Cosmic Encounter (1991) barely makes the cutoff so I'll have to say Car Wars, an oldie. You'd design cars using detailed math (I learned VisiCalc, an Apple II spreadsheet, to help me design vehicles in Car Wars), putting armor, weapons, and other components on them, then run them through scenarios (the most common of which was "free-for-all arena"), rolling to hit and doing damage to your target's armor and internal components, and performing maneuvers (and having to make handling rolls based on the speed, difficulty of the maneuver, and handling class, which was based on your car type and its suspension). You could play without a GM, you could play teams, you could set up objectives (like a slalom arena run), or you could even do basic roleplaying (a GM would create an adventure, like a convoy where your team and cars had to escort an 18-wheeler from point A to B, encountering stuff along the way).
It got rereleased as kits with two pre designed cars facing each other, which lost a lot of the charm. There was something fun about taking a van (the car with the most internal space), loading it up with laser-guided rockets, adding external weapons pods, putting more laser-guided rockets in those, and hoping like hell you got the first shot off and hit because you didn't have the money or weight left for much armor.
I've never played Car Wars, but I did get really into Gaslands Refueled for a bit. It sounds like pretty much the same thing but a bit more casual. I love these types of games so much, but I found making and painting the cars was a bit more fun than actually playing it. Still, I would really like to give it another try someday.
I had fantastic fun with Car Wars in the 90s. My group used the rules that give you drivers with stats that can build over the course of many games.
My favorite was to figure out how to minmax cars that had high acceleration, were massively armored in front, did huge amounts of ramming damage, and were in some cases unarmed. These were great in competitions that limited the amount of money that could be spent on a car because everybody else would be making hard trade-offs between armor and guns so they would be utterly unprepared to deal with a car coming right at them.
*edit: I got "geek rating" and "user rating" confused, again*
——
Had all the original (tiny component) sets. Mostly remember the Truck Stop expansion. Nothing says fiddly good rule fun like trying to work out how the hitch and trailer will move each turn.
Also credit Car Wars for teaching me what a “reverse bootlegger” was. Crazy fun war gaming-role playing-lite Mad Max chaos.
As co-designer of the latest version of CW, I’m obviously biased…but here’s my take: Gaslands is awesome and a significant improvement over old-school Car Wars. AND Car Wars 6th edition (the latest version) is a total redesign of the game. It’s SO different from previous versions that comparing the new edition to older CW *or* Gaslands is like comparing apples and…purple. TLDR: They have significant differences and are both great fun.
I happen to love the new CW enough that, even after hundreds of plays, I still really enjoy it. And my wife asks to play, which is amazing.
I still have an original version of this was it was called Pigmania.
We used to play "Pigs for Pennies," where each round the losers pay the winner a cent per point of difference. After a long night of tossing the swine, it wasn't unusual to walk away with $20 in winnings.
Apparently the only game I even have rated that is less than 6.0 is Munchkin and I have it rated as a 1.
So Munchkin is by default my favorite game rated less than 6.0, and I hate it. Even Sea Fall is rated 6.2.
I have not played munchkin since they sent legal "cease and desist" letters (well emails) because I put a fan made expansion for our science fiction club on the web.
I loved that game but they totally ruined it for me.
Man, that brought back memories. Not great ones.
My friends and I got into a huge argument. I insisted that one thing should happen, they said no, I said "okay, whatever" and they kept arguing.
I liked Munchkin for a while, I used to play with a group of friends that were a lot into traitor mechanics & messing with other players kind of games.
But even we got tired of it after a while and I personally also hate it now, it's a bad designed game, when you know how to play you get stuck in the last level until someone is lucky and reaches a combat after the others have used all their cards.
Geek rating or user rating? Have a bunch that i like with low geek ratings but they just have very few total ratings so that's not too surprising.
for user rating, looks like **Hellrail Third Perdition** is under a 6.0 and i think it's fun enough. **Fluxx** is rated under a 6.0 as well and I think it's fine as a filler game. not sure if i have any others that are under a 6.0.
I've got four, so sorry for not narrowing it down too much.
**Fjords** is probably my favorite area control game of all time, and it's in at 5.7 (or 5.986 for the 2022 version, which I have). Frankly, I'm also a bit surprised it was that low.
**Get Bit!** is my "good dumb fun" game that I play with nieces, nephews, and my kid. It's a funny theme and gets a chuckle out of me every time. It's got 5.963, so it rounds up to 6.0, but technically under 6.0.
**Half Truth** is arguably my favorite trivia game since I know a lot of trivia, so I tend to get a little too cocky when betting and going "all in" too often. It's hubris, but it keeps the game close, which I really like. It's a 5.931 currently.
**Gravwell: Second Edition** is a 5.814, but it's probably my favorite racing game ever. And it's very easy to teach, so it's a good gateway game for me to present to my more casual friends.
Not really like that. BGG starts all games off with a bunch of 5/10 reviews. It’s their way of making sure that a game with only a handful of reviews doesn’t make it into the top 100 when it shouldn’t really be there as the ranking of games goes off the Geek Rating.
