Name That Classic Board Game (2)

[A] Forbidden Desert | Sand storm moves faster than your team's decision making. Everyone dies of thirst arguing about who should have the last water.

[C] Pandemic Legacy | Permanent stickers and torn cards make this the most commitment you'll have outside actual relationships. Cities stay dead forever.

[D] Boggle | Shake cube, find words, argue about whether "xu" counts. Three-letter words are for quitters but Q without U haunts everyone.

[A] Go | Four thousand years old and you still can't explain ko rules to newcomers. Pros count nineteen moves ahead while you count liberties.

[D] Dead of Winter | Zombie survival where the real monster is Steve hoarding all the medicine for his secret objective. Crossroads cards judge your morals.

[D] azul | Portuguese tiles never looked so vicious. Negative points hurt more when they're pretty. First player marker causes more drama than necessary.

[C] Power Grid | Math homework disguised as entertainment. Phase three hits and suddenly garbage plants cost more than your mortgage. Germany map remains mysteriously easier.

[A] Backgammon | Doubling cube turns friendly games into blood feuds. Been teaching probability through pain since ancient Mesopotamia decided dice were fun.

[B] Mastermind | Code-breaking where white pegs mean something but never what you think. Four reds in the right spots still feels like winning lottery.

[C] Apples to Apples | Helen Keller card wins every round regardless of adjective. Family-friendly Cards Against Humanity before that was even a thing.

[C] Battleship | B-7? Miss. B-8? Miss. Peaking under the divider was the original gaming scandal before stream sniping existed.

[B] Puerto Rico | Colonization simulator where shipping corn feels important. Buildings do things but nobody remembers what until someone already bought it.

[C] Stone Age | Love hut strategy makes everyone giggle uncomfortably. Dice decide if your workers eat today. Agriculture track secretly overpowered but boring.

[A] Arkham Horror | Cthulhu rises while you're still reading encounter cards. Eight hours later, everyone's insane and the rulebook makes even less sense.

[A] Trouble | Pop-o-matic bubble contains all human frustration since 1965. Six to send them home remains the most satisfying rule in gaming.

[B] Twilight Imperium | Space opera requiring a full Saturday and a degree in intergalactic politics. Someone always forgets about action cards until it's too late.

[B] A Game of Thrones | Westeros diplomacy means promises last exactly one turn. Supply track limits armies but not the inevitable Lannister betrayal coming.

[A] sequence | Two-eyed jacks are wild but one-eyed jacks remove chips because card games needed more arbitrary rules to remember somehow.

[B] Cosmic Encounter | Every alien breaks the game differently. Flares make everything worse. Negotiations end with someone getting cosmically screwed every single time.

[C] Takenoko | Panda eats bamboo while gardener cries. Weather die controls fate but everyone forgets rain makes bamboo grow on irrigated plots.

[C] Exploding Kittens | Defuse bombs with laser pointers and catnip sandwiches. Most successful Kickstarter taught us people really hate their friends.

[D] Shadows Over Camelot | Traitor might not exist but paranoia definitely does. Excalibur slowly sinks while everyone accuses the quiet player of treachery.

[D] Secret Hitler | Liberals accidentally elect fascists while fascists pretend to be bad at being fascists. "I'm definitely not Hitler" sounds suspicious always.

[B] Dominion: Intrigue | More attack cards because base Dominion was too friendly. Swindler turns gold into curses while everyone questions your friendship.

[B] Trivial Pursuit | Sports and Leisure remains everyone's weakness. Pink wedge questions about entertainment from 1981 help absolutely nobody under fifty.

[D] Telestrations | Telephone meets Pictionary equals disaster. "Dog" becomes "taco" becomes "Saturn" in three rounds of terrible drawing skills revealed.

[A] Mouse Trap | Rube Goldberg machine that never works properly. Building it takes longer than playing. Diving man permanently lost under somebody's couch.

[A] Candy Land | No choices, no strategy, just card flipping toward diabetes mountain. Queen Frostine remains everyone's childhood crush for some reason.

[B] Operation | Buzzer anxiety since 1965. Bread basket worth one dollar while brain surgery pays the same. Medical accuracy was never the point.

[D] Battlestar Galactica | Cylons hide among us checking loyalty cards. Crisis deck ensures nobody's happy. Brig stays full because trust issues run deep.