The Most Overproduced Games Ever
Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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These are games that just go totally over the top in terms of production. By overproduced I mean that the game just blows you away when you open the box. For fun, add the one element that really pushes the game over the top (the most excessive, maybe useless, but still cool bit).
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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The box weighs something like 10 pounds. It's packed full of awesome bits. Like the back of the box says, you'll feel like you're building a model railroad. The really excessive and ludicrous components in this game are the gigantic board that doesn't even fit on most people's tables and the empty city markers. All they do is mark a city as having no goods, but they are molded models of water towers, railroad crossings, and station houses. They look awesome on the board.
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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So you can spend about $50 on Settlers and Cities & Knights, or you can spend $300 on this ridiculously overproduced but still cool collector's edition. The hexes and pieces are all sculpted and painted and the setup just looks amazing. The most ridiculous bit in this game is the knights, who carry little flags that you can raise when they are activated. The wooden treasure chest the game comes in is awfully nice too.
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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History of the World is an older title so it's kind of eclipsed by some of the more recent titles. But each player gets a set of minis that contains like 8 or 9 different models that represent the various civs through time. The gold and silver painted forts and arches are the classiest touch in the game.
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Starfarers of Catan is Settlers moved into space on steroids. It comes with a ton of plastic bits, but of course the most ludicrously overproduced bit is the rocket ships. These things are basically dice but instead we have 8" tall rockets with beads inside that you shake up. How crazy is that? If the stuff in the box is not enough for you, you can also buy painted miniatures of all the various races. Not that they do anything. They just kind of stand around and look cool.
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Of course Twilight Imperium had to be on this list. Just look at the picture - all that STUFF you get. This is the game that introduced Fantasy Flight's new giant $80 game box full o stuff. It was soon to be followed up by...
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Descent! When you open the huge box up, you discover that like 2/3 of it is just space to hold all the miniatures. Sure, they could have used counters or little reasonable sized minis. But instead you get these GIGANTIC "miniatures" (almost an oxymoron). The most ludicrous of them all is the dragon with the huge wingspan. Just check out the picture of it!
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Of course, we can't forget about Descent's baby brother, Doom. This is the game the introduced the giant miniatures. The most overproduced bit of this game is that not only do you get these huge minis, but each player gets his own color coded set.
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Axis & Allies is the grandfather of overproduced games. Who doesn't remember being a kid and seeing this game for the first time? All those miniatures which were almost unheard of back then. The coolest thing about Axis & Allies is how the fighters actually fit on the aircraft carriers. Awesome!
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Sid Meier's Civ kind of started the current "arms race" of overproduction in my opinion. Remember all the hype leading up to this game's release? I think they actually cast in miniatures every military unit that has ever existed on Earth. This is one of the more literally "overproduced" games, because the game itself was not particularly well received.
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Sure, we'll just follow up with an even more lame game that's got amazing bits. Check this thing out. It's got pewter ships, metal doubloons, glass gems, a cloth map, and a wooden treasure box. I think this was the first of Front Porch Classics' games. They've followed up with a whole line, all of which are amazing to look at. I think the doubloons really put this one over the top.
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pronoblem baalberith
United States
Pleasantville
Massachusetts
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We have a winner!
Thomas Fackler has a few games that cost over $1000. Gold, brass, stone, parchment, leather, woods and other non-card/plastic materials go into the production of his hand crafted games.
http://www.zeitstein.de/
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Not quite. Those games pale in comparison to the deluxe edition of Outrage! Steal the Crown Jewels. This game crosses into the realm of pure insanity. It costs 7,995 pounds! The pieces are hand sculpted out of gold and silver and encrusted with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. In fact, the Guinness Book of World Records lists it as the world's most expensive board game.
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Thee Insidius Doktor Glaze & His Sidekick Donut Boy with the Amazing Monkeytime Dancers Ooh!
United States
Shorewood
Wisconsin
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Splotter is known for overproduction, and this one has an insane amount of stuff in its box... gazillions of chits for food (5 types I think), gold, bricks, luxuries (4 types?), pollution, graves, dozens of buildings, terrain maps, cities, inns, etc. And worker blocks.