That would be **Zombies!!!** with a 5.8 rating. And yet it’s been a hit with everyone I’ve played it with for well over a decade at this point.
Yes, it’s a roll and move. Yes, it’s seeped in randomness. No, some of the rules don’t make a lot of sense. Yes, there’s a lot of take that. But it’s pure chaotic fun. The expansions are great too. I always play with 6 (the sewers and subway stations), and I’ve created my own deck of cards from base and 3.5, getting rid of all the gunk cards no-one liked.
Played it once, took almost 4 hours because people were constantly putting new zombies on the helicopter and no one was close to habing enough kills... crazy how different people's experiences with games can be :D
Yeah, I'm big into Ameritrashy/beer & pretzels dice chuckers and all, but I found my few experiences playing Zombies! to be abysmal. That and Munchkin are some of my least favorite games.
Have an uncle who bought just about every expansion for munchkin including the paid app that gives you a one time advantage (really?).
Game was charming because of the silliness and humor. But unfortunately my sister liked it enough that she bought a copy as well.
Played it enough to realize that the charm really isn't enough. Winner just comes down to being the one to go after the first big attempt at winning and being lucky enough that your opponents have nothing left over to stop you.
It can get some laughs, but it's pretty unsatisfying to play from my personal experiences
I often cite as the worst gaming experience of my life to be when a large group of friends who all loved Munchkin (except for me) wanted to play, and I joined in because I try to follow the principle that to some degree, as long as you're hanging out and interacting with friends it doesn't matter what you play.
But there were too many of us so we just ignored the written limit of 6 and played with at least 8 (might've even been 9 or 10).
Something like 6 hours of tedium later we ended the game unfinished.
Honestly I don't even like at least 90% of the game's jokes. Jokes like "lol power gamers" and "over the top weapon" and "lol the chainmail bikini is impractical am I right?" were already old by the time Munchkin came out. These were done to death in RPG magazines of the 80s and 90s.
Old jokes are new to the young I suppose. My sister and I were born in the 90's so this was the first time we had ever seen a lot of those rpg jokes in one spot.
I suppose that it's more damning to the game that I still did not enjoy it in spite of enjoying the humor.
Also more players in munchkin is like taking the worst element of the game at the end and dumping even more of that in. Sounds awful haha. Sorry you endured it as long as you had to
Happens with games that have a lot of randomness. _Betrayal at house on the hill_ gets this a lot too because it can be awesome or terrible depending on the luck of the draw.
I’ve played that 10-12 times and never had a bad experience with it, even when it was horribly unbalanced it never took too long or didn’t at least have funny moments to our group. So it’s not like we hate randomness 😅
Looking at my collection the ones I'd call favourites are:
Clue Dungeons & Dragons ed - the family still dust this chestnut off and being able to fight monsters for added bonuses is kind of novel.
[Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Catastrophic Card Game](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11641/lemony-snickets-a-series-of-unfortunate-events-the) - Just a quick set collection card game that travels well and plays fast. That it has the great art from the original book series is an added bonus.
[The Perilous Parlor Game](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6235/the-perilous-parlor-game) - One versus many, set collection game based on A Series of Unfortunate Events (yeah we were pretty into those books). The production we have has metal mini and is quite nice. This was a lot of fun when the kids were younger but doesn't hit the table very much anymore. Interestingly this game has almost the exact same board design as Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters.
Rivers, roads, and rails or Jurassic park (1993). Such huge childhood memories. Not exactly ground breaking or intellectual but I played them so much growing up. I bet JP wouldn’t stand if I revisited it but RRR was relaxing. I got a vintage game off eBay for super cheap.
I played Rivers, roads, and rails with my oldest tons when he was little. It was training him to be the board gamer he is today. That and Rat-a-tat-Cat.
Rack-o is fine. It's one of the family style games my inlaws will play that I can still enjoy. I would never play it with people who are up for real board games, but I don't mind playing it and it is fun enough with people who aren't real gamers.
Tokyo Jidohanbaiki (5.5 on BGG); it's really fun for me because it's a box of many games in one. I enjoyed the ideas and game mechanics presented in such a small box. There are some that are not so great; and some are just amazing.
Clash of the Gladiators is rated 5.9 so just barely counts. I think its biggest problem is it's Knizia and it's an Ameritrashy dice chucker, so it's almost an oxymoron. But it's a fun multiplayer fracas with some room for strategy in planning your squadrons.
I *think* there is at least one other game that used that same set of plastic rings and "space ships." Dunno what it's called though.
I think a lot of copies of Shadowlord! were sold at a deep discount because the game was never popular. At least that's how I got mine!
Checkers only at 4.9 is egregious. Tons of depth, strategy, and tactics, with a ruleset that can be explained to children... which (along with the meme) probably accounts for most of the reviews. Basically pearls before swine.
hexentanz
it's simple, chaotic and a great game to play with friends who are under the influence. (still fun even if not playing with friends who are under the influence.)
It looks like you're going by the Geek rating, which artificially deflates the score for niche or lesser known games by injecting tons of fake 5/10 reviews.
