I love it when creative endeavors get recognition.  That might be yearly awards, citations of lifetime recognition, and the like.  Part of that is the satisfaction of seeing good work rewarded.  But much of it is historical and my love of researching the history of things I enjoy.  This includes movies, sports, television, and, of course, games.  A lot of great works are now forgotten, a status that isn’t always deserved, and awards can lead to their rediscovery.  So you might have found that a little remembered film called All the King’s Men won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1949.  Normally, you wouldn’t think of checking out a 75 year old movie, but with a recommendation like that, you might, in the hopes that it’s actually worthwhile.  (Spoiler alert:  it absolutely is!)

The same is true of games.  Some older titles continue to get played years after their release, but most of them don’t and some of these are still worth playing.  But tastes change, some games go out of print due to issues with the publisher, lots of things can happen that can lead to games being forgotten.  So if a design has an award win or a Hall of Fame citation, that might lead you to see what all the fuss was about way back when.  As they say in sports, flags fly forever, so even if a game’s current rating seems low, they probably loved it back in the day.  And even if a title doesn’t hold up, many of them influenced future games, so they live on in that way.  With the thousands of games released each year, it’s hard to remember the notable ones and annual or lifetime recognitions are a great way of tracking the titles that deserve special status.

As some of you might have guessed, this discussion is inspired by the recent announcement of BoardGameGeek’s Hall of Fame.  To celebrate its 25^th birthday, the Geek chose to honor 25 games as inaugural members of its Hall.  This has led to a good deal of discussion and led some folks to speculate which games they would have chosen.  To be honest, it was the first thing that popped into my head when the project was revealed, so I decided to follow through on it and this article is the end result.  However, at the OG, we like to take the volume up to 11, so I’ll not only be listing the games that make my personal HoF, but I’ll also include all the games I considered and relate my reasoning for why I chose the ones I did and why I left the others out.  Basically, you’ll be following the same path I did when I started thinking about this, since I had to list a bunch of games before I could be sure which ones I wanted to include.  And that larger list of games will let me delve even further into the history of boardgames and that’s something I always enjoy doing.

So what are the guidelines for this Hall?  The Geek inspired it, so I’ll use the same rules they did:

• Traditional games, such as Chess, Go, Poker, or Bridge are outside its scope;
• Games must be at least 10 years old in order to qualify;
• Roleplaying games are not included on BGG, so they aren’t eligible;
• The initial announcement said that the BGG HoF was focused on “modern board games that have directly shaped the contemporary hobby”. It would not be unusual for a Hall to include titles like Monopoly, Scrabble, and Risk:  huge selling classics that used to be the backbone of the hobby.  But that statement made it sound like the Geek wasn’t interested in honoring games like that, and neither am I.  Don’t misunderstand me—those were vastly important and influential games, but everybody already knows that.  Both the Geek and I would rather include the games that led the hobby to where it is today, so I am explicitly excluding those classics from consideration.  As far as a time period is concerned, “modern” also implies we shouldn’t go too far back, so I will restrict myself to games released by 1950 or later.  That’s somewhat arbitrary, but it lets me include the trailblazing games, which have influenced modern gaming, while not having to worry about the truly old ones.

Okay, so we know which games are eligible.  What criteria will I use?  There are four things I considered for each game under discussion:

• Popularity – How many people play the game and how many people love it. The game’s current rating on the Geek is an indicator of that, although its peak ranking is usually even more significant.  But basically, we’re talking about how well liked the game is.
  
  
• Innovation – Did the game have new or unique mechanics, or use a truly different theme? Did it bring something different to the table at the time of its release?
  
  
• Impact – How influential was it? Did it inspire other games?  Was it the beginning of a new genre?
  
  
• Fame – Some games are just famous and much better known than other contemporary designs. It’s a Hall of Fame, after all, so that notoriety should count for something.

I did no weighting on these factors and there are no equations I used to determine which titles were most deserving.  These are just the things I considered when judging which games would make the cut and which wouldn’t.

