for sale

1997 was another stellar year for tabletop games. There were so many games to choose from that we have an honorable mention for the first time in a couple of yearly lists. Hey, hey, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here. We’re back with another Top 5 Tabletop Games throughout the years; today’s list is the top five board games of 1997. We’ll talk about 1997’s board game list soon, but let’s review the ground rules for which games make these lists before we begin.

1: Cultural relevance plays as much of a factor as overall quality. A game might make a list that doesn’t hold up to others of its type, but you must admit the game is everywhere.

2: Only one game from a franchise makes the list. This will become more of an issue the closer we get to games with expansions.

3: Longevity plays a role, too. A game doesn’t have to fly off the shelves today, but it had to have some widespread appeal for a decent time.

**Honorable Mention: Mississippi Queen (1997)**

Yep. 1997’s winner of the Spiel des Jahres (German Game of the Year) just misses our list. Mississippi Queen puts gamers in the role of a paddlewheeler captain in a race down the Mississippi River in 1871. Mississippi Queen won numerous awards, not just the Spiel, and it’s a stellar game, but the other games that made this list have had longer staying power. Still, Mississippi Queen is a satisfying racing game.

**5: Tigris and Euphrates (1997)**

The incomparable Reiner Knizia makes another one of these lists with Tigris and Euphrates. Many gamers may balk at this game being this low. Tigris and Euphrates is often dubbed a “gamer’s game.” It centers on a clash between neighboring dynasties along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Funny, both of the first games we’re talking about are named after famous rivers. Anyway, Tigris and Euphrates offers tactical and strategic objectives, where immediate (tactical) goals are more realistic at larger but smaller player counts allow for long-term planning.

Tigris and Euphrates features drawing tiles from a bag. Players may redraw tiles if they don’t like the ones they drew by spending an action point (players have two action points per turn). After drawing tiles, players will place tiles and leaders onto the board, creating and expanding regions and kingdoms. During the game, players collect points in each of the four tile colors, prompting players to balance the tile types they play. Tigris and Euphrates has a lot more conflict than most German games during this time. It’s a classic.

**4: For Sale (1997)**

For Sale is a fast-paced auction card game about real estate. It’s played in two phases. During the first phase, players bid for several buildings. After all the properties are purchased, the second phase begins, and players sell their buildings for the highest profit. For Sale is one of those easy-to-teach, easy-to-learn, and difficult-to-master card games.

In short, For Sale may be the opposite of Tigris and Euphrates. Both are stellar games, but I’m giving For Sale the slight nod for its accessibility.

**3: GIPF (1997)**

GIPF is the first abstract strategy game to make one of these lists in several posts. GIPF was recommended for the Spiel des Jahres in 1998. It has plenty of accolades, but GIPF makes this list because it began a series of abstract strategy board games by designer Kris Burm named the GIPF Project. TZAAR, ZERTZ, DVONN, YINSH, PUNCT, LYNGK, and MATRX GIPF are great games that use various game mechanisms. But we’re talking about GIPF, the game of pushing.

GIPF takes a board that looks like it could belong in Chinese Checkers. Players introduce a new piece (disc) on the hexagonal game board and push their piece in a straight line. GIPF involves no luck. It’s a straight-up brain burner, and it reintroduced the gaming community to abstract strategy games akin to Go or Othello.

**2: Bohnanza (1997)**

Uwe Rosenberg makes his first appearance on one of these lists with Bohnanza. The game’s title is a pun on the German word Bohne (for bean) and the English word bonanza (for an exceptionally large and rich mineral deposit). Players plant bean cards and then harvest them to earn coins. Each player begins with a random hand of bean cards, and each card has a number on it corresponding to the number of that type of beans in the deck. Modern card game darling, Flip 7, may have borrowed that idea from Bohnanza. Cards with fewer copies in the deck are more difficult to collect, but players don’t need as many copies of the cards to harvest (or make a set).

Bohnanza features trading and can get political. Get ready to make your case. More so than any other game on this list—so far—I’ve seen Bohnanza played in game shops and board game cafés.

**1: Twilight Imperium (1997)**

Twilight Imperium is a board game space opera. Twilight Imperium is the closest thing to a board game version of Star Wars. Twilight Imperium is a classic 4X board game: explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. You choose how your civilization will settle the cosmos. Twilight Imperium is not for the faint of heart. Games run a minimum of five hours. This is one of the reasons why I’ve only observed games of Twilight Imperium. There’s a lot going on, but if you want to control every move of an intergalactic kingdom, few games do as good a job of capturing that vibe as Twilight Imperium.

