EXCLUSIVE

GET ON BOARD FOR A BOARD GAME!

Board games can light up the environment and serve as the perfect buffer between conversations and passing the time. Here are a few interesting board games to try out during your next night out and also a few cafes to check out for some board action with your buddy gang.

By Sindhura Repaka

THE HOLE IN THE WALL CAFE

This French-style café is rich in an ambiance both indoors and outdoors. The indoors are divided into three areas and they are decked up with wall art, shelves full of books, and board games. From apple pie pancakes and BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE WAFFLE to cheesy omelets, you can get it all at this all-day breakfast café.

Address: Rd Number 45, Jubilee Hills.

BOARD GAME CAFE

This café in Himayatnagar is a Modern cafe offering quick international dishes & gaming in a chilled-out environment. If you're bored of regular aesthetic cafés this café is a great option. They have a wide range of board games from monopoly, chess, Jenga, UNO, etc. Social humor is a crowd favorite while they also have PC games that include Fortnite etc.

Address: 4th Floor, Old MLA Quarters Rd, Himayatnagar.

GET ON BOARD CAFE

Get on Board Cafe in Jubilee Hills has over 700 board games for you to play. This café has popular games like Scrabble, Monopoly, and Ticket to Ride, as well as the smallest and the largest board games in the world. This café is a unique venue combining the love of board games with the love for food.

Address: Fortune Monarch Mall, Rd Number 36, above Taruni, Jubilee Hills.

This Instagram favorite hangout spot is a cheery cafe serving casual fare & a selection of creative desserts in an airy garden setting. You can enjoy not just board games but also books at this cute café with a great ambiance. The Coffee aura inside the café only adds to the classic and pleasant environment.

Address: near Maharaja Chat, next to Vellanki Foods, Jubilee Hills, Madhapur.

HUMMING BIRD CAFE

THE HUNGER GAMES

Address: Green Hills Colony Rd Number 3, Dwarka Nagar, Kothapet.

This little café has good books as well as great board games to keep you company. This café combines board games, and video games with your usual café experience making it a perfect hangout spot for teenagers and young adults. With bright colors, café interiors, sports screenings, and colorful bean bags, they call themselves a cozy home away from home.

GAMES

SCRABBLE

Scrabble is a word game; it is like a giant wall with words with endless points. Players in this game will be given wooden letters and every letter is placed in a different place. You should immediately start assembling the letters to form a word and make possible extension words to make them more words. You need to track your scores by writing them on paper. Sometimes it's very difficult to form the words but that's what makes it interesting and challenging. Any player can form several words but who will be doing the maximum and more number words will be the winner. It's a good game for kids as they can learn words and spelling and many more. This makes them concentrate on things.

CLUE

The clue is boardgame is an interesting board game in which you become a detective investigating a murder. There is a murder in the mansion and you have to find out the culprit on your own. There will be six suspects and you need to find out who is the culprit. You can find out clues in the board and rooms of the mansion and follow guidelines. Do you need to find out who murdered Mr. Pooh? And also, what weapon is used for murder. You should find out more clues so u will get a chance of finding the culprit and answer the questions. It's a race between other players and whoever will find out more clues and solve the mystery will be able the winner.

CANDY LAND

Candy land is a very sweet and enjoyable game, especially for kids. They enjoy playing this game more. This game has landmarks like a candy forest, colorful rocks, and a variety of chocolate trees. It has different levels and routes which makes it interesting to go on the game. King candy is lost and players should find out about him. They have to go through different clues and also can choose color options and get grades according to the candies they get. Players also get turns using the stacking of cards which helps them to go next level. Cards help them to move accordingly through the next color or square they choose. The first player who reaches the end and finds out king candy will be the winner.

CHINESE CHECKERS

Chinese checkers is an interesting strategy game and also be played with the entire family. This is a wooden game board that has a series of holes in the shape of a star. At each point, a star has ten colored pebbles which directly start from you. Players can start playing by moving each pebble on time and you should only move once at a time. Once you arrange the pebbles accordingly then you can jump up the line. It will be more interesting when you play with your family and everyone have their moves. At last, after moving all pebbles the winner will be according to who will keep the pebble in the center of the board and there should be only one pebble on the board.

JENGA

Jenga is a loveable game and is enjoyed mostly by several people. Rules are very simple and straight to the point. Jenga can be played alone or with a group. It is very suspenseful. You need to build a tower with 54 small wooden blocks, it has three wide blocks and 18 high blocks. Players should remove one block at a time from the tower and place it on the tower at high. You need to be very gentle and careful while removing and placing the wooden block higher as it becomes very high. You can play until the tower crash and you can build as high as the tower without making it fall. You can check for how many rounds you can go for. The last person who will place the block before the tower tumbles is the winner of the game.

Prudhvi Sistla, Student (@urbanwrench)

"If you’ve lived anywhere from the mid-90s through to pre-2010, then there’s a good chance that you are acquainted with the likes of Snakes-N-Ladders, and Ludo among the variety of board games that etched such a beautiful when you won, yet frustrating memory when the big snake ate you up and spat you down 7 rows. Particularly, the biggest and most entertaining game on a Sunday afternoon was playing Snakes-N-Ladders with your cousins/parents/siblings or even the neighboring auntie. The memory of this game will always be etched in my memory, with a frooti in one hand, the dice in the other, and the Sunday afternoon sun beaming down on the board, while we sat on the veranda. It used to be a battle between my mom, dad, and my grandma, and somehow, I always ended up winning. But that is the beauty of the early 2000s, it was the simplicity of how everything was before technology took over. I would be lying if I said I don’t miss those days, when the rivalry was of who would complete the board first, rather than having the highest score on candy crush."

MONOPOLY

This is a very old but interesting game. It is the game of buying property. It has both risk and luck as the players buy and sell their properties here and also should try not to get into jail. You can buy properties only once you have the funds. You can make income by selling the properties or giving them for rent. Each player who has funds will buy their properties and pass through the level. There will be different properties which also include government properties and the player who buys them will have more chances of winning the game. You can buy as many as properties if you have funds and also can rent the properties if you require any funds. The winner will be accordingly who will have more funds and more properties.

UNO FLIP

Uno Flip is all the fun of the simple Uno added with more intrigue and twists. The additional cards in Uno Flip include +5 card, wild draw, Flip card, etc. All the cards are numbers on both sides called the light side and the dark side. The players pick up the light side and play the game as usual until someone plays the flip card. This is when all the players should flip their cards in hand and continue with the dark side of the cards. The extra action cards change the entire game, for example, when a player plays a wild draw card, the next player must draw until they get a color of their choosing, no matter how many cards they have to draw to do so and lose their turn. And once the Flip card has been played, the Discard Pile, the Draw Pile, and the cards in everyone's hands must be flipped to the other side. This new side will remain in play until another Flip card is played.

Rachana, Graphic Designer & Yoga Instructor (@regadi _ rachana)

"Uno is always a go-to game for a person like me who keeps traveling rather than carrying a board game Uno goes very handy it's my travel partner, not only this nowadays it's available in every cafe which makes conversation more fun and interesting. About the game it's neverending it's suited for all age groups during lockdown it became our family ritual to play it every day, of course, we couldn't stop with one and that goes on and on. The rules are pretty simple a person who doesn't know the game also can understand if explained once and the fun part is the +2 and the +4 cards the satisfaction we get when the opposite person is picking up more cards is heaven."