Board games for programmers

If you have a group of programmers, RoboRally is a really really fund game.  You create little five card instructuctions for your robot and send him off. Invariably, people put in bugs or run into other robots and cause hilarious effects.  I've played this many times with developer teams and everyone has fun.

Theory of fun

I've been revisiting this book on game design and really enjoying it. It will really help you understand what makes fun games fun.

 

Also, this book does a good job of talking about violence in video games and what it actually means. I don't know if it was in the book or not, but I remember reading this and coming up with a defense of violence in video games. Not that I condone violence, I like peaceful people, but the fact is that you can only complain about game violence if you've never played this children's classic.

hangman

.