It may be crazy for today's generation to believe, but a lot of existing board and card games actually transition to the digital realm very well. Games that are well known in America like the aforementioned Monopoly, Risk, Sorry!, Scrabble and Life all have digital counterparts that are advertised to be fun for the whole family. But America's not the only country that has excellent board and card games. You may have heard of the XBox Live game Settlers of Catan. Well, kids, much like Monopoly and Uno, Settlers of Catan actually started as a board game, but not from America.

Settlers of Catan was released in 1995 in Germany. The players in the game are settlers establishing settlements and colonies on the fictional island of Catan. As the game progresses, players build a whole network of settlements, cities and roads. They gain resources depending on where they've settled and can trade those resources with other players, or turn them into game advantages. The goal of the game is to possess 10 victory points on one's turn. You get a victory point for every settlement and two for every city. There are a few other things that can net you points like the longest road or largest armies. The strategy is limitless and much like every great game, it's easy to learn and difficult to master.

Settlers of Catan is really the only Eurogame that has found success in the digital realm in America - first on the PC with Catan Online in 2005 and then on XBLA in 2007. What makes Catan, and many other Eurogames, so great for casual players is that it creates a challenging board-game experience that just can't be found in a game like Monopoly. The actions that you take and ways you can win are not limited to one variable like the random roll of a die. It's about board position and ingenuity as much as it is about having a good number of resources and decent luck rolling a die. Random chance doesn't play into Catan nearly as much as traditional American games, which is what makes it so amazing.

In addition to Catan, there are many other amazing Eurogames that deserve a digital treatment, especially here in the states. Puerto Rico is a German game that was published in 2002 where three to five players assume the role of colonial governors on the real-life island of Puerto Rico during the age of Caribbean ascendancy. Each player uses a separate board to keep track of city buildings, plantations and resources. You get to grow crops and exchange them for money, which can in turn be used to buy buildings, which allow players to produce more crops or select from a bevy of different advantages. You win by sending goods to the Old World on your ships or you can construct buildings. It was Boardgamegeek's top rated game for five years running, and if that's not a shining endorsement, I don't know what is.

It's the fact that random chance has less of a role in these games that make them an easy choice for a digital counterpart. When you really think about it, players like to have control over what they do - that is, in part, why many people play video games. Eurogames slim down the random aspect of games and turn them into games on par with the strategic know-how of chess. However, these games aren't just limited to boards and tokens - there are a few card games that make the cut as well.

Dominion is a card game released in 2008 in multiple languages created by Donald X. Vaccarino and it is currently one of the only games (digital or otherwise) I am currently playing. The game is a continuous deck-building card game where players compete to get the most valuable deck of cards representing a kingdom that you build. By amassing treasure cards, you can buy more things. Action cards allow you to have various effects happen that can extend your turn, give you temporary cash or allow you to draw cards. Victory cards do nothing for the main game, but are the only way that you can win. Games only take about a half hour, even with four players, and each game presents a unique challenge to different types of players. The concept is extremely simple, but playing with four different people who all have different ideas as to what the most efficient and perfect kingdom looks like is always a pleasure and a learning experience.

My point is this: If games of random chance like Monopoly, Poker, Sorry!, Life and a host of others get a digital treatment, why not try games that take more skill and strategy to play? These games are an excellent way to spend a rainy afternoon with friends and would benefit greatly from a digital or online version. Discovering new ways to play a game by participating in it with others is one of the great reasons to play - and with today's generation being so plugged in, it's more important than ever for some of these Eurogames to get their day in the sun on the digital Stateside.