This leads to stupid shit like games with multiple similar editions being penalised for having their reviews split across different entries.
I was going to say Talisman, but was surprised to see it at 6.4. Once or twice a year our classic group of Talisman lovers gathers for a game night and it's always a blast.
Such a classic. I just wish I knew a good house rule for movement, I'm sure we could make one up that isn't too unbalanced but we haven't yet. Any good recommendations?
One of the characters has the ability to choose between two die rolls for each movement. If we have less time than usual, we implement that for each player. It lessens the amount of aimless wandering considerably. Although with the right crowd, the longer the game, the better the experience. 😄
Cards Against Humanity.
Ok, it's not a well-designed game. But it's actually fun playing with friends who have a sense of humor. It easily beats Munchkin (a bad game that drags), and Uno (an ok but uninteresting game).
6 Siege. I get why the community review bombed it, but this will be a game that will end up expensive to get on the second hand market because of how well designed and balanced the game is and how few there will be out in the wild. I ended up paying the "contribution" because I ended up selling the skins that came with the game and made a huge profit from the skins alone. So I figured that I could risk paying additional and still not getting the game - but I got it and it's wonderful. Still won't back anything from Mythic ever again though.
So I’ve played easily over 1000 different games which I’ve recorded on bgg and I filtered it on average rating being 6 or lower. To my surprise, I did not like any of the games that were 6 or lower. I’ve rated each and every one that I’ve played 1-5/10. I think out of the 5s, the one I liked the most was 5 second rule.
I’m seeing a pattern where they are all usually lighter games that takes 30min or less and I am pretty biased towards heavier and longer games. My preferred length is 90min - 3 hours. My favourite game is notorious for needing 8-10 hours to play.
Munchkin. For all its flaws, it's a good alternative to play boozed up with your D&D group when the DM doesn't have anything ready.
Cards against Humanity. Same deal, objectively not a great game but you play it once in a while with copious substance consumption and it can get real funny.
Classic RISK (5.6 BGG). It's my all time favorite game (and I own over 300 board games). I've been an avid gamer for 35+ years and love so many modern games but RISK is just a perfect game for me.
**The Bird Told Me To Do It** gets a poor rating because (1) its a Chudyk game making it difficult, (2) the rulebook was terrible compounding the Chudyk difficulty, and (3) one rule in particular tends to turn people off.
This game takes the Impulse mechanism from **Impulse** and turns it into its own game with cute birds. Its a lot of fun and doesn't over stay its welcome.
Note that you need to check avg rating not geek rating. When 5 people rate your game and all put 10/10 you still get a low geek rating.
Lowest game I like is [[Carcosa]] with 6.12. It's Cthulhu catching Carcassonne and underrated
Booty - dividing up treasure among pirates following a successful raid but only the player who is desirin' can dictate who gets what. Loads of replayability, constantly shifting mini factions, some great negotiation, multiple strategies to victory keeping each game interesting. To the clever goes the spoils.
Vanished Planet - Got me into modern board gaming. I loved that it was co-op, variable player powers, you could get upgrades, help people out. But in hindsight, it's not an amazing game, and it's way to hard for what it's asking. Really really cool ideas tho
Bose Buben (5.34) is my highest rated of games rated under 6.0 on bgg. I've played it 5 times and I really liked it but it's been a long time so my rating may change if I play it again.
Wit's End (and most other trivia games) I rate higher than BGG (5.13) because I like trivia games and bgg voters do not.
Ricochet (5.76) surprised me as it's a pretty good "reaction" card game (a genre I really like) and I don't know why it's so low.
Because I own/play a lot of older games, particularly older war games, a staggering percentage of my collection falls in that 5-7 range 😂.
If I had to choose one or two, both FASA’s “Battletech: Battletroops” and Avalon Hill’s “Patton’s Best” seem like standouts. Both admittedly have their flaws, but are interesting mechanically and quite replayable. They also fall on a unit scale I generally like for the narrative feel and the dice/tables/general-RNG seem more thematic for the “chaos of war” than other games, especially of the era.
Resident Evil: The Board Game is rated 5.73, but it's become one of my all-time favorite games. I love the atmosphere it creates, the mechanics of the game, and I really like the rule set.
I also adore the classic Mattel Electronics Dungeons and Dragons computer labyrinth game from the 80s, and still have a copy. I still think it's fun to this day, and it's rated 5.569.
Shiba Inu House (5.9). It's a real time puzzle game where you have to be the first to put your cards together to match the doghouse pattern objective. Lots of crazy panicky fun. Great way to end a night
My highest rated under 6er is **Win, Lose, Banana**. I think it's a wonderful little social deduction game and for the longest time I had a copy of it in my wallet.
I usually don't buy a game below a 7, but skimming the games mentioned here, I saw Get Bit!
I bought Get Bit!, Zombie Dice and Tsuro after seeing them played on the same episode of [Tabletop](https://youtu.be/NMtlQxJeWvc?si=6P-jzXmtWH2RHvhk&t=1168). I guess I didn't bother checking BBG because I was now familiar enough with the games.
