New Rules for Classic Games (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Game players are often game inventors at heart..." (more)
Key Phrases: International Checkers, Trivial Pursuit, Chinese Checkers (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The shelf life of your favorite board games just got longer. R. Wayne Schmittberger--game inventor and frequent contributor to Games magazine--has canonized the house rules and variations of a plethora of games in this fascinating book. Imagine playing Toric Scrabble, where words can go off the right side of the board and "wraparound" to the left. Or how about a round of Tactical Nuclear Risk, where each player is given a couple of bombs to lob at enemy territory?

And if changing the rules isn't enough for you, you can change the object of the game, as in Extinction Chess, which is played exactly like normal chess except you lose if your opponent captures all of your pieces of a single type. Losing your king will still cost you the game, but so will losing your queen, your two rooks, or even all eight pawns!

Schmittberger has long been considered an expert of games, and he lives up to his title in this engrossing volume. New Rules for Classic Games contains not only clever twists on popular board games but also the rules for dozens of pastimes playable with common equipment, and even a section devoted to games that can be played with nothing more than a pencil and paper. This book is great in its own right, and it will give those board games that you have lurking in the closet a new lease on life. --Matthew Baldwin

From Library Journal

Purists will cringe at the author's contention that game rules need not always be followed. Others may hail his (and others') ingenuity, however, because he offers hundreds of new ways to make old games more challenging, fairer, and sometimes, well, just different. Players who have grown tired of playing the same games over and over may find new appeal when they vary Scrabble by allowing words to run off one side of the board and finish on the opposite side. Others may like to race their kings across a chessboard. Many versions of checkers and card, dice, and word games are also suggested for modification, as well as popular board games such as Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit. Highly recommended for public libraries.
- Will Hepfer, SUNY at Buffalo Libs.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (May 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471536210
• ISBN-13: 978-0471536215
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #437,931 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'll have mine with a twist!, October 24, 2000

By	Graham Wills (Naperville, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In this book we see games we have played many times, and have (maybe) become bored with, revitalized with clever ideas, enhancements and suggestions from the author. As an example, consider the section on balancing non-symmetric games (such as Chess and Go which have an inbuilt first person advantage). Bidding, simultaneous playing of two games and the ingeneous "I'll make a move and then you decide whether to play black or white" idea where one player makes a move that the other player has to decide is bad or good are suggestions that are useful not just in the context given, but in the design and evaluation of all games. Recommended for anyone who enjoys, studies, reviews or designs games -- especially strategy games.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A textbook on bringing new thinking to old games, November 17, 1999

By A Customer

Wayne Schmittberger is a longtime associate of Games Magazine. It's a lot of fun to tinker with games to see how they change. The growth in Chess Variants is just one aspect of this. He explains those well, along with variants on Go, Risk, Monopoly, and many other games. He introduces many games you probably haven't seen before. All of them are great games, too! If you are considering designing a game of your own, or if you just have a collection of games, you need this book.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars lots of fluff. , August 19, 2008

By	J. Conant (Crofton, MD USA) - See all my reviews

Aside from a monoply variation I didn't get much out of this. Most of the games I had never even heard of and I play a lot of games.