There was one final factor.  My preference would be if the games were reasonably distributed across time, without one period dominating too much.  So I decided to divide the years under consideration (1950-2014) into five periods, which kind of matched the years covered by the Geek’s five days of announcements:

• Period 1: 1950-1989
• Period 2: 1990-1999
• Period 3: 2000-2004
• Period 4: 2005-2009
• Period 5: 2010-2014

Many more games are produced now than used to be the case, so that’s the reason for the unequal durations of these periods.  It would be nice if approximately 20% of the games came from each period.  It’s not a requirement and I won’t force things if it doesn’t turn out that way, but it’s something of a goal.

It’ll take a while to cover all of that, so this will be a three part series.  Today, after finishing this introduction, I’ll review the games from Period 1.  Tomorrow, I’ll do the Period 2 and 3 games, and then I’ll finish up with the Period 4 and 5 games, together with a summary of which games actually make my Hall.

How many games will I select?  Well, the Geek went with 25, so I’d like to use that as a guide.  Maybe a few more, maybe a few less—I’ll have to see how things break out.  But I certainly expect to choose more than 10 and less than 50.  Let’s see how close to 25 I can come, with the obvious goal of comparing what I come up with to what the BGG jury decided on.

Finally, this will be my judgment of which games belong in my HoF, not which games I like the best.  It’s impossible to completely take personal feelings out of things like this, but I guarantee you that I’ll be including games I don’t much care for and excluding ones I love.

So when I decided which games to consider, I chose to cast my net widely.  I just started listing what I thought were titles that were at least somewhat deserving of consideration and I wound up with over 100 games!  That’s a lot to write about, but it should be fun!

To make this process at least somewhat workable, as I evaluated each game, I put them into one of four categories:

• Yes – Games I considered to be obvious choices for my Hall. No matter how big my HoF winds up being, I will find room for all these games.
• Likely – Strong candidates that I would like to add, but which aren’t shoo-ins. If the total number of Yes and Likely games isn’t too high, all of these will make it; otherwise, I’ll have to make some hard choices.
• Possible – Games with a pretty good argument for being added. If, after all the Yes and Likely games are added, there’s still room, I’ll go through these and put the best ones in.
• No – Not serious candidates, but games with some notable aspects that I wanted to cite, for reasons of quality, popularity, innovation, or historical importance.

So that’s the selection process.  At this point, I don’t know which games I’ll choose or how many—I’ve got 65 years of designs to consider.  That’s a lot of territory to cover, so I better get cracking!  Here are the games that are candidates for my Hall of Fame, in chronological order of their date of publication.

Period 1:  1950-1989

Careers (1955)
A personal favorite of mine and perhaps not an obvious choice, since it was a mass market roll and move game.  But it was an extremely innovative game for its time.  Consider:  it was one of the first games to feature some movement of tokens with cards (and not strictly with dice); there are multiple tracks you can move on; there are some in-game abilities players can acquire; and the players are allowed to set their own victory conditions!  Pretty amazing stuff for the mid-fifties.  In addition, it represents a kind of turning point in game design:  it’s one of the last of the classic roll and move titles, while its innovative touches anticipated the great games that were soon to come.  Despite all that, it’s not really a serious candidate, but, rather, a very underrated game that merits at least some discussion.  No

Tactics II (1958)
Games which simulate war go back at least a century (one of the first books to codify the rules for playing with miniatures was penned by none other than H.G. Wells).  But modern wargaming, as played on a reasonably sized board divided into spaces, is unquestionably the invention of Charles S. Roberts.  His first attempt was called Tactics, released in 1954, but it didn’t sell many copies.  Roberts revised the game four years later and it was this game, dubbed Tactics II, that really made a splash and established a new genre of boardgame:  the wargame.  The games still had a way to go—neither of them were based on a particular battle and the board used square spaces instead of a hex grid—but much of what was included (cardboard chits with attack and defense values, variable terrain, battles resolved by dice by consulting a Combat Result Table) are recognizable to wargame fans.  Establishing a genre and an entire gaming industry is mighty impressive stuff, so this is a game I’d like to include if I can.  Likely

