There are some strange people out there, myself included, who absolutely adore maths (or math, if you’re Americanly inclined). I’m willing to bet that there is a fair few people who love to combine their gaming with some statistics. If you are one of those people who likes a bit of probability theory mixed in with their gaming time, then this list of five games for people who enjoy maths is for you.
The Quacks Of Quedlinburg
The Quacks of Quedlinburg is all about probability, and is probably my favourite push your luck game. You are a medieval German witch doctor, and you need to make a potion by drawing ingredients blindly from a bag and placing them into your cauldron. The more ingredients you draw, the more points you get. But you have to be careful, if you draw enough white cherry bombs that their points add up to seven, your cauldron explodes!
As The Quacks of Quedlinburg progresses, you add more ingredients to your bag, meaning the likelihood of your cauldron exploding is changing constantly each round. Although you know all the ingredients that you’re drawing from, you’re never quite sure what you’re going to pull out from your bag and have to decide how much of a risk you’re willing to take. When I play, I calculate the exact odds of my cauldron exploding with each draw, and if it’s fifty-fifty or better then I pull out another ingredient. Does this work? I’ll need to play a few more times to see. All I know is that my cauldron explodes a lot.
CONFIDENT?
Like confidence intervals? Then you’ll love CONFIDENT?. It is a trivia game that’s all about ranges and estimations. You’ll get a range of number-based questions such as “how many slices in the average loaf of bread?” Guess a range, maybe between 15 to 30, and if the number of slices falls somewhere within your range, then you get a point. However, if someone went with a smaller range than you, then they get more points.
CONFIDENT? Is a fun, family friendly trivia game with a twist. It all comes down to how confident you are with your answer, and how small of a range you think you can get away with. It’s great fun, and when you throw in the ability to copy or swap answers, you might be surprised at the amount of laughs and discussion (read: arguments) involved with each answer.
6 Nimmt!
6 Nimmt! is essentially card counting: the game. Each player is given ten cards, and then four cards are placed face up. Everyone plays a card, which is placed next to the closest number face up card that it’s bigger than. Once there are six cards on a row, whoever placed the last card collects the row. The aim of the game is to have collected the fewest cards by the end.
The whole premise behind 6 Nimmt! is about trying to work out what cards your opponents have, and which card you’ll have to play to make sure that it’s them collecting the rows of cards and not you. I love playing games where everyone hates you by the end for screwing them over, and combining that concept with numbers and mental arithmetic means I’m very happy.
Tsuro
If you’re a fan of graph theory, then you might enjoy a game of Tsuro. Each player takes turns placing a tile, which has four lines across it, creating eight points of contact. Your player piece must then follow the line it is connected to, as do any other players pieces that are adjacent to this new tile. Some of these lines can lead a piece off the edge of board. The last player on the board wins.
Tsuro is a game that’s all about visualising how paths are going to connect together in a way that keeps your piece on the board and throws your opponents’ pieces off. There’s nothing quite like a bit of competitive graph theory.
Ticket To Ride
If that wasn’t enough graph theory for you, then Ticket to Ride might just be your thing. You have a map of North America (or Europe, or India, or elsewhere, depending on which version you have) and need to construct various railway lines across the continent. Its all about resource management and finding the most efficient route between cities. Ticket to Ride is a game which requires a lot of thinking and planning ahead, and then panicked improvisation when another player nabs your route before you.
Ticket to Ride is far and away one of my favourite games. It looks gorgeous, has tonnes of replayability, and is an all-round delightful way to spend an evening. This is an ideal game for mathsy boardgame fans everywhere. Any of the TTR games are the perfect Games For People Who Enjoy Maths!
