heres a few to jog your memory: Apples to Apples, Battleship, Clue, Cranium, Game Of Life, Monopoly, Payday, Scrabble, Sorry!, Trouble
All of the games above are stupid. Well, Scrabble isn't that stupid, but it's dull. My favorite game is chess, but I do enjoy a good game of Risk, backgammon, chinese checkers, Stratego, Mancala, and a whole lot of card games (especially Spades and such).
the way I learned to play it -- you bid how many tricks you think you can take. if i bid 4 and take 8, I shoot. if I don't make 4, I shoot. if I make 5, I get 41 points... but if I bid 5 and make 5, I get 50 points. We play to 500, and if you shoot, you lose 40 points, if you shot for 4, etc. I think there is some rule that if you bid 0 and take no tricks, you get 100 points, but I never witnessed anyone do that so
Yay and bravo for pinochle, pronounced pee-knuckle. Spent 3 months playing that all day on the internet, during the pre-broadband era. It's fucking the king of card games! Well that's bridge actually, but I never really managed to get my head round that. Pinochle is like bridge, but the rules are less complicated. It's still a game that requires a few weeks playing to get into though. Incidentally, I picked up an old Waddingtons Bridge set the other day in a charity shop for £1.29. Might try and learn how to play that now. I've also got a similar one for Cribbage I bought in a charity shop 4 years ago, still unopened on the inside, and with the same box style so probably from the mid 60's also. Cribbage is a good game too.
I lost a game of scrable once to a guy who played scrable tournaments professionally. He used some two letter word. It's not a word, I say. He points out that it isn't a word. He didn't know the definition. It's a certain type of wave. I said, "you have to know the definition". He has the rule book in his bag. You don't need to know the definition.