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People often blanche at the thought of playing a board game, but that’s because they have only been exposed to the old "classics" that really aren’t worthy of the title due to poor rulesets that promote luck over skill. Here are 15 games that are probably superior to the old standbys like Monopoly, including Last Night on Earth, a zombie thriller:
Last Night on Earth is essentially a survival game. Participants can play as either the “Hero” team or the “Zombie” team. The objective is for one team to complete their “scenario objective”, thus defeating the opposite team. The game is designed to have a horror movie feel, and even comes with it’s own soundtrack!
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
As Tetris turns 25 this week, the Geeks are sexy blog compiled a list of ten interesting facts you probably didn’t know about the game.
1- The game was completed on June 6th 1984 by Alexander Pajitnov, a programmer at the Moscow Academy of Sciences who worked on the game in his spare time [...]
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
Don’t you hate when you answer the phone and get sucked into the receiver? Me too. That’s what happens in White Zone, where you’re magically transported to a room with just four pieces of furniture: a T.V., a dresser and two chairs. How will you escape? That’s for you to figure out… but if you get stuck, there’s a walkthrough at JayIsGames (where I get all of these wonderful Flash games from).
Link via JayIsGames
In this fun click-through game from Gregory Weir, they’re out to get you. They’re always watching. And they’ve always been there. But maybe, just maybe, you can find a way to escape them…
Link via JayIsGames
It usually works out for the best, but on the days it doesn’t, you can always vent your frustration with the Ultimate Vending Machine Challenge from Adult Swim.
Here's a playable Guitar Hero Textadventure where you write about pressing red and blue buttons when you read about falling red and blue circles. Hilarious and based on this fun image at b3ta. When you fail at writing "press red button" when reading "red circle falling" you will be trampled to death by the crowd.
Your utter failure to mimic a series of colored circles enrages the crowd, who storm the stage. Chaos ensues as someone grabs the guitar out of your hands and beats you over the head with it, knocking you unconscious. Your prone body is trampled to death by the enraged audience.
From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by 
Every inch of Marvins Marvelous Mechanical Museum's 5500 square feet of floor space with 40 foot ceilings containing an array of buzzing and clattering new and vintage mechanical devices and oddities. Overhead dangle signs, animatronic dummies, over 50 airplane models gliding along a steel rail, vintage fans of all types, and classic sideshow posters. Marvin himself travels the world looking for odd coin operated devices, both new and old. Some of his machines are custom made just for him, and can not be seen in operation anywhere else. Marvin's is also listed in the World Almanac's 100 most unusual museums in the U.S.
From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by 
I know some people find text-based games (“Interactive Fiction”) a little dull, but I love them. I was seriously addicted to a certain text-based game back in the day, so I have a soft spot for them. This one is pretty fun – you’re an, um, not-so-smart guy named Grunk who works on a farm herding pigs. Except you’ve lost one. Naturally, you need to go find it if you want to keep your job, but you don’t have much direction as to how to go about that. Imagine you were actually looking for a lost pig and think about what you would do first. You’d listen for pig noises, wouldn’t you?
There, I’ve given you your first hint. Oh, and in case you’ve never played these types of games before, just type simple commands: “E” for go east, “get shovel” for, well, get shovel… that sort of thing. Have fun!
Link via Jayisgames (with a walkthrough in case you get stuck)
If you’ve ever wanted to make your own adorable character from Little Big Planet, here’s your chance to knit your own. If you’re really good, you can even customize them like you do in the game.
Can you tell I’ve been sort of addicted to flash games lately? Crazy Doors of Rainbow Colors isn’t too hard, but it’s fun and colorful. Well, there is one tricky part, I thought: figuring out the code for the door. Have fun!
Link via Jayisgames (Hint: the Jayisgames link has a walkthrough if you get really stuck)
Yummy burgers made out of mushrooms that look like Mario mushrooms! 1 Up to nom town. For instructions to make your own, don’t miss this Instructables post. If you like that, don’t miss their Mario holiday guide here.
I love me a good game night. Monopoly gets pretty cut-throat when we’re at my in-laws – cheating bankers, people hiding money, my brother-in-law yelling at people about the free market. It’s a blast, actually. But I love the word games too – Scattergories is probably my favorite, but Catch Phrase is a good time. Especially if there’s alcohol involved. I’ve been itching for a good game night lately, so to satiate my urge until I can convince some friends to come over and be mercilessly beaten at Clue, here are a few facts about some of your favorite (at least, my favorite) games.
• For some reason, I always thought the Monopoly guy was Uncle Moneybags. Nope. But “proper” names for him include Rich Uncle Pennybags, Milburn Pennybags and Mr. Monopoly (his most recent name). Some sources say he’s loosely based on J.P. Morgan.
• Marvin Gardens is actually a misspelling of Marven Gardens, a housing area in Margate City, N.J. In fact, all of the properties on the “classic” Monopoly board are named after places or streets near or in Atlantic City, N.J.