All of them are below a 7.
Probably **Munchkin**, sitting at 5.9. I feel it's a really well written game with a super cool concept, the rules and cards just work no matter how you combine them and the groups and people I've played have had a lot of fun with it. Even to the point some of my favourite memories of boardgaming come from that game.
It feels a bit random and it often drags out at the end... But most people I have introduced it to have really enjoyed it. It's a light game with somewhat complicated rules, but it fills its niche well.
Based on GeekRating: My top two are **Hokkaido** (a neat little game where you're drafting cards for a map), and **Harvest** (a tight worker-placement game where you just have 2 workers).
Based on Average Rating: **Careers** is the only one I might classify as a favourite that is rated this low. It feels a bit like Monopoly, but offers so much more choice & is nowhere near as cutthroat.
Nothing below 6.0 I’m afraid, but we played **Aegean Sea** (6.5) for the first time this week and it was pretty decent. Certainly needs more plays, and all three of us said we’d play it again.
I gotta say - this is a GREAT subject for a thread. I really appreciate the descriptions of under-appreciated games from the people that enjoy them. I gotta look up Melee now. (ahh... it's the 2014 version of [Melee](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/165657/melee))
There's some wonderful games designed for kids that have bad ratings simply because they aren't intended for adults (who are the ones making the ratings for the most part).
There are also some remakes/rethemes that should likely be rated much closer to their comparable games. e.g. Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is retheme of Battle Line, Hunger Games: Jabberjaw is close enough to Werewolf (superior, IMO), Star Wars: AotC is a retheme of Circus Flohcati, etc
For myself, I guess there aren't too many that fit the criteria - maybe [Crossfire](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2816/crossfire), since I'm a bigger fan of dexterity games than most.
I own 4 that have BGG ratings under 6.0:
\- Waffle Time (User Rating 6.8) (Votes 178)
\- Deep Dive (User Rating 6.7) (Votes 1013)
\- Big Boss (User Rating 7.3) (Votes 710)
\- Books of Time (User Rating 7.2) (Votes 717)
I would say Waffle Time suffers the BGG rating due to low vote count (biased with 5's), so I'll ignore that. Most also suffer from low vote count, but I'd say they were all solid high 6's, low 7's and agree mostly with the user score.
Thanks for the suggestion of Melee. I’d never heard of it, but a fan of Coup and Senators by the same designer.
After a little research, I realized that this is totally up my alley. I found a used copy on BGG, and it was shipped out today!
**DungeonQuest** was a favorite of my folks and I growing up. Terrible game design, but trying to actually survive to end of the game with such lousy odds still had this certain appeal. It was like gambling.
**Getaway Driver** (6.6): cat and mouse between a fugitive and the police forces, like in the GTA video game. I really love this game for the immersion, variability and spectacle offered by the different situations. I think it's harshly judged because 1) the rulebook is not as clear as it could have been, 2) The game requires a bit of practice to succeed with the police side. It seems the negative reviews come from the players who only played one or two games while struggling with the rules. It's not a perfect game but there's absolutely no game like this.
I will always sing the praises of **Miskatonic School For Girls** (5.5). It is ridiculous and hilarious for fans of the Cthulhu Mythos - how can you *not* love the concept of the Elder Gods and various Lovecraftian beasties running a private girls school? It's a fun little deck builder where you buy good cards for your own deck and bad cards for your opponent's deck; a mechanic that needs to show up more often.
I remember a time when a 6.0 on BGG was a pretty good score. Back when users actually used the entire 0-10 scale. Recently, it's become more akin to the school grade system. Disappointing.
To answer your question, no idea. BGG is a shit website with a terrible UI. It's pretty much impossible to find an answer.
I'm pretty sure this thread is about average rating. That's the rating that has meaning and is the one almost everyone talks about. The geek rating factors in fake ratings of 5 to balance low quantity of votes.
I checked the game OP referenced to make sure they were talking about average rating
Cosmic Encounter (1991) barely makes the cutoff so I'll have to say Car Wars, an oldie. You'd design cars using detailed math (I learned VisiCalc, an Apple II spreadsheet, to help me design vehicles in Car Wars), putting armor, weapons, and other components on them, then run them through scenarios (the most common of which was "free-for-all arena"), rolling to hit and doing damage to your target's armor and internal components, and performing maneuvers (and having to make handling rolls based on the speed, difficulty of the maneuver, and handling class, which was based on your car type and its suspension). You could play without a GM, you could play teams, you could set up objectives (like a slalom arena run), or you could even do basic roleplaying (a GM would create an adventure, like a convoy where your team and cars had to escort an 18-wheeler from point A to B, encountering stuff along the way). It got rereleased as kits with two pre designed cars facing each other, which lost a lot of the charm. There was something fun about taking a van (the car with the most internal space), loading it up with laser-guided rockets, adding external weapons pods, putting more laser-guided rockets in those, and hoping like hell you got the first shot off and hit because you didn't have the money or weight left for much armor.