You can even dive into Twilight Imperium’s world with its novel series published by Aconyte Books or play the tabletop role-playing game spinoff. Twilight Imperium is a game that some board gamers play exclusively. And there may be a good reason for that. As recently as last year (2024), Nerdist and Polygon dubbed Twilight Imperium as one of the greatest board games ever made. Twilight Imperium easily tops our 1997 list of tabletop games.

Did we get the list mostly correct? Let us know which games you’d add in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Have you ever been roped into a bad board game like Monopoly? Well, your uncle Geekly may have some auction and bidding tabletop games that don’t cost as many hours or friendships as the Hasbro giant. These games introduce new gamers to the idea of getting properties or items for the best price and in some cases, selling them for more money. Who doesn’t like to make money-money, make money-money?

For Sale

For Sale is the first game that came to my mind when thinking of an easy to get into auction and bidding game. Gameplay is broken into two phases. During the first phase, players bid money on properties (each player begins with the same amount of money; it’s all about how one uses one’s money). The second phase shifts to players selling the properties they acquired in the first phase.

It’s fast—really fast for an auction/bidding game. For Sale teaches the value of buying low and selling high. It doesn’t always boil down to who bought the best property (the properties range from manors to a cardboard box); one must know when to reach for the high value properties and when not to. It’s a great teaching tool for more complicated games that include auctions and bidding, and the concept of requiring players to outbid other players—not just match a bid—got its start with For Sale.

Prior to this game, one player could bid five coins for something and everyone around the table would have the chance to match it, and the last jerk at the table would. Then you’d have another slow round of bids for six coins. It took forever. Ugh!

Thank you, For Sale.

Fist of Dragonstones

While For Sale eases players into auction and bidding with a different economic layer each phase, Fist of Dragonstones adds a hidden bid mechanism and multiple economic layers. There’s more going on with Fist of Dragonstones, but if someone is looking for an auction/bidding game with more strategic value and still plays quick and easy (it also has a fun fantasy theme), consider Fist of Dragonstones.

Players bid on character cards (with abilities) by using a closed fist method. No. You’re not allowed to punch someone; you’re just holding out a closed fist, hiding your bid.

Players hide their total money (split between regular gold and fairy gold, which is magical) behind a player shield (a piece of cardboard) and when an auction occurs, every player takes the bid they plan to make (regular gold, fairy gold, or a combination of the two), holds their bid in their closed fist and reveal their bids at the same time. The highest bidder wins the auction, and any money used—whether the player won or lost the bid—is returned to the bank.

Each character (the cards players are bidding on) has an ability that can help obtain more money or victory points. The first player to 4 victory points, wins.

The various character cards add replay value, and I don’t know of a single auction/bidding game that uses a fantasy theme. Maybe I should make Dragon Tycoon.

The inclusion of a closed fist bidding system is a great choice. Fist of Dragonstones uses the mechanism well and this a common game mechanism used in other tabletop games of various types—not just games that are predominantly auction or bidding.

There’s a reason this game put the juggernaut game publisher Days of Wonder on the map, and I hear it’s getting a reprint this year (2018). Bonus!

Stockpile

Ever wanted to play the stock market? Stockpile puts players in the shoes of a wolf of Wall Street. Well, maybe not, but the game does a good job of giving each player hidden information (about 1 of the game’s 6 stocks) that the other players don’t have to make decisions on whether to buy or sell a stock.

If a stock is about to plummet, ditch it into one of the stockpiles that players bid for during the round. Each player must place one stock face up in one of the stockpiles and one face down. Since there is one stock that is global knowledge (one of the risers and fallers for the round is known to all players), sneaky devils may want to put a stock of that type, face down so other players won’t know it’s there.

Stockpile’s bidding system is unique from the rest of the games on this list as each stockpile has a corresponding calculator card above it. The numbers (0, 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 20, 25) on the calculator buttons represent the bids (in thousands) a player can make, and players take turns placing their markers on an available number on one of the calculators. Players can outbid—but not match—a previous bid. If they do, the owner of the lower bid collects their marker and can bid again. As soon as all players have placed their markers, they collect all the cards in the stockpile that their marker is on.

The bidding in Stockpile doesn’t take that long as there are only eight possible bids one can make for each stockpile during a round. New gamers will see this style of bidding in a lot of games like Cyclades. Due to the streamlined bidding, Stockpile gets players involved with trying to predict stocks that will rise or fall over the course of the game.

Stockpile is great for commodity speculation, but it’s also one that I’ve seen an 8-year-old play and enjoy.

Final Thoughts

These games beat the pants off Monopoly. For Sale, Fist of Dragonstones, and Stockpile serve as great entry-level games with some solid replay value. Just make sure you don’t lose your pants in a shady business deal.

Know of any other great beginner auction and bidding games? Let us know in the comments.

Tag: for sale

Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1997