Leisure

House Monopoly rules make us feel like Goldilocks: Some make the game too hard -- others, too soft. Which can be ditched to make the game just right?

By Laurie L. Dove

Do you remember the last time you played a game? You probably improved your memory while you played -- without even realizing it.

By Jacob Clifton

Games involving math force you to use your brain's full power, and some have been challenging people for centuries. The five on this list on this list will test your numerical agility and teach math ideas and functions as you play.

By John Kelly

Games like chess and checkers have been around for centuries for a reason: They're very easy to learn but difficult to master. What other games make the cut for this list?

By Patrick J. Kiger

It may be the only board game loosely inspired by sumo wrestling. How do you tackle Abalone?

By Patrick J. Kiger

Apples to Apples is a relatively simple party game that can yield hilarious results. Players just match nouns to adjectives, but when the game is played deftly, hilarity ensues.

By Dave Roos

Axis & Allies is a popular board game that allows players to fight World War II on a variety of fronts. Would you like to defend Pearl Harbor or help invade Normandy? Here's your chance!

By Ed Grabianowski

Are you sharper than the contrasting triangles you'll spy on a backgammon board? You'll have to be if you want to master this strategic game.

By William Harris

Chinese checkers is a fun and easy-to-learn board game that has little to do with traditional checkers and even less to do with China. How do you win?

By Clint Pumphrey

The same simple rules and equipment that make Go easy to get into also make it difficult to master. Learn what's kept Go popular for some 3,000 years and how the game works.

By Laurie L. Dove

Monopoly is one of the world's most popular board games with a storied history. But how do you even win this long game of monopolizing money?

By Dave Roos

Blue disease is piling up in London and Atlanta while the scientist and the medic bicker over the next best steps for fighting the rising tide of infection. If that sounds like fun, you're going to love the board game Pandemic.

By Robert Lamb

Power Grid is a popular game that explores allows players to use power plants and natural resources to build cities. It sounds complicated, but you'll have fun and learn something at the same time.

By Ed Grabianowski

Do you secretly harbor a dream to become the supreme ruler of the entire planet? Then maybe Risk is your type of board game.

By Patrick J. Kiger

SET, a card game of pure skill, is played in family homes, math classrooms and Mensa competition spaces alike. Find out how a game with just four variables has captured so many fans.

By Laurie L. Dove

The island of Catan may be fictional, but the devoted fans this addictive board game generates are very real (and super strategic). Get sucked in, too, in How Settlers of Catan Works.

By Robert Lamb

As fun as they are, most traditional puzzles can fall a little flat. However, 3-D puzzles - made from plastic, wood, fabric and more -- have been boggling minds for centuries. What separates 3-D puzzles from their two-dimensional brethren?

By Dave Roos

Word games can be fun (and frustrating) forms of entertainment, but if you're tired of the same old crosswords, why not try your hand at their puzzle cousins, acrostics?

By Nathan Chandler

If you love the challenge of chess and can't get enough of the game, you can try out special chess puzzles to improve your skills.

By Jane McGrath

First used for confidential messages during times of war, cryptograms have now evolved into leisure-time puzzles. What are some of the keys to breaking the codes?

By Colleen Cancio

Although (or perhaps because) no lives are at stake when you decipher a cryptoquote, these cryptology-based word puzzles are a brain game for the ages.

By Joy H. Montgomery

Puzzle boxes were originally created in Japan as a way to thwart thieves. Today, they're popular around the globe as decorative brain teasers. Here's how they work.

By Melanie Radzicki McManus

Some can see them; some can't. They're 3-D eye puzzles and they were all the rage in the '90s. Get the tricks to solving these crazy images.

By Danielle Fisher

What do you get when you combine a crossword puzzle grid, the logic of sudoku and a bit of basic math? Find out how kakuro puzzles add up.

By Jane McGrath

KenKen puzzles, referred to as the new sudoku at the time they were created, are popular brain teasers that vary in degree of difficulty. Here's how the game is played.

By Melanie Radzicki McManus