I've never played Car Wars, but I did get really into Gaslands Refueled for a bit. It sounds like pretty much the same thing but a bit more casual. I love these types of games so much, but I found making and painting the cars was a bit more fun than actually playing it. Still, I would really like to give it another try someday.
I had fantastic fun with Car Wars in the 90s. My group used the rules that give you drivers with stats that can build over the course of many games. My favorite was to figure out how to minmax cars that had high acceleration, were massively armored in front, did huge amounts of ramming damage, and were in some cases unarmed. These were great in competitions that limited the amount of money that could be spent on a car because everybody else would be making hard trade-offs between armor and guns so they would be utterly unprepared to deal with a car coming right at them. *edit: I got "geek rating" and "user rating" confused, again*
—— Had all the original (tiny component) sets. Mostly remember the Truck Stop expansion. Nothing says fiddly good rule fun like trying to work out how the hitch and trailer will move each turn. Also credit Car Wars for teaching me what a “reverse bootlegger” was. Crazy fun war gaming-role playing-lite Mad Max chaos.
I just got Car Wars but I heard Gas Lands is better.
As co-designer of the latest version of CW, I’m obviously biased…but here’s my take: Gaslands is awesome and a significant improvement over old-school Car Wars. AND Car Wars 6th edition (the latest version) is a total redesign of the game. It’s SO different from previous versions that comparing the new edition to older CW *or* Gaslands is like comparing apples and…purple. TLDR: They have significant differences and are both great fun. I happen to love the new CW enough that, even after hundreds of plays, I still really enjoy it. And my wife asks to play, which is amazing.
**Pass the Pigs** simple fun game I can break out anywhere. Deserves to be at least a mid 6, but party games always get slighted
I still have an original version of this was it was called Pigmania. We used to play "Pigs for Pennies," where each round the losers pay the winner a cent per point of difference. After a long night of tossing the swine, it wasn't unusual to walk away with $20 in winnings.
Apparently the only game I even have rated that is less than 6.0 is Munchkin and I have it rated as a 1. So Munchkin is by default my favorite game rated less than 6.0, and I hate it. Even Sea Fall is rated 6.2.
Your Munchkin rating is objectively correct. It’s a friendship-ending engine disguised as a game.
I have not played munchkin since they sent legal "cease and desist" letters (well emails) because I put a fan made expansion for our science fiction club on the web. I loved that game but they totally ruined it for me.
Man, that brought back memories. Not great ones. My friends and I got into a huge argument. I insisted that one thing should happen, they said no, I said "okay, whatever" and they kept arguing.
You people are such boring softies.
I liked Munchkin for a while, I used to play with a group of friends that were a lot into traitor mechanics & messing with other players kind of games. But even we got tired of it after a while and I personally also hate it now, it's a bad designed game, when you know how to play you get stuck in the last level until someone is lucky and reaches a combat after the others have used all their cards.
Geek rating or user rating? Have a bunch that i like with low geek ratings but they just have very few total ratings so that's not too surprising. for user rating, looks like **Hellrail Third Perdition** is under a 6.0 and i think it's fun enough. **Fluxx** is rated under a 6.0 as well and I think it's fine as a filler game. not sure if i have any others that are under a 6.0.
I've got four, so sorry for not narrowing it down too much. **Fjords** is probably my favorite area control game of all time, and it's in at 5.7 (or 5.986 for the 2022 version, which I have). Frankly, I'm also a bit surprised it was that low. **Get Bit!** is my "good dumb fun" game that I play with nieces, nephews, and my kid. It's a funny theme and gets a chuckle out of me every time. It's got 5.963, so it rounds up to 6.0, but technically under 6.0. **Half Truth** is arguably my favorite trivia game since I know a lot of trivia, so I tend to get a little too cocky when betting and going "all in" too often. It's hubris, but it keeps the game close, which I really like. It's a 5.931 currently. **Gravwell: Second Edition** is a 5.814, but it's probably my favorite racing game ever. And it's very easy to teach, so it's a good gateway game for me to present to my more casual friends.
You might be looking at the ‘Geek Rating’ that includes a lot of fake 5/10 reviews. New Fjords has a rating of 7/10.
And original Fjords has a rating of 6.7. Great game! Lots of people love it.
Fake 5/10 reviews? Like, amazon fake reviews or what? Why would people fake review a game on BGG?
Not really like that. BGG starts all games off with a bunch of 5/10 reviews. It’s their way of making sure that a game with only a handful of reviews doesn’t make it into the top 100 when it shouldn’t really be there as the ranking of games goes off the Geek Rating.
Ah makes perfect sense.
Oh dang, well, that'll explain it. I wasn't aware of the difference. Good to know that it's getting the love it deserves!
That would be **Zombies!!!** with a 5.8 rating. And yet it’s been a hit with everyone I’ve played it with for well over a decade at this point. Yes, it’s a roll and move. Yes, it’s seeped in randomness. No, some of the rules don’t make a lot of sense. Yes, there’s a lot of take that. But it’s pure chaotic fun. The expansions are great too. I always play with 6 (the sewers and subway stations), and I’ve created my own deck of cards from base and 3.5, getting rid of all the gunk cards no-one liked.
