But when I was younger, most such games were for kids, or were "fun for the whole family", and I played a lot of them.

After I reached a certain age, I wasn't keen on Ludo or Snakes and Ladders or Backgammon - the first two seemed too simple, the third too complicated (and nobody among my family and friends knew how to play it). Board games based on cartoons and TV shows like Sealab 2020 were colourful and familiar but again, usually too simple to satisfy for long. Othello was too abstract for me. And I only learned about Go later which seemed even harder: simple but deep.

While I was never good at chess, I enjoyed playing it, as long as my opponent was a fairly even match rather than a budding grand master. Another "war game" was Risk, where the aim was no less than to conquer the world. It took a long time and could be frustrating but if you had megalomaniacal tendencies was satisfying if you won.

For someone who loves words, I was never terribly keen on the word-based classics such as Scrabble and Boggle. I like words and definitions I can use, and read: memorising lists of obscure two-and-three-letter words without even bothering to know their meaning isn't for me.

One game I was pretty good at, if I say so myself, was Trivial Pursuit. A longtime fascination with interesting but seemingly useless bits and pieces finally paid off (it helped with trivia nights too). I only ever played the standard and Baby Boomer editions though. I think I would have done particularly well with the Silver Screen pack.

TP needed knowledge; The Game of Life needed nothing much but luck. Its three-dimensional mountains and number wheel looked good, but it was another that involved little beyond pure luck. It's been criticised in some quarters for its emphasis on a typically bourgeois life (everyone has to get married and it's unlikely you will escape having kids). And, as in so many games, whoever has the most money at the end, wins.

Stock Market, with its sliding plastic indicator, was dry and the New Zealand-invented, internationally adapted political/economic Poleconomy looked handsome but was dull and its rules seemed impenetrable. I don't think I ever finished a game.

Careers - a game where you had to gain all the elements of your self-created formula of fame, fortune and happiness by taking on different occupations - was enjoyable, with a nice mix of luck and strategy and involving aspects other than simply accumulating wealth. Over various editions, some career options changed (e.g. Going to Sea and Teaching were dropped), others like Politics endured.

Ratrace added a new, dubious element: social climbing. You began as one of the working class (albeit owning a business) and made your way up to middle class and ultimately upper class, accumulating money and status. Some of the social messages conveyed by the game might be dubious - ways to get ahead included having a society wedding and joining yacht clubs and country clubs. However, you could also buy status symbols from others' businesses. This introduced a more realistic element than some games: the interdependence of people.

The murder deduction Cluedo was another game with plenty of interaction between players and the fun of little "murder weapons" to place in different rooms. I enjoyed thinking up backstories for the various characters: was Miss Scarlett a tramp? Was Mrs Peacock a widow who got away with killing her wealthy husband for his money?

If I wanted to unleash my inner ruthless capitalist, the old favourite Monopoly was very satisfying. It combined strategy and luck in a way that made you feel smarter than you probably were (if you won). Comedian Shelley Berman perhaps summed it up best: "The real attraction of Monopoly is the thrill you get when you know you've wiped out a friend."

For equestrians, there was the similarly named Totopoly, with a double-sided board. The first half of the game involved buying and training racehorses and making bets: you flipped the board for the race itself. The winner was either the player whose horse won the race or the one who made the most betting money depending on the edition, which seems annoying if you like a clear goal.

Sheer silly fun was the Mad Magazine Game, where the object was to lose all your money and there was lots of wackiness. One card read: "You are a rock. Act like one. If you're good, you lose $500. If you're not so good, you win a rock." How was this determined? As the rules said, if there is uncertainty, vote by majority rule.

Then there were what might be called the mechanical games. Mousetrap was one where setting up and setting off the elaborate gadget used to trap mice was more fun than playing the actual game. Haunted House involved a booby-trapped haunted house from which you had to escape: as well as steel balls coming down stairs, swooping brooms and other dangers, a witch might also turn you into a mouse.

I still like board games, the old and the new. The problem nowadays is finding people with whom to play them.