Flashback Friday: Your Favorite 1980's Board Game?

Michael Barnes wrote: OMG Supremacy, haven’t thought about that one in a while. Nobody ever won. Can’t believe there’s not a $500 KS remake of it yet with all those ridiculous reviews expansions.

I feel kinda let down that you didn’t know about it.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/1743441977/...ear-brinskma/rewards

What a great topic.

So many games to remember. Avalon Hill was a favorite publisher. Conspiracy was the first boardgame I bought I my own. Battletech was the first game I ever got through mail order for from and advertisement in Dragon magazine, sight unseen; I saved up allowance, mailed a check and wait 6-8 weeks for it to arrive. Different times for sure. Heroquest, Castle Risk, Gamemaster Series…

Axis and Allies is always going to be special. My friends and I are talking about having an A&A game night and I plan on picking up the mega 1940 version.

For me, the standout is still Shogun/Samurai Swords/Ikusa. Even with all the cool new DOAM games around, this one has been a persistent favorite throughout the decades. I’ve worn out a few copies and have a shrink wrapped one waiting around for the day it is needed.

Huh. I broke down my collection by year and the only 80's game I own is 1983's Gumshoe. I don't think it's fair for me to include AH 2nd / SH 3rd / Z-Man's Tales as I've never played the originals.

So I guess Gumshoe. I've only played Day 1, but I'm very impressed so far. There are a couple historically-accurate yet problematic slurs in the dialogue that definitely wouldn't have passed editorial muster nowadays; apart from that, I'm having a tough time recalling a game with better writing.

Virabhadra wrote: Huh. I broke down my collection by year and the only 80's game I own is 1983's Gumshoe. I don't think it's fair for me to include AH 2nd / SH 3rd / Z-Man's Tales as I've never played the originals.

So I guess Gumshoe. I've only played Day 1, but I'm very impressed so far. There are a couple historically-accurate yet problematic slurs in the dialogue that definitely wouldn't have passed editorial muster nowadays; apart from that, I'm having a tough time recalling a game with better writing.

I would love to play Gumshoe. I love Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective and playing the other game by the same designers would be incredible.

Sadly, it's only available in English, extremely expensive and I'm told you need the 2nd edition because the 1st has significant errata. But for me it's a holy grail.

the_jake_1973 wrote: Other 80s favorites:

Warhammer Quest 85. Still better than the other WHQ stuff.
Circus Imperium from FASA
Battletech - many all-nighters playing that
Gladiator from Avalon Hill.
Richtofen's War from Avalon Hill
Supremacy

Mentioning Gladiator woke up my memories:

Gladiator - We played the shit out of that until we figured out the Retarius was broken. He throws away the net, stays out of range, and plinks the other guy to death.

We also played a lot of Circus Maximus. I still have my copy.

Gunslinger. I don't know why someone hasn't stolen that movement/combat scheme, where you put together your turn with a deck of action cards. Special archetypes had special cards, so some characters would be flat-out deadly. I still have this game too.

Football Strategy. I wrote a game in Atari Basic for my Atari 400 that would play Football Strategy. It kind of sucked at it, but it did play.

Rail Baron. Played it three player a lot. One person would end up with UP, one person with Southern Pacific, and one person had to cobble together something with what was left.

RobertB wrote: Gunslinger. I don't know why someone hasn't stolen that movement/combat scheme, where you put together your turn with a deck of action cards.

Someone has. Takashi Ishida (designer of Magical Athelete) apparently used it as the framework for his first game, Robo Fight. Sadly, that seems to be the only information available about the game.

boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/57323/robo-fight

One person on ToS claims to own a copy, which I suppose makes it my Game Z.

RobertB wrote: Civilization. Yes, it's all day but still a favorite.

This is my pick. I didn’t play it until around 2011 after finding this and other sites.

I was born in 1985, so the 90s are my big nostalgia decade.

Great thread.

I was born in 1975. The games played in the 80s were absolutely formative.

Dark Tower (only played once in '83, BURNING an impression in my head)
Crossbows and Catapults
Dungeon!
Risk
Aggravation (played on a home-made board)
Scotland Yard (helped turn me into an Anglophile)
Murder She Wrote (shockingly good at the time)
and
Heroquest


I play many of them to this day.

But my favorite? Probably the one I was introduced to in 2012. WIZ-WAR.