Diplomacy (1959)
Few games from this period were as famous as Diplomacy is.  It’s the ultimate “backstabbing” game and, rumor has it, was even played in the White House.  But in this case, the fame was well deserved.  Mechanically, it’s massively elegant and innovative—even though its rules can fit on a single page, they define a game of considerable strategic interest.  But it’s the central concept that grabbed everyone’s attention:  none of the nations are strong enough to accomplish much of anything by itself, so alliances, negotiation, and, yes, treachery form the heart of the game.  It’s not for the faint of heart—a face-to-face game of Diplomacy takes all day and, ideally, requires seven dedicated gamers with keen minds and a thick skin.  It soon found greater success as a postal and email-driven game, but even so, its fan base pales in comparison to most of the other games listed in this article.  Nonetheless, it’s one of the great game creations and, even 65 years after its release, there really isn’t anything else like it.  It absolutely deserves serious consideration for just about any gaming Hall of Fame.  Likely

Strat-O-Matic Baseball (1962)
Strat-O-Matic was not the first sophisticated sports simulation—that would be APBA Baseball, which was published in 1951.  However, it was the most popular and influential game of that kind and its success established sports sims as a viable genre.  It might even be the most statistically accurate baseball sim, since it uses 3D6 and, at times, a D20 to generate results and does so in a very streamlined fashion.  The original was far from perfect (the way that fielding was handled left much to be desired), but its impact and groundbreaking nature make it worthy of discussion.  Possible

Acquire (1964)
There’s a very good argument to be made that Acquire, which helped launch the 3M Bookshelf game series, was the first Eurogame to be released.  Whether or not you agree with that, the game’s impact cannot be overstated.  It was an immediate hit and has basically been in constant availability for the last 60 years, due to many versions from many publishers.  Its innovations were many:  a game where the players contributed to a central board, a financial game that didn’t depend on dice, a stock game where the value of the stocks depended on the game situation and not some random occurrence—I could go on and on.  Perhaps most importantly, it, and the other 3M games, were the titles the German game industry wanted to emulate when their powers that be yearned to improve the quality of their product.  Amazingly, Germany looked to the U.S. titles (at least, a small portion of them) back in the late seventies and said “Those are the kinds of games we want to produce!”.  And slowly, but surely, they made it happen.  So whether or not Acquire was the first Eurogame, it was most certainly the template of what became the Eurogame revolution.  Sid Sackson’s masterpiece has popularity, innovation, enormous impact, and great fame.  Sounds like an obvious choice to me.  Yes

Nuclear War (1965)
Nuclear War is kind of the ultimate beer ‘n’ pretzels game and those tend not to be taken too seriously.  But it really got a huge amount of play back in the day, as much for its satirical treatment of a very serious subject as for its gameplay.  And its popularity continued for quite a while; in fact, a 50^th anniversary edition was released back in 2016.  How many of today’s games do you think will be remembered 50 years after their publication?  Anyway, it’s not an off-the-wall suggestion, but ultimately there isn’t enough there to gain admittance.  No

PanzerBlitz (1970)
PanzerBlitz had a huge impact on the wargaming hobby when it was released in 1970.  It was the first tactical scale wargame, so you were dealing with individual tanks, rather than much larger units, such as divisions of soldiers.  It also featured a great deal of ranged attacking, as opposed to the standard attacks via adjacency, which opened things up considerably and encouraged the use of combined arms.  It was unquestionably the most popular wargame of the 1970’s and it continued to be widely played for many years thereafter.  Its designer, Jim Dunnigan, estimated that it sold over 300,000 copies, an extraordinary figure for a wargame.  The system was considered popular enough to inspire a redesign by Multi-Man Publishing in 2009.  Despite that, the game is rarely played today and its influence has definitely waned over the past few decades, but this was still a very important advance in board game design.  Possible

