geekosystem

The only way you can make Monopoly an enjoyable game is to add zombies, some dystopian sci-fi, or possibly the Powerpuff Girls, but you know what else might work? The post-apocalyptic, alternate history trappings of the Fallout video game series. Which is exactly what someone on Reddit totally did for their wife's birthday.

Today, March 30th, is International TableTop Day! Hooray! You should really be playing some kind of game involving a tabletop, but we'll let it slide if you haven't started yet. There's still time. In case you can't get a group together to play, though, you can always watch us play Star Trek: Catan. We recorded a game from earlier this week for exactly this purpose. We also have a whole mess of suggestions for you, if you are going to play something, after the jump.

The Game Design Challenge at this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC) is notoriously fascinating. There's typically a theme set, and then game designers try to come up with the best game for that theme. This time around, they ended up with "Humanity's Last Game." Well, Jason Rohrer, a game designer of some renown, took them up on it. He designed a board game that "nobody now living would ever play," and then buried it in the Nevada desert. Seriously.

We as consumers like to think that we get what we ask for -- like it's the "demand" part of supply and demand -- but sometimes maybe we shouldn't. Apparently, we asked for The Walking Dead versions of both Risk and Monopoly, because that's what USAopoly and Skybound are sending our way.

International TableTop Day is March 30th. If you're a gamer -- board, card, video, role-playing, whatever -- then rock on, friend. Keep on fighting the good fight by recruiting new gamers! If you're not, and the last board game you played was years ago and it was Risk (meh), Monopoly (OMG boring), or Battleship (may God have mercy on your soul), then you really need to take this opportunity to try something else. For everyone's sake. The 30th, okay? Here is a list of 10 board games which you should know about. Consider trying at least one of them.

We don't have enough gaming holidays. Wait...as of today, we sort of do, because some influential media gamers have just up and declared one. Specifically, Geek & Sundry, the YouTube channel (and a consortium of  geeky celebrities) have pronounced March 30th as the International Tabletop Day. And so now it is! Hit the jump to hear just what that entails.

Board games are fun. It's basically just a cardinal rule. That's not to say there aren't bad board games out there, but why would you play those? Stop that. Go play Twilight Imperium or Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery. That last one is from Gale Force Nine, and it happens to be really good. Even better than that, however, is the fact that Gale Force Nine has now announced that they're bringing a Firefly-branded board game to market. Maybe we'll all get to be big damn heroes this time.

One of the most iconic things about the board game Monopoly is the pieces. Some people (me) even refuse to play if their favorite piece (top hat) is taken by another player, but there's about to be a shakeup in the roster. Hasbro is holding a vote for a new piece, but they're also dumping the existing piece that gets the least support from fans. Things aren't looking good for you, wheelbarrow, but the real tragedy of this story is that the pieces Hasbro is offering up as replacements are lame, so we've come up with some better suggestions.

Well, it's finally happened. The inevitable collaboration between Zynga and Hasbro has produced a line of board games from the latter that are based on properties from the former which are really just clones of the properties of the latter. We're through the looking glass here, people. There's something profoundly amusing about the fact that there's now going to be a Scrabble board based on Words With Friends.

Game of Thrones, as a franchise, has become quite popular as of late. It even has its own dedicated board game from Fantasy Flight Games that is both ridiculously complicated and utterly fascinating. Apparently, Fantasy Flight's offering isn't good enough for everyone, though. One intrepid gamer, known only as Matt B., went so far as to commission a special handmade wooden version of the Westeros map for Risk from Fay Helfer. That thing should make for some interesting game sessions.

The National Scrabble Association does not condone cheating. Also, the National Scrabble Association exists. One of the United States' top young Scrabble talents was caught hiding blank tiles, and subsequently ejected, at the game's national championship tournament in Florida. The executive director of the National Scrabble Association, John D. Williams, Jr.,  has said that this is the first recorded incident of cheating at a national tournament. What a shame.

You love popular board game Settlers of Catan. You're also an enormous Trekkie. If these two statements are true, it's very likely that the above image of the forthcoming Star Trek Catan set your heart atwitter. The game is expected to come out in March of this year, but so far seems to only be slated for a German release. However, fans hoping for a complete re-imagining of the game may be left wanting.

The classic board game of settlement and domination Settlers of Catan is sliding closer to the modern era with a new expansion which adds oil springs, 3 victory point settlements called metropolises, and cataclysmic natural disasters. The new version of the game called Catan: Oil Springs will be hitting shelves soon, but existing players can download the rules and print out the new gamepieces right now for free. Here's how it all works: a new resource, oil, is now available on the island of Catan. There are only three oil wells across the map, making it a limited commodity. Once harvested, oil can be exchanged for two of any other resource. Moreover, it can be used to upgrade cities to the new, higher-level metropolises. In practical terms, it means that players can advance more quickly through the game, or possibly allow other players to catch up. However, using oil comes at a cost.

I've never been a huge fan of Monopoly. I'm already in crippling debt to my friends and family, besides, dealing with that many paper bills is just a chore when they aren't real. Fallout Monopoly, however, is something I could really get behind. Before you get too excited, Fallout Monopoly, much like the beautiful zeerusty world it depicts, is not actually real. Instead, it was a pet project of deviantART user PinkAxolotl, who might love the Fallout universe more than I do.

Each square has been replaced with a location or event from the Fallout games including stops like Rivet City and Megaton. The cards also have that distinct future-50's flair and depict actions performed by our favorite little Vault Boy (he is the Vault Boy, not the Pip Boy, and certainly not Fallout Boy). And, best of all, the annoying paper money seems to be complimented with some deliciously physical caps. The only nit I might find to pick with this nonexistent game is that it appears to focus entirely on the most recent generation of games, so there are presumably no references to Vault 13 or the Master or anything, but hey, it's a Fallout Monopoly game. That's pretty much the apex of cool.

Who says Chaucer is dead? Game designer Alf Seegert has created a board game inspired by The Canterbury Tales, which thrusts each player into the role of a Chaucerian pardoner-pilgrim "whose goal is to tempt and 'save' as many Pilgrims as possible. If those pesky Pilgrims aren’t being sinful enough, phony Relic Cards will help encourage them to stay the unrighteous path." Though the game isn't written in inscrutable Middle English, it does maintain the humorous tradition of the original work infused with a bit of Monty Pythonesque flair, with 'relics' like "The Knickers of Saint Nicholas" and "The Scrambled Eggs of Saint Benedict."