The Game PlaceA curated collection of outstanding games, for your amusement pleasure
The intended audience of this website is adult gamers (age 21+) who are searching for quality free information/downloads about outstanding older tabletop and electronic games in their genre of interest. Using the games listed here as an excuse for socializing is encouraged. In an effort to remain impartial about our offerings, this website is not sponsored, does not host advertising, and does not sell anything.
[The crass trend of Internet educational and reference websites to include links to storefronts just so people can "buy stuff" is more than just a choice of promoting vulgar commercialism over humanism, it's a downright obnoxious assault upon the researchers sensibilities. -ed]
Games are a personal choice, and your selection will be based upon factors such as looks, theme, mechanics, playability, and your opponents interests/capabilities. When we selected games to be included in this archive, we chose games primarily because they exhibited a superior or unique gaming experience, rather than because of their age target, brand awareness, or retail commonplaceness. No attempt was made to include all the games in a "series" (as not all such games are superior), and when faced with equivalent options, chose games that had a female protagonist or appealed more to fringe gamers. When an obscure game has similar mechanics to a more well known game, we as an aid will often reference this fact. Obviously we did not evaluate all games, particularly recent electronic games, but be confident that the games we do list are worthy.
Tabletop games have been sorted as to whether they require multiple players, they play better with many players, they play better with fewer players, or if they can only be played head-to-head. Games based on historical events have also been commented with a label as to their generalized historical technology/tactics era. When useful, extra material (supplements, errata, aids, etc.) have also been included.
Electronic games are mostly Golden Era Arcade games, Cartridge Era Console games, and Millennium Era PC games. Note that since the games in console system cartridges use little code, have relatively primitive graphics, and exhibit similar play characteristics, game worthiness is thus often merely a matter of personal taste. As such, a decision was made to include all console system cartridges in this archive, rather than attempt to filter.
For tabletop gamers lacking a physical opponent and electronic gamers unable to install games locally; included is a comprehensive listing of addresses to Internet TelNet servers hosting remote games. We are focusing upon TelNet sites rather than web sites, due to TelNet games being operating system neutral and not requiring the latest Internet Browser (in fact, because they are not "web" servers, the games don't use a web Browser at all).