Mastermind (1971)
If you’re a baby boomer, you probably played a whole lot of Mastermind when you were younger; even if you didn’t, you undoubtedly heard of it or were aware of its memorable ad campaign (the image on the box cover is iconic).  It was the rare board game that was everywhere, and which reached deep into the public consciousness.  A 2-player physical version of a 19^th century paper and pencil guessing game called Bulls and Cows, it sold an enormous number of copies and was widely played for several decades.  It also anticipated the current online craze, Wordle.  At one point, it would have been a strong candidate for a gaming Hall of Fame, but I suspect it’s rarely played today.  Still, its impact for such an extended period can’t be ignored.  Possible

Uno (1971)
I debated whether to include Uno; after all, it’s pretty much just a souped-up version of Crazy Eights.  But if you were playing games in the 70’s and 80’s, you know what an enormous hit it was, probably the most played proprietary card game of that time.  Plus, it has a great story behind it (invented by a barber, who mortgaged his house to print up the first copies, which he sold himself).  The story certainly ends well—Uno has sold over 150 million copies!  And it’s still one of the best selling games in the world.  So it clearly has its place in the history of gaming, but it’s way too derivative to be a real contender for the Hall.  No

Boggle (1972)
What a great idea—package 16 cubes with letters on them into a clear container, shake them up to reveal the rolled letters, and then race to come up with the highest scoring words using adjacent letters.  The sounds and feel of the shaking added to the enjoyment, but the challenge of coming up with unusual words was enough to appeal to a huge audience.  The game (and its 25 cube cousin, Big Boggle) was a big seller for Parker Brothers for many years.  It doesn’t get much play these days and comparable electronic games have probably eaten into its popularity.  A quarter of a century ago, I would have given it more serious consideration, but now it’s more of a fond memory.  No

Hare & Tortoise (1973)
H&T deserves a look if only because it was the first winner of the SdJ award, in 1979.  But the fact that it’s had so many published versions and continues to get played (Ravensburger released a new edition as recently as 2019), lends weight to its case.  It was definitely innovative, as one of the first mathematically-based race games, with no randomness in how pieces move.  The fact that you can better your chances by moving backwards (emulating the tortoise in the title) was another unique touch.  An important game and one worth the honors it has received.  Possible

Dungeons & Dragons (1974)
So yes, this game is out of scope for the Hall, because the Geek does not include roleplaying games, and I’ve chosen to follow their lead.  But you can’t talk about the history of modern gaming without at least mentioning D&D, which launched one of the most widely played gaming genres, one which continues to thrive to this day.  Roleplaying has changed significantly over the last 50 years, but its essence is still that you become someone else:  speaking for them, acting for them, giving them goals, and overseeing their improvement from a peon to a mighty something.  And that was the revolutionary innovation in D&D.  Despite its very humble beginnings, it took the gaming world by storm and impacted not only the world of play, but the entire world, in both positive and negative ways.  It truly is one of the most important games ever created and even though it cannot be selected, it needs to be acknowledged as such.  No

1829 (1974)
What exactly was going on in 1974, the year that gave us not just one, but two games that launched incredibly influential and popular game genres?  Was there something in the water or were folks just doing their best to block out the oncoming rise of disco?  Whatever it was, we are all the better for the introduction of both D&D and 1829, the first 18xx game.  When you look at the state of gaming back then, it’s all the more incredible that Francis Tresham came up with something so involved and so original.  Mind you, 1829 is definitely a kinder, gentler version of 18xx—there are virtually no stock market shenanigans, the mechanics are a bit stodgier and take longer to carry out than 18xx fans are used to, and the focus is almost entirely on track building and running your trains.  It made its mark, but the real explosion of interest would have to wait for another dozen years and the arrival of 1830.  The latter game is the one that really got people excited, so 1829 needs to take a back seat to its more influential younger brother.  But it was still a remarkable gaming creation, so it needs to be noted, if only because it was the first of its kind.  No

Kingmaker (1974)
In modern game parlance, being a “kingmaker” has a negative connotation of inappropriate gaminess, but that wasn’t the case back in ’74 (or during the War of the Roses, for that matter).  Kingmaker was one of the first crossover games, that could be enjoyed by both wargaming grognards and players of sophisticated designs that didn’t feature combat.  It was one of the first games in which cardplay had an important role and there were a bunch of other innovative touches.  Its popularity extended for quite a while and even led to a new edition in 2023, which has been well received.  It’s not a strong candidate, but a lot of people remember it fondly and it obviously continues to receive gameplay.  No

