All the Games on Our Shelves

 Coincidentally, though he hadn't read my last post in which I dissed this game a bit, Caleb asked today to play Catan.  SURE!!  It really is a great game despite the one flaw I mentioned in my previous post, and we used to play it incessantly as a family a decade or so ago.  It's a very well constructed resource-management game.  Today's game was very competitive.  I thought I had it in the bag, but I made a major error late in the game, and Caleb was able to stage a quick turn-around to claim victory!   This is not our original version.  I like the artwork and the structure of the original better, but we played it so much that the cards got all gross and sticky.  We have a variety of expansions as well that I will post about as they come up.  Though not perfect, it's definitely a very good game.  I would call it a modern classic.  Apparently the designers of the game feel the same way given that our box included the bumper sticker pictured below calling Cat

 Years ago when we first got into what I call "Gamer Games" (instead of just Cribbage, Hearts, Spades, Mastermind, Othello, etc.) we played a lot of Settlers of Catan.  We loved the game, but it could be REALLY frustrating because you could get stuck in a position where you couldn't get any resources and could end up sitting there for 30 to 60 minutes absolutely stuck and just watching other people play.  Your turn would come around, you'd roll the dice, and you'd find that, once again, you couldn't do anything, and you'd just pass the dice.  To me Stone Age feels a lot like Settlers but without that awful possibility of getting really stuck.  There's always something you can do; you don't always get your first choice of things, but the lead passes with each turn, so you regularly do get first choice.  There are also cards that cause all players to get resources, and even if it isn't your turn to go first and even if one of those cards doesn&

 It's rare for me to get my family to play a trivia game, but I saw this one out in the living room!!  WHAT?!?!  I found out that Jacob and Ocean had been playing this via Skype in the place of online trivia games, so Jacob was definitely up for playing, and even David jumped in with a good attitude.  (Full disclosure: I adore trivia and have been on the TV game show Jeopardy, so most people don't want to play trivia games with me because I can tend to do really well, but there's also the fact that I think David became sick to death of trivia simply due to my long focus on it as I studied intensely before I went on the show.) Actually I don't think people should worry about being skunked when playing this game by the trivia buff in their group. Wit's End is a pretty good leveler because the questions are quite hard - far more so than Trivial Pursuit - and because there is an element of luck.  Although the questions are hard, some of the categories involve multi

 The description of Avalon on the box is a good one: Secret Identities - Deduction - Deception.  I enjoy this game very much and even woke up thinking about it the morning after we played.  On the other hand, I am terrible at games of secret identities and deception!  Our gamer friends from far away were still at our house Saturday night, so onward and forward with more gaming together!  (It seems from the picture below that we might have left Angie dazed and confused with our presentation of the rules on this one, but she picked it up fast and was enjoying by the end!)  Here are some of the identity cards.  Basically they are split into good and evil, but some characters on each side have special abilities.  Here those characters are the assassin, Morgana and Merlin.  The playing pieces below have to do with the quests, the various pieces having functions of showing who is leading this quest, who is on this quest and determining if the quest is going to be approved or rejected

 Lucky game 13 is Dixit.  We're continuing our game-playing weekend with friends who are here from Michigan for Memorial Day weekend.  This game reminds me somewhat of a cross between Apples to Apples, Balderdash, and Code Words Pictures.  The turn passes around the table, and the person whose turn it is plays a card face down and gives a word or phrase description of the card.  Other players then select a card from their hand to play face down.  All these cards are shuffled and then laid out for everyone to vote on which card they think was the original.  Points are awarded based on whether or not you select the right card, whether or not people select your card, etc.  It's tricky because as the person whose turn it is you want some players but not all players to guess your card.  If it's your turn and your card is guess by either no one or by everyone, you get no points and all other players get two points (plus how ever many votes their cards earned).   We played wi

 Though we haven't played 7 Wonders in a while, this game is definitely a fam-favorite!  It's also a favorite of guests that we have in town this weekend from far-away Michigan.  Because it had been a while for both our families and because we were introducing them to the Leaders expansion we spent a while on explanations and rules reminders.  Aside - we haven't been together as families in about 10 years, so what do we do upon seeing each other again?  Play games!!!  We have multiple expansions for this game, including Leaders, Cities and Babel.  Above is a shot partway through the game (I love it when I draw Alexandria!), and below is a shot of the table at the end when we were tallying points.  I love the riot of color that results.  The former Calvin College room-mates Lisa and Heidi came in first and second place respectively.  Our secret to success was to go science.  It's amazing we could both pull it off, given that we were seated next to each othe

Caleb is finally home from college so we can play Magic again! WAHOO!!  We used his cube today, drafted and played.  It felt good!  Pictured below are some cards that served me well.  (For some reason my pictures aren't coming out as well as I'd like - probably because we generally play at night, and I'm dealing with the glare of lights - and because I'm trying to get close-ups in low light - alas.)  I imagine those of you who play Magic will get a sense of what's here despite the unclear photo.  I was going to go Naya (as I usually do), but once I started building my deck, the green that I had, though powerful, seemed like it would be more of a distraction from just getting in there and getting the job done, and it felt like two-color would be a better choice mana-wise than three-color.  (I guess that goes without saying.)  Caleb was playing all kinds of crazy stuff with four color, but he had all kinds of crazy dual lands, shock lands, pain lands, etc. to kee

For years David and I had been used to a five-person household, but somewhat recently we've moved into the season of life where our kids have become young adults, are heading off the college and so on - in other words, we're moving into empty-nesting phase.  Other than the fact that we miss our kids, one of the hardest adjustments has been going from years of playing games with 4 or 5 people to trying to remember what games we used to play when it was just the two of us.  One of our kids took pity on us and purchased the 2-player game of Jaipur as a gift, and I've been really impressed with it.  The idea of the game is that you are a trader whose goal is to become the personal trader for the Maharajah by becoming richer than your opponent.  This game actually does make me feel like I'm having to make decisions as a trader would.  Do I go for big pay-offs quickly by going for gold or rubies, or do I spend time collecting more of an item and therefore get a bonus to

 This is the national game of Madagascar!  It's a game of pure strategy and has been around for hundreds of years at least.  There are stories and legends of Malagasy royalty playing this game, and even of inheritance of the throne being affected by the playing of this game. I've had this set a long time and can't remember where I purchased it - am thinking it was at a game store I used to visit whenever we were in Carmel, California - a game store that, sadly, is no longer there.  I like that this set has a little drawer for all the pieces.  The beginning set up is shown below: I hadn't played in decades, and Jacob consented to play with me tonight.  Here is a position we were in at one point - I played white, and he played black - I went first.  The goal is to capture all the opponent's pieces; capture is done by approach or withdrawal; there is no jumping of pieces.  I felt like I was really killing him at the beginning, but he ended up winning.  Actua