. Looking over my collection of rated games, I realize that I really can't give a "Best of" list for any of these years, since I haven't played more than a few games from any of these years. So, I hereby give my list of ...

Favorite Games Published in a Year Ending in Zero
(other than 2010):

7. It's not a very good game, but it earns a sentimental mention because it's the first game I can remember playing: Hi-Ho! Cherrio was first published in 1960.

6. I gave Tyranno Ex (published in 1990) to my neice in the early '90s because she liked dinosaurs. She and I played one game, and I thought it was very interesting. It presents the general theme of evolutionary biology in a very abstract way. Although it was published by Avalon Hill, it used (what would today be described as) Euro mechanics. I was hoping that GMT's new game Dominant Species would be similar, but it's not.

5. Swashbuckler (published in 1980) was always a popular distraction for our group. Players control patrons brawling at a tavern. It was always a little too chaotic for my tastes, but you have to love a game where you can give an order to swing on a chandelier. It also has a number of sketches on its cover lifted from Errol Flynn movies.

4. I've only played it a couple of times, but War and Peace (published in 1980 by Avalon Hill) is the definitive strategic hex-and-counter wargame depicting the Napoleonic Wars. The GMT game The Napoleonic Wars is more fun, but War and Peace has the old-school feel to it.

3. I don't even have a copy of Vince Lombardi's (football) Game (published in 1970) anymore. Dennis received it as a Christmas present, and I remember watching him play using its solitaire rules. I played it dozens of times while Dennis was in the navy, and a number of high school friends (including Al, Rick, Steve, Doug, Paul S.) and I had a league using the game in 1982. Strat-o-Matic is a better game for statistical accuracy, but Vince Lombardi's Game was very elegantly designed. Pizza Box Football would probably come closest to capturing its feel.

2. I hated Battle Cry (published in 2000 by Avalon Hill) the first time I played it with Al. It was the first game in Richard Borg's Commands and Colors system. It wasn't until several years later, when Andrew and I played Memior '44, that I came to appreciate the system. I'm glad to see that Battle Cry is getting a makeover by Avalon Hill this year.

1. I remember seeing Avalon Hill's Civilization at the Smithsonian Museum of American History gift shop shortly after it was re-published by Avalon Hill. (It was originally published by Hartland Trefoil in 1980.) The description on the box got me hooked, and I got the game as a gift shortly after. The game's massive length-of-play keeps it from being pulled out too often, but it is a remarkable game. How remarkable is it? Sid Meier acknowledges that it helped to motivate the design for his historic computer game (which subsequently has inspired two board games -- one by Eagle Games and one by Fantasy Flight).