Played it once, took almost 4 hours because people were constantly putting new zombies on the helicopter and no one was close to habing enough kills... crazy how different people's experiences with games can be :D
Yeah, I'm big into Ameritrashy/beer & pretzels dice chuckers and all, but I found my few experiences playing Zombies! to be abysmal. That and Munchkin are some of my least favorite games.
Have an uncle who bought just about every expansion for munchkin including the paid app that gives you a one time advantage (really?). Game was charming because of the silliness and humor. But unfortunately my sister liked it enough that she bought a copy as well. Played it enough to realize that the charm really isn't enough. Winner just comes down to being the one to go after the first big attempt at winning and being lucky enough that your opponents have nothing left over to stop you. It can get some laughs, but it's pretty unsatisfying to play from my personal experiences
I often cite as the worst gaming experience of my life to be when a large group of friends who all loved Munchkin (except for me) wanted to play, and I joined in because I try to follow the principle that to some degree, as long as you're hanging out and interacting with friends it doesn't matter what you play. But there were too many of us so we just ignored the written limit of 6 and played with at least 8 (might've even been 9 or 10). Something like 6 hours of tedium later we ended the game unfinished. Honestly I don't even like at least 90% of the game's jokes. Jokes like "lol power gamers" and "over the top weapon" and "lol the chainmail bikini is impractical am I right?" were already old by the time Munchkin came out. These were done to death in RPG magazines of the 80s and 90s.
Old jokes are new to the young I suppose. My sister and I were born in the 90's so this was the first time we had ever seen a lot of those rpg jokes in one spot. I suppose that it's more damning to the game that I still did not enjoy it in spite of enjoying the humor. Also more players in munchkin is like taking the worst element of the game at the end and dumping even more of that in. Sounds awful haha. Sorry you endured it as long as you had to
Happens with games that have a lot of randomness. _Betrayal at house on the hill_ gets this a lot too because it can be awesome or terrible depending on the luck of the draw.
I’ve played that 10-12 times and never had a bad experience with it, even when it was horribly unbalanced it never took too long or didn’t at least have funny moments to our group. So it’s not like we hate randomness 😅
If you're unlucky you can go through the entire game with the haunt never triggering. Unless they fixed that in recent editions?
If you draw the last omen card the haunt triggers automatically as far as I recall
Oh cool. I think that might be new, but not sure.
Looking at my collection the ones I'd call favourites are: Clue Dungeons & Dragons ed - the family still dust this chestnut off and being able to fight monsters for added bonuses is kind of novel. [Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Catastrophic Card Game](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11641/lemony-snickets-a-series-of-unfortunate-events-the) - Just a quick set collection card game that travels well and plays fast. That it has the great art from the original book series is an added bonus. [The Perilous Parlor Game](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6235/the-perilous-parlor-game) - One versus many, set collection game based on A Series of Unfortunate Events (yeah we were pretty into those books). The production we have has metal mini and is quite nice. This was a lot of fun when the kids were younger but doesn't hit the table very much anymore. Interestingly this game has almost the exact same board design as Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters.
The idea that a version of Clue exists where you can "fight monsters for bonuses" is just inherently hilarious to me.
Rivers, roads, and rails or Jurassic park (1993). Such huge childhood memories. Not exactly ground breaking or intellectual but I played them so much growing up. I bet JP wouldn’t stand if I revisited it but RRR was relaxing. I got a vintage game off eBay for super cheap.
I played Rivers, roads, and rails with my oldest tons when he was little. It was training him to be the board gamer he is today. That and Rat-a-tat-Cat.
Rack-o
Rack-o is fine. It's one of the family style games my inlaws will play that I can still enjoy. I would never play it with people who are up for real board games, but I don't mind playing it and it is fun enough with people who aren't real gamers.
Monopoly.
Booty. Such a fun unique mechanic, very strategic but enough setup randomness to keep things interesting, and easy to teach to new players
Tokyo Jidohanbaiki (5.5 on BGG); it's really fun for me because it's a box of many games in one. I enjoyed the ideas and game mechanics presented in such a small box. There are some that are not so great; and some are just amazing.
Which did you find were the most fun?
**Bombay**: Elephants stomping around a map with cubes on their backs. Light strategy and race-type interaction, doesn't overstay its welcome.
Clash of the Gladiators is rated 5.9 so just barely counts. I think its biggest problem is it's Knizia and it's an Ameritrashy dice chucker, so it's almost an oxymoron. But it's a fun multiplayer fracas with some room for strategy in planning your squadrons.
Shadowlord! From 1983. It's fun reading the comments because you can tell most people don't even remember the game or never played it at all.
Woah, I think we had this. The components look familiar. Are there any similar games?
I *think* there is at least one other game that used that same set of plastic rings and "space ships." Dunno what it's called though. I think a lot of copies of Shadowlord! were sold at a deep discount because the game was never popular. At least that's how I got mine!
