The @phctop3 Contest?
If you have been following me for a while, you'll have seen me harp on about this contest in my signatures so it should be no surprise (if it is, shame on you)!
For the last 4 months, myself and a crack team of #powerhousecreatives (@cheese4ead, @foxyspirit and @plantstoplanks) created a fun contest where we ask you what your favourite top 3 things are about a given topic for the month.
To enter, write a post with your top 3 and why, then send the liquid SBD/STEEM from the post payout you receive, or more if you wish (make sure your post payouts are set to 50/50), leaving you with the other 50% of the post payout to power up. This contributes to the prize pool which we use to send out the prizes!
ANYONE on Steem can enter and the winners are decided by the steem community in the form of a dpoll. The nominations that occupy the top 3 spots at the end of the dpoll will receive winnings from the prize pool based on some clever maths (we even employed some expert mathematicians from around the world to help with this)!
What's even more amazing is that, with very kind and generous donations from @curie, we are able to offer bigger prizes and extend the prize positions to the top 5! So a big thanks to curie and the team for their amazing support!
Check out our latest post here.
As I'm on the panel with the other 3, we can't enter the contest ourselves. Instead, the liquid post payout we receive from our top 3 posts will be added to the prize pool to make it bigger for those of you that enter and finish in the top positions! So, with that said, let's find out what my top 3 favourite Board Games are!
The Setting For A Good Board Game
It's not every day I play board games. In fact, we rarely bring them out at Christmas time now in my family as it's usually Dominos (there is no "e" other wise you will be playing with pizza, which is also not a bad way to spend time haha) or Gran has invented a quiz with brain teasing questions that we probably don't want to answer after a few brandies! It seems that any games I play recently are digitised versions such as Words With Friends or console games like Call of Duty (although I packed up playing on the Xbox many years ago to focus on music and blogging).
However, it's good to rack the memory and bring back some of the good moments when my grandparents would come round to look after me. We'd play some of the most random games we had stashed away from under the bed and I had to go back up there to remember what some of them were called for today's post but the nostalgia came and warmed my soul. Here's some of the honourable mentions that didn't quite make the cut.
Honourable Mentions
Snakes & Ladders
This classic dice roll game has 100 numbered squares on and the aim was to get to square 100 by taking it in turns to roll dice. On the board there'd be ladders, which would advance you up the board quicker but watch out for those snakes as they'd take you back down a notch or two! You had to roll the exact number if you were on squares 94-99 to land on 100. A true game of luck lol!
Upwords
A Scrabble variation which involved having the ability to stack tiles on top of existing tiles on a board to get more points and create new words. There were no bonus tiles though and you scored based on how many tiles were underneath what you just played. This required a bit more brain power!
Wheel of Fortune
Yes, they actually made a board game out of it as well but it was substantially more complicated to play as a board game than to watch on TV haha! We didn't play this one very much but the contraption used for the "phrase screen" was clunky and difficult to use. It came out one Christmas... never again!
Monopoly
Ah, the classic property building board game that everyone knows and probably has had a fight over at some point because it is a game that feeds your power hungry beast haha! Depending on how hardcore you go with the rules, the game can last anything from 30 minutes to 3 hours and I've been in both those games. The 3 hour ones are ridiculous, the 30 minute games lull you in to a false sense of security that "oh we can play another"... don't do it!! Play the card game variation instead called Monopoly Deal :)
Nicky's Top 3 Board Games
OK, so now we've narrowed it down to my top 3 board games and can probably see my nerdiness creeping through with the ones that didn't quite make the cut. Let's see if I can surprise you with my top picks :)
Mousetrap
One of the coolest board games I ever played was Mousetrap. A game for 2-4 players which starts off friendly enough as you move your mouse-shaped pieces around the board by rolling dice, working with other players to build the trap. However, when you get to the end and in the loop, things start heating up as whoever lands on the mouse trap square is in big trouble. Particularly if someone lands on the "crank" square. When you have successfully built the contraption, it's actually a wonderful thing watching it in action. Great game!
Scrabble
You can't beat the timeless classic word game that is Scrabble! You put up to 7 tiles down on the central board to make a word and try to score more points than your opponent by making use of the bonus squares. I thought I was pretty good at it until I started playing online and a friend I still stay in contact with called "Wordy" taught me I know nothing. Compared to her skills as a Poetry Club President, I was the court jester!
Seeing opportunities, making use of two letter words and adding letters to make longer words are all part and parcel of it if you want to get some serious points going! No-one plays with me anymore because of those advanced tactics :D Just don't leave the Triple Word tiles open if you can help it! Who always groaned when they got lumbered with a J, Q, X, or Z tile or all vowels/consonants? Grrrr haha!
Chess
The ultimate tactical board game that trumps it's ugly cousin, Draughts (or Checkers), in every way. You have many pieces, some can only move in certain directions and the idea is to try and capture the King piece of your opponent by announcing "Check Mate" when they can't escape (what a feeling)! However, you need to think a few moves ahead to outfox your counterpart, otherwise you'll be the one ending up getting chased!
I used to be pretty decent at the game back in the day and came runner-up in the regional cubs championship and I somehow made it through the qualifying stage at our school when I was 12 years old to make it through to the first round of the National championships. However, I got absolutely destroyed by the field so I stopped playing for a while. Haven't flexed the muscles for a while but it's still one of my favourite battle of wits and worthy of making it in to my Top 3!
Now It's Your Turn!
So there you go folks, a dive in to my favourite games and probably revealing how much of a nerd I am but it's a bit of fun and hope you enjoy!
In true board game fashion, it's now your turn to roll the dice, move the piece or spin the wheel! What are your top 3 favourite board games?
Be sure to check the contest post for the full rules here and if you manage to get a new person join in, you may find yourself getting some SBI shares!
Take it easy and catch you soon!
Nicky
Electronic Music Alliance (EMA)
EMA is a growing electronic music community run by electronic musicians FOR electronic musicians. We have weekly playlists on a variety of platforms to cater for all streaming preferences - make sure you follow our blog for your weekly dose here. We're also launching a new community run label called Electronic Alliance Records which aims to spread the word even more for our artists - check the latest developments and what music is coming up here
