All the Games on Our Shelves

So, the family played this without me early in the weekend last weekend when I was grading mid-terms and had no time for gaming, but I got them to play it again later when I was able to join in.  We are up to a 95-game count with this one, and nowhere near the end of the "Games on Our Shelves!"  This game is very simple, yet fun.  The object  .  .  .  well, the object is to get the most points  .  .  .  but getting "qwirkles" (all one shape of all different colors or all six colors with the same shape) really helps with that, since you get an additional six points for doing so!  In order to place tiles, you need to match color or shape (without matching both).  It's a little bit like Scrabble, in that you have a number of tiles in front of you (in this case 6) that you can use on a turn - and that you have to use what is already on the board as you add.  Instead of making words, you are making strings that are al...

 In over 90 games it hadn't happened that I wasn't involved in play, but I gave my first set of midterm tests this past week and have been grading most of the weekend.  I just walked into the living room to find Jacob and Caleb playing this game from our shelves that we had not yet played.  As I post this, they are still playing, and I can hear them taking turns reading paragraphs from the adventure as they make decisions together.  It looks and sounds good.  I may request this as one to play next time I get a break!  (Caleb just drew a card and shouted out, "We found an alien notebook!")  The picture below is of the layout they've got going on in the living room:   Any game that has a "Danger Meter" and a "Psychic Scale" has got to be good!  The picture cards below are premonition cards - something else that sounds very appealing to me. Alas, after this short post, I return to my planning, now that my grading is finished....

 Ahoy, mateys!  Did ye know that today be "Talk Like a Pirate Day?"  So what better game to play than Pirate Fluxx?  Not only be it "Talk Like a Pirate Day," but, shiver me timbers, it also be the 98th birthday of Petey the Pirate, mascot of Modesto Junior College (where I teach when I'm not out doing piratey things).  So before posting game pictures, I gi' ye some photos of Petey and me:    And now, on to the game.  It begins with the basic rules, which are "Draw 1, Play 1."  Three cards are dealt to each player.  But the game is called Fluxx for a reason!  One type of card is the "New Rule" card, which does exactly that - puts a new rule down for everyone to follow.  I felt like tonight was the weirdest game of Fluxx I had ever played, since for a very long time there was only one "New Rule" card out there.  Usually there's such a mass of cards in the middle of the table that I can't keep track of what I...