Cosmic Encounter (1977)
Cosmic’s compelling origin story—four friends decide to create a game, they can’t get any established publisher to bite on their wildly impractical prototype, so they form a company and sell it themselves—may hide just how significant a design it was.  Amidst the fairly simple rules was one massively groundbreaking idea:  each player has a power which allows them to break the rules of the game in one way.  This concept may have been toyed with in earlier titles, but no game made it their central mechanic the way CE did.  It was a strong enough idea for the game to survive its humble origins, but the game’s real importance was its influence on future games.  Player abilities soon found their way into numerous titles, including some very important ones; for example, Richard Garfield has always said that Cosmic was one of the principal inspirations for Magic: the Gathering.  As if that wasn’t enough, Cosmic was the first game to really push the idea of expansions—there were eventually 9 of them and they sold well enough to keep their fledgling company, Eon, afloat for almost 10 years.  The base game has found success with multiple publishers and is still popular today, almost 50 years after its release.  Quite simply, this humble little game has such an important place in gaming history, both past and present, that it has to be a part of any gaming Hall of Fame.  Yes

Squad Leader (1977)
If PanzerBlitz could bring the scale of tabletop wargaming down to individual tanks, Squad Leader could do the same for small groups of soldiers and even lone leaders.  SPI’s Sniper was probably the first game to utilize this scale, but Squad Leader was the far more popular and influential title.  It was also extremely complex and was the forerunner of the monster games that would soon dominate wargaming.  It was an immediate hit, spawned multiple expansions, and soon became a lifestyle game.  1985’s Advanced Squad Leader was originally created to integrate all of the Squad Leader versions and expansions and soon became its own, and even more popular, entity, but I decided to feature the original game, because ASL was an even more insular, complex, and lifestyle game than Squad Leader was.  If you think I chose poorly, you can always consider this a joint entry, but either way, these were very important games in the history of wargaming.  Possible

Black Box (1978)
Black Box was a very clever game based on the details of a physics experiment.  One player hid their “atoms” in a grid; the other player shot a “ray” into the grid and the first player would calculate how it bounced off the atoms and tell them where it emerged.  The second player had to take this information to deduce the location of the atoms.  It was quite popular during the 70’s and 80’s and is one of the more original ideas for a deduction game that the hobby has seen.  A unique game worth citing, but I don’t think it’s quite strong enough to make the grade.  No

Dune (1979)
The three principal Eon designers didn’t just stop with Cosmic Encounter.  Dune was a game they designed for Avalon Hill that does a remarkable job of portraying the feel of Frank Herbert’s classic novel.  It features all kinds of innovative touches, plays exceedingly well with 6, and was popular enough to inspire multiple editions, including one from 2021.  It’s widely considered to be one of the best themed games ever created.  Maybe not the strongest candidate, but still one worth considering.  Possible

Magic Realm (1979)
Magic Realm was an incredibly ambitious, but ultimately deeply flawed game.  You can play as one of sixteen different fantasy-style characters, over a randomly determined gameboard, with goals you set for yourself.  The number of things you can do is staggering and exceedingly ahead of its time.  But setting up the board takes forever and the rules are unbelievably obtuse and incomplete.  It’s the definition of a cult classic that has quite a few rabid fans and just as many naysayers who claim the Emperor has no clothes.  This, despite the fact that the game has been out of print for over a quarter of a century.  It was such a unique undertaking that I felt that it had to be discussed, but even its strongest supporters would probably agree that its appeal is far too narrow to make the HoF.  No

