Good board games

• Wise and Otherwise-- you are given the beginning of a saying and have to write an ending.The point of the game is to write an ending that will convince others to pick it, and to be able to pick out the real ending. I played this just last night. Here's an example from that game: "There is an old Estonian saying that goes 'A fox cannot smell...'" My niece's (who always gets me to pick her saying) ending was 'grapes until they have fallen.' My wife's was 'a rabbit in a field of flowers.' The real answer was 'his own stench.' Mine was 'a fart in the wind.' I didn't get any points that round.
• Settlers of Catan-- this is a great strategy game. You're basically trying to build settlements and roads using the natural elements that your settlements border. It sounds a little complicated, but it's not. It's really fun and unlike other strategy games (RISK), everyone has something to do on every turn. The board is a set of hexagonal cards that are shuffled before each game, so the 'board' is different on every play.
• Risk(different versions) -- Everyone already knows about RISK, so I won't go into any depth, except to say that if you've only played the original, you should really give some of the other versions a go. I've got the Lord of the Rings RISK which is pretty good, and Castle Risk, which is my favorite. Both of them are much quicker (typically 3-3hours instead of 6).
• Set-- this is a game of pattern matching with deceptively simple rules.You lay out 12 cards. Each card has 4 attributes: shape, color, fill,and quantity. From the set website: "A 'Set' consists of three cards inwhich each feature is EITHER the same on each card OR is different on each card." The rules page on their site has some examples, so I won't try to explain further here.
  
• Blink-- Blink is kind of a mixture of the card game Speed and Set. It's 2players and the point is to get rid of your half of the deck first. Each card has 3 attributes: shape, color, and quantity. You hold 3 cards at a time and there are 2 discard piles. To put a card down, you just have to match 1 attribute on one of you cards with one of the top cards on the discard pile. Everyone has a game that they always win; that their mind was wired for. This is mine.
  
• Pit-- this is a loud racous game of commodities trading. You trade commodities cards in sets of 1 to 4 in order to corner the market (get all the cards) of a particular commodity. This can be played by up to 9 people. The more, the louder, the faster, the better.
  
• Perudo-- this is great dice game. Everyone has a cup of dice that is turned upside down. You go around betting on how many of any particular numberis currently on the table. So, when you start, there may be 30 dice onthe table. So, you could say 7 fours. The next person has to either raise the quantity (say 8 fours) or the dice number (7 sixes).Eventually, someone will doubt the previous bid (because there's probably not 20 threes on the table) and say 'dudo' (ancient Mayan for 'I doubt it'). The cups are raised and the dice are counted. Whoever was wrong (the last person to bid, or the person who dudo'd) loses adice.


• Quoridor -- I can't believe I almost forgot this one. This is one of my favorite games. Basically, you're trying to get your pawn across the board before your opponent does. On your turn you can either move one space, or put up a fence (a small board that spans 2 squares). You can use the fences to block off your opponent's path, or force him into a maze, or lure him into a trap. But, he can do the same to you. It's another game with deceptively simple rules, but, against the right opponent, can be incredibly challenging.

Updated: 6/14/05 8:42 p.m. I added Quoridor to the list.