Set

2008, Age 26

This game hurts my brain. I find I can only focus on a particular set at a time, and it's usually easiest for me to pick out 3 that are entirely different than to try and find a common feature.

This game does not support playing with newbies and veterans at the same time (let's face it, Andy would have destroyed Cash and me, if he weren't being nice and letting us spot some sets on our own).

Once Upon a Time

2008, Age 26

My favorite card game EVER. The freedom of making up a story from scratch and using cards as a mere guide to one's imagination is quite joyful!

The trick is, you have to play with people who follow the improv rules. People who are more focused on the competitive part of this game than the cooperative one are no fun to play with.

Citadels

2005, Age 23

Okay, this was a fun and cleverly structured card game and all, but I can't focus on that.

What brings it to mind is the plastic game pieces they use to represent gold. They look like butterscotch candies. I can't help picking them up and sticking them in my mouth. I get yelled at for it.

I guess the significance here is simple, subtle, yet highly effective "spectacle" of play pieces. It's kind of like in WoW when I keep opening and closing my map, over and over, because God I love that sound.

Munchkin

2003, Age 21

As a D&D veteren by this point, I was delighted by the tongue-in-cheek humor in this board game. It is wiley and silly and gets viciously competitive, but in the most ridiculous of sense. I can get into a competitive game as long as it doesn't take itself too seriously. I find that the greatest flaw of this game is that, when people know what they're doing, a single session can drag on foreeeever. It gets to the point where I begin helping the person in the lead, just to speed along the end of the game.

Egyptian Rat Screw

2002, Age 20

Any card game that entails violence is fine by me. What? Nevertheless, I also like this game for the wild potential to favor one way or another. The strategy is more based on careful observation than a lot of pre-planning. The fact that you can go out in the game yet still have a chance to slap back in boosts it in my favor. It's nice in that anyone can walk up and join just by poising to slap in.

Magic: The Gathering

1998, Age 16 and again in 2010, Age 28

I'm not gonna lie, the biggest thing that attracted me to this game was the pretty pictures on the cards. My friends were caught up in the cardcollecting obsession, but I got my only deck as a gift from some boy who had a crush on me. I've always struggled with the decision-making process needed for strategy games, so wasn't very good, but I'd play anyway. When someone laid down a card, I'd pick it up, pretending to read the description, but really I was just admiring the artwork.

Many years passed before Magic came back into my life, and this time it was due to the XBLA Duels of the Planeswalkers game, which got EVERYONE back into magic. Suddenly I was buying cards and doing booster drafts with friends. No more was it just about the artwork, I learned about strategy and deck building. The game blossomed a thousand layers at once.

Mao

1994, Age 12

Yeah, this is that card game where you aren't allowed to talk about the rules. The most exciting point in playing this game is just after enough games that you figure out the rules, and get to play with others who do not know the rules. There is some strange pleasure in watching someone else suffer through something that you had to go through, only now you get to laugh at them from the other side.

Uno

1989, Age 7

Uno was a game frequently played with my grandmother, my brother, and my numerous cousins. It was simple enough for the youngest of us to grasp, and still let us in on the strategic decision-making (color or number?). We had a lot of fun playfully berating my grandma for occasionally laying down the wrong color, as we thought she was playfully trying to fool us. I found out later that she's color blind.