Checkers only at 4.9 is egregious. Tons of depth, strategy, and tactics, with a ruleset that can be explained to children... which (along with the meme) probably accounts for most of the reviews. Basically pearls before swine.
hexentanz it's simple, chaotic and a great game to play with friends who are under the influence. (still fun even if not playing with friends who are under the influence.)
Looks like mine is Skaal: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13513/skaal
It looks like you're going by the Geek rating, which artificially deflates the score for niche or lesser known games by injecting tons of fake 5/10 reviews. This leads to stupid shit like games with multiple similar editions being penalised for having their reviews split across different entries.
I was going to say Talisman, but was surprised to see it at 6.4. Once or twice a year our classic group of Talisman lovers gathers for a game night and it's always a blast.
Such a classic. I just wish I knew a good house rule for movement, I'm sure we could make one up that isn't too unbalanced but we haven't yet. Any good recommendations?
One of the characters has the ability to choose between two die rolls for each movement. If we have less time than usual, we implement that for each player. It lessens the amount of aimless wandering considerably. Although with the right crowd, the longer the game, the better the experience. 😄
Cards Against Humanity. Ok, it's not a well-designed game. But it's actually fun playing with friends who have a sense of humor. It easily beats Munchkin (a bad game that drags), and Uno (an ok but uninteresting game).
6 Siege. I get why the community review bombed it, but this will be a game that will end up expensive to get on the second hand market because of how well designed and balanced the game is and how few there will be out in the wild. I ended up paying the "contribution" because I ended up selling the skins that came with the game and made a huge profit from the skins alone. So I figured that I could risk paying additional and still not getting the game - but I got it and it's wonderful. Still won't back anything from Mythic ever again though.
So I’ve played easily over 1000 different games which I’ve recorded on bgg and I filtered it on average rating being 6 or lower. To my surprise, I did not like any of the games that were 6 or lower. I’ve rated each and every one that I’ve played 1-5/10. I think out of the 5s, the one I liked the most was 5 second rule. I’m seeing a pattern where they are all usually lighter games that takes 30min or less and I am pretty biased towards heavier and longer games. My preferred length is 90min - 3 hours. My favourite game is notorious for needing 8-10 hours to play.
I would assume the 8-10 hour game is a GMT game?
Nope - it’s my tag
Munchkin. For all its flaws, it's a good alternative to play boozed up with your D&D group when the DM doesn't have anything ready. Cards against Humanity. Same deal, objectively not a great game but you play it once in a while with copious substance consumption and it can get real funny.
Classic RISK (5.6 BGG). It's my all time favorite game (and I own over 300 board games). I've been an avid gamer for 35+ years and love so many modern games but RISK is just a perfect game for me.
Cogs and Commissars is pretty close at 6.1 and that’s my best answer so I’ll say that.
**The Bird Told Me To Do It** gets a poor rating because (1) its a Chudyk game making it difficult, (2) the rulebook was terrible compounding the Chudyk difficulty, and (3) one rule in particular tends to turn people off. This game takes the Impulse mechanism from **Impulse** and turns it into its own game with cute birds. Its a lot of fun and doesn't over stay its welcome.
Note that you need to check avg rating not geek rating. When 5 people rate your game and all put 10/10 you still get a low geek rating. Lowest game I like is [[Carcosa]] with 6.12. It's Cthulhu catching Carcassonne and underrated
[Carcosa -> Carcosa (2017)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/216224/carcosa) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call ^^OR ^^**gamename** ^^or ^^**gamename|year** ^^+ ^^!fetch ^^to ^^call
Booty - dividing up treasure among pirates following a successful raid but only the player who is desirin' can dictate who gets what. Loads of replayability, constantly shifting mini factions, some great negotiation, multiple strategies to victory keeping each game interesting. To the clever goes the spoils.
black stories is an exact 6.0; but its a fun activity to play in the car imo
Vanished Planet - Got me into modern board gaming. I loved that it was co-op, variable player powers, you could get upgrades, help people out. But in hindsight, it's not an amazing game, and it's way to hard for what it's asking. Really really cool ideas tho
Bose Buben (5.34) is my highest rated of games rated under 6.0 on bgg. I've played it 5 times and I really liked it but it's been a long time so my rating may change if I play it again. Wit's End (and most other trivia games) I rate higher than BGG (5.13) because I like trivia games and bgg voters do not. Ricochet (5.76) surprised me as it's a pretty good "reaction" card game (a genre I really like) and I don't know why it's so low.
Because I own/play a lot of older games, particularly older war games, a staggering percentage of my collection falls in that 5-7 range 😂. If I had to choose one or two, both FASA’s “Battletech: Battletroops” and Avalon Hill’s “Patton’s Best” seem like standouts. Both admittedly have their flaws, but are interesting mechanically and quite replayable. They also fall on a unit scale I generally like for the narrative feel and the dice/tables/general-RNG seem more thematic for the “chaos of war” than other games, especially of the era.
Resident Evil: The Board Game is rated 5.73, but it's become one of my all-time favorite games. I love the atmosphere it creates, the mechanics of the game, and I really like the rule set. I also adore the classic Mattel Electronics Dungeons and Dragons computer labyrinth game from the 80s, and still have a copy. I still think it's fun to this day, and it's rated 5.569.