• In the London version of the game, Trafalgar Square is a red property, Piccadilly is yellow, Regent, Oxford and Bond Streets are green and the blue properties are Mayfair and Park Lane. The railroads are replaced by Underground stops (King’s Cross, Marylebone, Fenchurch Street Station and Liverpool Street Station).
• Neiman Marcus once sold an all-chocolate edition. The whole set, including dice, money, hotels and board, was edible.
• F.A.O. Schwarz in NYC sold a $100,000 version, which included 18-carat game pieces, a rosewood board, real money, street names written in gold leaf and various gems scattered across the board.
• The most expensive board even made is a set worth $2 million It’s made of 23-carat gold and has rubies and sapphires embedded in the top of each house and hotel.
• Various versions of Monopoly include Batman, ESPN, Family Guy, American Idol, Nintendo, Sephora, and, honestly, just about any other version you can possibly think of.
What we in North America know as Clue, the rest of the world knows as Cluedo. Would you believe that it was invented by a part-time clown? Totally true. Anthony E. Pratt invented the game in England and it was published for the first time in 1949 by a British company. Bought by Parker Brothers, the U.S. version came out the same year.
• The dead dude is known as Mr. Boddy in North America, but he’s Dr. Black everywhere else. Also, Mr. Green is apparently alias Reverend Green in some parts of the world.
• Also, some of the Clue characters have little-known first names. They are: Colonel Michael Mustard, Miss Josephine Scarlet, Professor Peter Plum, Reverend/Mr. John Green, Mrs. Blanche White and Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock.
• Characters used in other or deluxe versions of Clue include Miss Peach (not to be confused with Princess Peach), Lady Lavender, Prince Azure, Rusty Naylor and Captain Brown.
• The original nine weapons were axe, shillelagh, bomb, rope, dagger, pistol, syringe, poison and poker.
Life has been around since 1861… not in the format we recognize today, of course. Milton Bradley himself invented “The Checkered Game of Life” when his lithography business started to go down the tubes (his major product was a portrait of clean-shaven Lincoln… when Lincoln grew the beard, Bradley went out of business).
He had actually been circulating the game on a smaller scale before his clean-shaven Lincoln lithograph took off, but he abandoned it once demand for his lithograph increased. After that plummeted, he focused more attention on marketing and ended up selling more than 40,000 games in 1861 alone – no small feat for that time period!
• Milton Bradley used a spinner to count the number of spaces people could move because dice were associated with gambing.
• In the original Checkered Game of Life, landing on the “Suicide” square put people out of the game completely. Obviously.
• Other squares on the original game board included Prison, Infancy, Ruin, Gambling, Disgrace, Honesty, Truth, Cupid, Industry and “Happy Old Age” (the goal of the game).
• One interesting variant (among many) is The Game of Redneck Life. Careers include Mullet Salon Operator and Monster Truck Announcer. The goal of the game is to get out with as many teeth as you can – through the various fights and brawls you get into over the course of the game, this can prove to be pretty challenging. I’m dead serious.
Scrabble came about in 1939 when architect Alfred Mosher Butts modified a game he had been working on earlier – Lexiko. At first he called it Criss-Crosswords and based the values of the letters on based on letter usages from the New York Times (and other reputable sources). In 1948, he allowed James Brunot to manufacture the game as long as he got a cut of each board sold… which wasn’t much, at first. They actually lost money the first year they produced it. Legend goes, though, that the President of Macy’s played the game while on vacation and, upon his return to work, was shocked that his store didn’t carry it. When they did start to carry it, sales skyrocketed.
• There are 96 two-letter words that are “legal” in Scrabble… including 10 that are spelled with vowels only. I’m so learning those.
• A typical Scrabble board has 225 squares.
• The highest known score for a single word in competition Scrabble is 392. In 1982, Dr. Saladin Khoshnaw achieved this score for the word “caziques,” which means “Indian chief.”
• The highest possible score a player can get in Scrabble on a first turn is for the word MUZJIKS (128 points).
I realize there’s tons of beloved board games I’ve missed, so maybe I’ll turn this into a series… a three-parter, or something. Sorry!, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Risk, Trivial Pursuit. Lots of options. Have one you’d like to read about? Leave it in the comments and maybe I’ll add it to the list!
“Zwing” your ball around using the mouse, smashing all the black balls of screen. The aim is to protect the white ball in the centre at all times. If the white ball leaves the boundary, the game’s over. Every 10 levels, you’ll face a boss that you have to continually hit until he runs out of health and goes off screen.
As you hit each ball out of the screen, you gain experience points (xp). The harder you hit the ball, the more xp you collect.
Source: Kabomb
For fans of point’n'click puzzle games, “Guest House” has a different twist to it with strange contraptions, Egyptian hieroglyphics and interesting music. More games of the genre can also be found at Lazylaces with “Rental House” and “Terminal House”.
Source: Lazylaces
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