Star Fleet Battles (1979)
They used to talk about “The Big Three” in the hobby game market—games with a huge and vibrant community that was supported with conventions, tournaments, and dedicated fanzines.  In short, the ultimate nerd games.  They were so well known that they were readily identified by their initials:  D&D, ASL (Advanced Squad Leader), and SFB (Star Fleet Battles).  SFB is a tactical sci-fi wargame set in a universe strongly inspired by Star Trek.  It is centered around ship-to-ship combat, with each player commanding one ship with its systems lovingly represented in great detail.  The players have to plan out the entirety of each of their turns ahead of time, because everything is powered by energy, but the amount of energy available is limited.  It’s an extremely  complex game system which is nevertheless popular and continues to be played to this day.  It’s not nearly as accessible or widely played as D&D, but its status as one of the pillars of gaming requires that it be given serious consideration.  Possible

Can’t Stop (1980)
It’s not unusual for a game to lose its luster as the years go by; we’ve seen a few of those cases already.  It’s much rarer for a game’s reputation to rise over the course of time, but I really think that’s been the case with Can’t Stop.  I’m not talking about the fact that its original publisher, Parker Brothers, infamously dropped it from the marketplace a few years after its debut (Parker was convinced that electronic games were on the threshold of dominating sales).  That was just a misjudgment and Can’t Stop was actually very popular when it was introduced.  No, what I mean is that even with the folks who liked it, it wasn’t really regarded as much more than a superior filler for the first few decades of its life.  But starting about 10 or so years ago, I think the appreciation for Can’t Stop has grown considerably.  It’s now regarded as one of the great dice games and one of the great push-your-luck games (maybe the best ever).  Its simplicity, which nevertheless leads to interesting and non-trivial decisions, has been lauded.  There is a reasonable segment of gamers who view it, and not Acquire, as Sid Sackson’s true masterpiece.  And, of course, the great physical design of the original, with that iconic red stop sign game board, doesn’t hurt.  I’m tempted to give it a “Likely” rating, but I think it falls just short of that.  However, if there’s still room after putting all of the Yes and Likely games into my Hall, Can’t Stop will be one of the first titles I’ll consider to beef up the totals.  Possible

Civilization (1980)
No one could ever accuse Francis Tresham of thinking small.  Not content with creating the design that more or less introduced the “Train Game”, his next major effort merely covered 8000 years of recorded history!  The scope of Civilization is so vast that it’s easy to forget how innovative and exceedingly varied the game’s mechanics are.  The population growth system doubles as an economic model—kind of abstract, but very clever.  It’s usually considered to be the first popular game to include a tech tree.  And in the midst of all the strategic moves and planning, there’s a raucous trading/negotiation round where you might get rich or you might wind up with a calamity!  It was the heavy strategy game of the 80’s, widely played despite the 7 player, 6 hour requirement, and it continues to get a reasonable amount of play today.  It also started its own very popular genre—the Civ game—and a bunch of those are published every year.  There’s no question about whether this game belongs in the Hall of Fame; not including it just wouldn’t be civilized.  Yes

Trivial Pursuit (1981)
Boy, there sure were a lot of what I guess you’d call “Rags to Riches” games in the 70’s and early 80’s.  You know, titles created by an amateur game designer who sinks a bunch of money into it, hawks it wherever they can, and, against all odds, it becomes a big seller.  Maybe the last of those, and perhaps the biggest, was Trivial Pursuit.  It’s success was even more remarkable because at the time it came out, most professionals in the gaming hobby were predicting that physical board games would die out in favor of electronic ones.  Trivial Pursuit not only made trivia popular and established party games as a vibrant portion of the hobby, but it may have saved boardgaming altogether.  Those of you who are old enough will surely remember how ubiquitous it was; when you went over to someone’s house for dinner, the odds were you’d wind up playing a game or two of Trivial Pursuit afterwords.  So yes, it was a big deal and worthy of serious consideration for my Hall.  Likely

Empire Builder (1982)
Establishing a genre makes for a good HoF case and Empire Builder did just that.  It was the first “crayon rail” game and at one point, there were quite a few of those and they were very popular.  The game was also the title that launched Mayfair Games, which would have a prominent role in introducing German games to the U.S.  I wouldn’t say crayon rail games were terribly influential, but their mechanics did strongly influence Funkenschlag (the game that became Power Grid) 20 years later, so they clearly left a lasting impression.  There are still some newly designed examples of this genre, but I think they’ve been much less widely played over the last couple of decades.  Still, there’s enough here to make a reasonable argument for induction.  Possible

