Lately, I've put a lot more effort than normal into collecting and playing ZPGs. Rather than buy games on impulse as I used to do, I've been researching them before I buy. (One of the best resources for this is Board Game Geek -- if you play any ZPGs at all, I recommend you check this site out.)

Why the sudden scholarship? Two reasons. First is that I'm forced to accept the fact that I'm getting older and life is short. Too short to play a good game if it takes too long, or to play a bad game of any length. I've reached the point where I'll now buy only games that can be played in an hour or less.

Second, games can be expensive. I believe that the cost of a game should be directly related to its replay value. A game with lots of crunchy bits is nice, but the true measure of its worth is how often my friends and I want to play it. If I shell out, say, $30 for a game, and it's the kind of game that I want to pull out every time company comes by, then it was worth the money. In contrast, if another $30 game gets played once or twice and then put on my shelf, where it lives out the rest of its natural life, I've paid too much. The opinions of others, as typified by Board Game Geek's ratings, are certainly not foolproof, but they can help me decide if a game has the potential for a high replay value and is therefore worth gambling my shekels on.

So here's the list of my current favorite ZPGs, in no particular order. All of them can be played in an hour (give or take) or less and, in my opinion, have a very high replay value.

  1. PitchCar by Ferti, a rerelease of the racing game Carabande. This game is imported from France (as I write this, English rules aren't even available -- you'll have to use the rules from Carabande); because of this and its high-quality materials, it's rather expensive (about $70 for the basic set). But it's loads of fun and even nongamers will enjoy it. In fact, my hardcore-gamer friends tend to look down on PitchCar. It requires a little dexterity and almost no thinking, so they deem it less a game and more a sport. Somehow, I think true sports fans would disagree. On the other hand, my parents -- who aren't exactly swept away by any of my other games -- love it.
  2. Ivanhoe by GMT Games. This is a noncollectable card game in which players take the roles of nameless medieval knights who engage in a series of tournaments to prove who is the best. The card play is very evocative of the give and take that marks the flow of a martial tournament.
  3. Great Dalmuti and Dilbert Corporate Shuffle, both by Wizards of the Coast. These are essentially the same game. The former has a medieval theme, the latter a Dilbert (Scott Adams' cartoon engineer) theme. These noncollectable card games are played with specialized decks. They're variants of a card game called President (among other things) which is played with one or more normal poker decks. All three games are loads of fun that are enjoyed equally by gamers and nongamers.
  4. Bang! by daVinci Games, distributed in the USA by Mayfair Games. Bang! is a card-game version of a spaghetti Western. It's a hoot! The rules aren't complicated, but there are a lot of them, so it takes longer to learn this game than any of the others I've mentioned so far. Speaking of rules, be warned -- reading through the rulebook that comes with the game is painful. The rules as written don't flow well, and at times you'll think that they were translated from Italian via Babelfish. But if you can get someone who already knows the game to teach it to you, you'll have a great time.
  5. Jungle Speed by Asmodée Editions. This dexterity game has been compared to both Nuclear War (the traditional card game, not the one by Flying Buffalo) and Spoons. It plays very quickly and it's a huge amount of fun. Like the other dexterity game on this list, PitchCar, it's playable by younger folks, which is a plus for someone looking for games that an entire family can play.
  6. Ticket to Ride by Days of Wonder. I was introduced to this game just recently, and I think it's very good. The rules are easy to understand, yet there are enough decisions to be made that there's ample room for strategy here.
  7. Cosmic Wimpout by, um, Cosmic Wimpout. How could I have left this one off the list for so long?! The best thing about this game is that it travels exceptionally well, so it's great for playing anywhere you find yourself with downtime. I always have at least one set of Cosmic Wimpout dice with me. I frequently teach it to people in airports or even on the plane. Kids especially seem to enjoy learning this game. I suspect that's because an adult who doesn't know the game could watch them play for hours and still never figure out the rules.
  8. Der Untergang von Pompeji by Amigo. This game is played in two phases. In the first phase, you populate the town of Pompeii. In the second phase, Vesuvius erupts and you try to save as many of your people from the lava as you can. It's a very entertaining game, in a darkly humorous way. As I write this, the game is published only in German, but an English-language version of the rules is available from the company's German-language Web site. 
  9. Heroscape. Read more about this game on my Heroscape page.
  10. Battle Line, recently reprinted by GMT Games, is currently my favorite two-player game. One player is Alexander the Great and the other is Darius of Persia (although interestingly, you rarely learn who is playing whom). The war between these two leaders is divided into nine simultaneous battles. It's an extremely tense game, but very fun.

These are some acquisitions that I like, but haven't played enough to bestow upon them the title of "favorite":