To top it off, the game box, the rules, and especially hte player aids are gorgeous to behold and evocative of the theme.
Probably the same goes for the famous "Roads and Boats".
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Morgan Dontanville
United States
Brooklyn
New York
Plate of Shrimp.
Here we are folks, the dream we all dream of.
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I think this is the king of overproduced games. Two giant ships, with "damagable" masts, cannons, pirates and jolly captain. Then you have little plastic ships to sail around on the board.
In reality this is a card driven game along the lines of Wings of War or Wreckage. Port damage chips and Starboard damage chips were really all that was necessary. The Boarding party part of the game is fun, but usually you just do it to clean up the mess that is left of you opponent.
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Now let's step back into the realm of reality. This is a miniatures game, so it sort of doesn't count. Great components are just part of the package. But this one comes in a wooden carrying box complete with paints and paintbrushes. That's neat and all, but what sets this game apart is the magnetic tiles. Not only are they sculpted plastic, but they all have little magnets inside of them so that that lock together. Very cool.
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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No list of overproduced games would be complete without the amazing Heroscape. It's a miniatures game, but all the minis come prepainted. The defining feature of Heroscape, however, is the interlocking plastic terrain tiles. They come in a variety of landscapes including grass, sand, water, rock, and even "hot lava death". People buy multiple sets of this game and create some enormous landscapes. Check the one out in the picture.
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Before there was Heroscape there was Battleball. This introduced the prepainted minis you find in Heroscape. It also comes with two sets of color coded polyhedral dice. But my favorite item is the football which is made of chrome plated zinc. Who thought of that one?
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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All I'm going to say about this game is that it comes with frickin' LASERS!
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Chris Okasaki
United States
White Plains
New York
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My personal favorite in this category is Kaliko, the wooden version of Psyche-Paths from Kadon. Almost everything else on this list is about more, more, more. More bits, more detail, more variety. Kaliko goes in the other direction -- it has very simple, but oh-so-elegant wooden tiles. Sure, they could have made the tiles out of cardboard and sold the game for $15. Instead, the wooden tiles push the price tag close to $100. But the feel and sound of the wooden tiles is sooooooo much more satisfying than cardboard...
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Who can forget the venerable Crossbows and Catapults? Not only do you get a bunch of cool bits, you also get the launch them at your friends. You'll shoot your eye out!
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Here's a simple tile laying game. Sure, the designer could have made the tiles out of cardboard like everyone else. But instead he made them out of some kind of space age wood/laminate.
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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It wasn't enough to pack this game full of tons of miniatures. No, they had to go and make a palace with three different levels for them all to fight on. It kind of reminds me of the Death Star toy I used to have when I was a kid. Which also had 3 levels. Coincidence, or not?
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Here's one that sadly fits into the literally overproduced category. I'm talking about the recent Avalon Hill edition. Instead of the boring old paper discs we get molded plastic aliens and a colorful board. Unfortunately, in focusing on all the cool bits they neutered the game by leaving out the ability for 5+ players and a whole bunch of special powers. They just had to have those space ships that do nothing but carry aliens to the warp, didn't they?
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24.
Board Game: Java
[Average Rating:7.08 Overall Rank:307]
Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Where did they even find the cardboard to make the tiles in this game? I've never seen tiles this thick in any other game. It must have taken quite a machine to punch these suckers out. That's also one of the nicest photographs on the Geek.
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Robert Martin
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Niagara is a little family game about boats moving up and down a river collecting gems. The first thing that catches your eye is the awesome plastic gemstones. So many games use glass beads as gems, but these things actually look like gemstones. However, the most amazing thing about this game is that the box converts to the game board and the boats ride on these clear plastic discs. Each turn you give the discs a push and the whole river moves downstream. Boats at the end fall of the "waterfall" (the edge of the game box).
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marines can point and say "Umm... why's that one red?"
I think the box designer made one little mistake in forgetting that some people *do* put their games back in the same box! I think once CCGs came around, it became more common to toss away the original packaging and repackage the components.