Scotland Yard (1983)
This was a very innovative and popular hidden movement game, in which the diabolical Mr. X tries to hide his tracks from the other players (the detectives), who must deduce his location from his mode of transportation and his occasional sightings.  Milton Bradley licensed it for distribution in the U.S. and I bet that only a tiny number of its fans at the time had any idea that the game was of German origin.  I certainly didn’t; who knew they even played boardgames in Germany?  Yes, times have changed.  For American gamers of the day, our first inkling of the great things that were going on in Deutschland would have to wait for a few more years.  Scotland Yard earns points for its gameplay, as well as for being one of the first significant German exports, but there’s not quite enough to make for a convincing case.  No

Talisman (1983)
If a game has four different editions and six expansions, you’d have to conclude that it’s pretty popular.  Since the game in question is Talisman, your conclusion would be absolutely correct.  Talisman was one of the early fantasy board games, with each player assuming a typical RPG character type and wandering through the lands of the gameboard, fighting monsters, casting spells, and gathering useful items.  It was a roll and move game, but more sophisticated than most.  It was staggeringly popular during the 80’s and early 90’s and was probably one of the more played games of its era.  I doubt that its gotten too much play since 2000 or so, but I’m sure many gamers who came of age during the 80’s have fond memories of it.  Sadly, that’s not enough to assume the Crown of Command.  No

Axis & Allies (1984)
Sometimes, there’s the perfect intersection of the right idea and the right publisher.  Larry Harris self-published Axis & Allies in 1981, but it wasn’t until Milton Bradley released their version in ’84 that the game really hit the big time.  And while the gameplay got a bunch of light wargamers excited, what really grabbed people’s attention were those wonderful plastic figures for the armies, ships, and planes.  It was miniatures without the need for a ruler, a full-scale re-enactment of WWII without the 50 page rulebook, and an engrossing game for up to 5 players with a fabulous toy factor.  Everybody played it and everybody loved it.  It spawned a popular series of MB games called the Gamemaster series and recent spinoffs have taken the system to every theater of the war—even zombies!  Other, more sophisticated light wargames have reduced A&A’s appeal a bit in the years since its release, but it continues to be played.  It may not be a slam-dunk candidate, but it’s an awfully strong one.  Likely

Wizard (1984)
Mechanically, Wizard doesn’t have much to recommend it for a place in the Hall, since it’s basically the traditional trick-taking game of Oh Hell, with a few special cards.  But just like Uno was a smash hit, despite its obvious ties to Crazy Eights, Wizard has been, and continues to be, very popular all over the world.  I think its impact has lessened this century and it definitely shows its age when compared to all the new innovative trick-takers that have appeared over the past few years.  So in the end, its popularity isn’t enough to make the cut, but it’s certainly worthy of mention.  No

Pictionary (1985)
As I mentioned in Trivial Pursuit’s entry, that game showed how massively popular party games could be.  Other games soon tried to duplicate its success, but few were as successful as Pictionary.  Essentially Charades with drawing, Pictionary was very widely played for an extended period of time and popularized the concept of drawing games.  If this exercise had taken place 20 years ago, I’d probably have put the game in my HoF.  However, since then, I think Pictionary’s popularity has taken a significant nosedive, so I have to knock its grade down a bit.  But it’s still a strong candidate and a game I may consider including.  Possible

1830 (1986)
1829 was the first 18xx game, but it wasn’t until Francis Tresham worked with Avalon Hill to create an American version of the system, called 1830, that the genre really became popular.  Naturally, Tresham wasn’t content just to come up with a new map; he wanted to embrace the concept of the Robber Barons that dominated U.S. finances of that time, so the new game included a much more significant and brutal set of rules for its stock market.  1830 quickly achieved a fiercely loyal fan base and within a few years, more and more 18xx games began popping up.  Today, the Geek lists almost 300 of them, although that does include expansions and out-of-print titles.  Still, that’s a hugely popular genre of games and one that’s as widely played today as it’s ever been.  There’s no question in my mind that either 1829 or 1830 belongs in the Hall; given the latter’s impact, continued popularity, and the fact that it spawned a vibrant genre, I’m going with 1830, but you could easily consider it a joint entry.  Yes