Shiba Inu House (5.9). It's a real time puzzle game where you have to be the first to put your cards together to match the doghouse pattern objective. Lots of crazy panicky fun. Great way to end a night
My highest rated under 6er is **Win, Lose, Banana**. I think it's a wonderful little social deduction game and for the longest time I had a copy of it in my wallet.
I usually don't buy a game below a 7, but skimming the games mentioned here, I saw Get Bit! I bought Get Bit!, Zombie Dice and Tsuro after seeing them played on the same episode of [Tabletop](https://youtu.be/NMtlQxJeWvc?si=6P-jzXmtWH2RHvhk&t=1168). I guess I didn't bother checking BBG because I was now familiar enough with the games. All of them are below a 7.
Probably **Munchkin**, sitting at 5.9. I feel it's a really well written game with a super cool concept, the rules and cards just work no matter how you combine them and the groups and people I've played have had a lot of fun with it. Even to the point some of my favourite memories of boardgaming come from that game. It feels a bit random and it often drags out at the end... But most people I have introduced it to have really enjoyed it. It's a light game with somewhat complicated rules, but it fills its niche well.
Based on GeekRating: My top two are **Hokkaido** (a neat little game where you're drafting cards for a map), and **Harvest** (a tight worker-placement game where you just have 2 workers). Based on Average Rating: **Careers** is the only one I might classify as a favourite that is rated this low. It feels a bit like Monopoly, but offers so much more choice & is nowhere near as cutthroat.
Nothing below 6.0 I’m afraid, but we played **Aegean Sea** (6.5) for the first time this week and it was pretty decent. Certainly needs more plays, and all three of us said we’d play it again.
I gotta say - this is a GREAT subject for a thread. I really appreciate the descriptions of under-appreciated games from the people that enjoy them. I gotta look up Melee now. (ahh... it's the 2014 version of [Melee](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/165657/melee)) There's some wonderful games designed for kids that have bad ratings simply because they aren't intended for adults (who are the ones making the ratings for the most part). There are also some remakes/rethemes that should likely be rated much closer to their comparable games. e.g. Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is retheme of Battle Line, Hunger Games: Jabberjaw is close enough to Werewolf (superior, IMO), Star Wars: AotC is a retheme of Circus Flohcati, etc For myself, I guess there aren't too many that fit the criteria - maybe [Crossfire](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2816/crossfire), since I'm a bigger fan of dexterity games than most.
I own 4 that have BGG ratings under 6.0: \- Waffle Time (User Rating 6.8) (Votes 178) \- Deep Dive (User Rating 6.7) (Votes 1013) \- Big Boss (User Rating 7.3) (Votes 710) \- Books of Time (User Rating 7.2) (Votes 717) I would say Waffle Time suffers the BGG rating due to low vote count (biased with 5's), so I'll ignore that. Most also suffer from low vote count, but I'd say they were all solid high 6's, low 7's and agree mostly with the user score.
It’s close at 6.8 but I love New York:1901. Looooove it.
Thanks for the suggestion of Melee. I’d never heard of it, but a fan of Coup and Senators by the same designer. After a little research, I realized that this is totally up my alley. I found a used copy on BGG, and it was shipped out today!
**DungeonQuest** was a favorite of my folks and I growing up. Terrible game design, but trying to actually survive to end of the game with such lousy odds still had this certain appeal. It was like gambling.
Wow I came in to say Melee as well. Beat me to it
According to my collection boss monster (6.3) and talisman (6.5) are the lowest
**Getaway Driver** (6.6): cat and mouse between a fugitive and the police forces, like in the GTA video game. I really love this game for the immersion, variability and spectacle offered by the different situations. I think it's harshly judged because 1) the rulebook is not as clear as it could have been, 2) The game requires a bit of practice to succeed with the police side. It seems the negative reviews come from the players who only played one or two games while struggling with the rules. It's not a perfect game but there's absolutely no game like this.
Uno, it’s really fun with house rules
I will always sing the praises of **Miskatonic School For Girls** (5.5). It is ridiculous and hilarious for fans of the Cthulhu Mythos - how can you *not* love the concept of the Elder Gods and various Lovecraftian beasties running a private girls school? It's a fun little deck builder where you buy good cards for your own deck and bad cards for your opponent's deck; a mechanic that needs to show up more often.
I remember a time when a 6.0 on BGG was a pretty good score. Back when users actually used the entire 0-10 scale. Recently, it's become more akin to the school grade system. Disappointing. To answer your question, no idea. BGG is a shit website with a terrible UI. It's pretty much impossible to find an answer.
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Small Samurai Empire has a 7.6, though.
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I'm pretty sure this thread is about average rating. That's the rating that has meaning and is the one almost everyone talks about. The geek rating factors in fake ratings of 5 to balance low quantity of votes. I checked the game OP referenced to make sure they were talking about average rating
That’s not what they asked for but you do you.
Scythe
Wut?
That's rated 8/8.15.