This week we look at the disappointing world of pop culture spin-off board games [with one exception].

I never watched Family Ties, nor did I follow the New Kids on the Block. And so for that reason, I wouldn't want to play board game versions of these things. Think of your favorite sitcom. Okay, let me tell you how the first few turns of its board game probably plays.

1. Pick your favorite character, [character], and put a cardboard picture of them into a little stand at the start space.
2. Roll a die. Move that many spaces. You landed on the [chance card] space. It says, [somethng bad that happened in an episode], move back two spaces!
3. It's your next turn. Roll a die. Move that many spaces. Hope you land on the space that gives you [Item/Picture from show] so that you can collect enough of those to win [before the other players/before your reach the last space].

That's how it goes. In the NKOTB game, you have to collect 5 neon-framed pictures of the guys. In Family Ties you have to get pictures of each character and $100. Roll, move, roll, move.

As for this decade, TV shows get turned into trivia games. These exist for fanatics and for birthdays. “I don't know what to get Cindy” someone's friend says, “well, but I do know that she really loves Sex and the City so I'm going to cop out and just buy her the Sex and the City game. Shopping done.” Sex and the City the trivia game promises to allow players to “Answer trivia questions, act out different scenes, collect lifestyle cards, and enjoy a night of "girl talk" in Sex and the City style”. If I knew more about Sex and the City, this is where a biting joke about what a night of Sex and the City style girl talk would be.

If you're more a fan of the Office, you have your choice of two different trivia games that you can only play with your friends that like The Office.

Given all the spin-off board games that are out there, you can understand why I wouldn't pick up a game like Battlestar Galactica, based on the popular SyFy show. It also didn't help that I originally saw it at Borders, land of boring spin-offs games and innuendo-based party games [examples: Loaded Questions, What's Yours Like].

I am happy to report, however, that Battlestar Galactica by Fantasy Flight Games is one of the well designed, most fun games I own and it's fun if you've never even heard of the show.

So here's how it works. Everyone is a on a space fleet with the Battlestar Galactica as its flagship. Everyone picks out their character (picking from different political leaders, military leaders, pilots, and support staff). The humans aboard, while dealing with other crises, have to fend off robots known as Cylons that appear in ships, send boarding parties, and cause havoc. The humans are trying to reach earth by making a certain number of jumps through space before they run out of resources.

Now where BSG gets interesting is that at the start of the game, everyone gets a loyalty card and an unknown number of players find out that they are actually secret Cylons. So while the humans are trying to make sure Galactica makes it through things okay, the Cylons win by sabotaging the fleet. And on top of this, there's a second phase where it's possible for a human to find out that he was a Cylon all along.

The main mechanic for sabotage in BSG is in skill checks. Every turn, a crisis comes up like a potential water shortage, riots in the fleet, or a call to impeach the president [characters can become admiral or president and receive special powers along with their title]. Each crisis has a target number that the humans have to reach by playing skill cards. Everyone plays cards face down. First, you take two random skill cards and put them out face down, then players go around the table and secretly add cards to the pot. Cylons are out there adding cards that work against the humans to make their checks. And so it's up to the humans, based on the type of skill cards played, to try and figure out the aftermath of the cards and figure out who might be the Cylons messing things up for everyone. So if there are a lot of red piloting cards in there, it could be because they were among the random cards, it could be from one of the pilots that is a Cylon, or it could be someone trying to frame the pilots.

Figuring out who is and who isn't a Cylon is the most fun part of the game, and it's fun to play a game that's team based where you have figure out who is even on your team to begin with. If I had to compare it to other games, it is like a mix of Bang, Clue, and Arkham Horror. The game mechanics are simple and elegant and foster a lot of great interaction between the players.

I said earlier that this game isn't for everyone, and I want to emphasize it again. BSG not the kind of game you buy and sit down and play straight out of the box. It comes with a 32 page rule book and one player needs to takes the time to familiarize himself with it before the first game, or it is going to be a disaster. The game takes approximately four hours to play when you have a good handle of the rules. Some people don't have the stamina for a game of that length.

I took a good deal of photos for this article, but ended up not posting them because, well, the thing that I think is most interesting and inticing about the game is the interactions between the players. If you're interested in seeing what more of the cards look like, the Fantasy Flight Games has a somewhat-cheesy but informative trailer [direct link to .mov file].

One-sentence Reviews:

Karen: Even though it's not my kind of game, it was fun for a while but I just don't enjoy games that are that long to play or are that complicated.

Rob: I was under the impression that both the TV show and board game were too nerdy even for me. I then discovered how addictive and original the game design is, and soon I was so hooked on the game I had to watch the entire TV series.

Angela: This game is suspenseful right up to the end, even after players' human/Cylon identities are revealed. It's fun to try to figure out who is lying and who is telling the truth

Peggy: More complicated than the usual board game - which is a good thing. After I got into it I started seeing clips of the TV show play in my mind as I played the Cylon part. You get into it more the more you play. Would like to play more of the characters. A bit like acting but for geeks

Jake: The cards get dull pretty fast, but it's still fun trying to flush out a toaster before your resources get too low. It's a game of Clue on a resource time limit. With alcoholics, politicians, and robots. In space

Mike Hulsebus, for the record, is not a Cylon and can be reached at mikehulsebus@gmail.com. If you would be willing to use your executive order card on him, he promises that he will not move the civilian ships into harm's way.