Die Macher (1986)
The vast majority of German games from the 80’s featured straightforward rules and fairly short play times.  In the midst of all this, Karl-Heinz Schmiel decided to release what, at the time, was considered a ludicrously massive game, with very complex rules and a 4 hour duration.  It was embraced by those who loved exceedingly heavy games, but few others.  Schmiel re-released the game in 1997 with a fairly comprehensive redesign and that’s the version that has been almost exclusively played throughout the years.  Die Macher has become synonymous with “monster games”, although to be honest, it’s considerably less complex than many games released these days.  That reputation, though, is the source of much of its fame.  It’s not enough to earn it a place in the Hall, but it is a notable game and its considerably fame is deserved.  No

Werewolf (1986)
I’m not sure Werewolf really qualifies for this exercise.  Even though there are a bunch of published versions of it, it was originally a parlor game and was played with just a handful of playing cards (to inform the players of their role) for many years.  It was invented by a Russian sociology student named Dimitry Davidoff (he called his version Mafia) as a psychological exercise.  Since the late 90’s, it’s become exceedingly popular and pretty much invented the social deduction genre.  But despite that popularity, I don’t think it fits the mold of the sort of games I want to include in my Hall.  But yes, it’s an extremely important and innovative game and I would understand it if many think that it belongs.  No

Hol’s der Geier (1988)
This might be the simplest game in this list.  It’s gone by many titles over the years, including Raj and its current moniker of What the Heck?.  But they’re all basically the same:  each player is given identical currency cards, an item with a value is revealed each turn, and the players blindly bid one card to acquire it.  The high bid takes the card, but if there are any ties for the high bid, they cancel and the next highest card takes it.  Most total value at the end of the game wins.  It probably sounds incredibly basic to modern gamers, but it was very widely played and much admired by folks back in the day and is probably Alex Randolph’s most celebrated design.  I bet a lot of gamers would have proposed it for a Hall of Fame circa 2000—that’s how popular it was.  And clearly people are still enjoying it, because Amigo reissued it as recently as 2019.  I don’t think it has enough going for it by today’s standards, but it’s sure gotten a lot of love for a long time.  No

Kremlin (1988)
Kremlin is another 80’s game that had a European origin, but most of its fans had no idea that was the case.  Avalon Hill produced the version that got the most gameplay, but it had originally been published in Switzerland two years earlier.  Its sly depiction of Russian politics won it many fans in the West and even though it’s showing its age (just like the politicians it mocks), it still gets some play.  I don’t think it belongs in the Hall, but it’s definitely a famous game, for both its mechanics and its theme.  No

Taboo (1989)
The 80’s and 90’s saw an enormous number of party games hit the market, but Taboo really stood out for its immediate, and continuing popularity.  Having to get words guessed by your teammates without saying a handful of taboo clues was a great idea and led to a huge amount of hilarity.  It was designed by a fellow named Brian Hersch, who made a specialty of creating party games.  I suspect that the game has gotten much less play over the last decade or so, but it really did have a long life as one of the party game staples.  No

Well, that covers our first period.  It contained 34 games and we’re just getting started!  To summarize, here are the “Yes” and “Likely” games I’ve identified so far:

Yes
Acquire
Cosmic Encounter
Civilization
1830

Likely
Tactics II
Diplomacy
Trivial Pursuit
Axis & Allies

In addition, I rate 10 other games as “Possibles”.  Since we still have four other periods to go, I’m starting to think that none of the Possible games will be able to sneak into my Hall (just because of sheer numbers) and even some of the Likely’s may be in danger of missing out.  But it’s still early, so I’ll keep on listing and categorizing games and see how it all plays out.  Tomorrow, we’ll look at the my choices from the 90’s and from 2000-2004.  I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read so far and you’ll join us tomorrow to continue my quest of coming up with my Personal Hall of Fame!