All the Games on Our Shelves

Two weeks ago our son, whose love language is very definitely "The Giving and Receiving of Gifts," gave David an EARLY Father's Day gift of the game That's Pretty Clever .  We had played it once before, a year or so ago, at our friends' house.  That first time we played it, I found it interesting but very confusing.  You use a die or combinations of dice to mark spaces on the board, and those spaces can provide one or more benefits.  Each of the colored dice provides opportunities in a different way, and that first time I played it I found it nearly impossible to make decisions about which die to choose to use at any given time.  It wasn't hard to play; it was just hard to figure out any kind of strategy to be able to play well.  But even though it was at least a year later that I played again, I found it vastly easier  to make decisions with confidence each turn.  My husband and I are now completely addicted to this game and have played it nearly...

Prior to the pandemic our family - my parents, my brother, and the four of us from this household - had a tradition of getting together once a week for dinner and a game.  Typically we played a few hands of Rook .  Then, due to the COVID pandemic, we didn't get together at all for a very long time.  But as the months went on we found a way to gather safely.  (With my parents getting on in years it has been important to us to make sure they are "sheltered," which we're still doing our best to maintain, but all the intense sheltering was killing my extrovert father, and I get the sense he'd rather die of COVID than be deprived of company.)  Anyway, we now get take-out pizza, eat at separate tables, and play a game that works well while distancing: Liar's Dice .  This isn't a "packaged" game, but given the amount of shelf space taken up by such things as dice and packs of standard playing cards it's only fair that I count these as games in some ...

In the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, I thought we would be playing far more games.  Perhaps I should say that I thought that at this time of pandemic that we would be making good progress through the uncounted games on our shelves, but this has not been the case.  We've been doing a reasonable amount of gaming, but it's mostly been just a few favorites (that I've already posted about).  Maybe games are like food in some sense, and just as there is comfort food there are "comfort games."  Despite it being pretty new to us, the game we've been addicted to in recent months is Quacks of Quedlinburg .  Since we're not playing our way through the uncounted games right now, I thought I'd put up a post or two of games on our shelves that I just can't get rid of but that for some reason or other are not exactly playable to us currently.  One of these is Dragon Dice .  I was drawn to this game immediately, as there is very little in life that ...

We've been using such online tools as Zoom and Skype and Facebook's Video Calling in these days of the COVID-19 pandemic and lock-down in order to play games with friends and family.  It can be challenging to find a game that works well in this format.  So far we've played Scattergories , general trivia games, and  Quacks of Quedlinburg.  But we're sad about not be able to find a way to play some of our standards such as Pinochle, and we're particularly missing our Pinochle partners, the Fromuths, during this crazy time in our world!  Yahtzee was a recent suggestion from our friends the Kirks whose young sons (ages 4 and 6) have gotten very good at and have been playing with out-of-state family online.  David and I took them up on this idea, our sons, however, despite their love of playing games with the Kirk family, decided not to join in on Yahtzee.  One son described as "too much like school: both boring and stressful" -- a sentiment with which t...

 After the ridiculously long time period of three weeks we finally played another game!  Much more time away and I may have gone through withdrawals - or maybe I have been experiencing withdrawal, and that's why I haven't been feeling well lately!  Either way, I'm thankful the game-drought has ended!  The game Can't Stop Express was a recent Christmas gift to me from David.  He hadn't been able to find the large, board-game version (at least not at a reasonable price) so he read-up on this version of it and decided to go for it.  I must say that when I first opened the box today I was quite underwhelmed, particularly because I had played the board-game version previously.  This version is just 5 dice, directions, and a score-pad.  OK  .  .  .  Above is what I opened today; below is the board game version that our friends the Kirks introduced us to.  As you can imagine, I felt that a lot was missing!  So we "r...

 Well, as it says on the package, Qwixx is a fast family dice game :-)  It's also a Mensa Select award winner.  And it's fun to play.  Caleb gave this to me for Christmas.  It's been a while since I've played it, though.  As you can see from my corrected score sheet below I needed some reminders. During the school year when he is off to college, Caleb plays it with his Grandma who lives out there in Michigan.  I was glad he picked it up off the shelf today and challenged me to a quick game of Qwixx.

These cute oinkers serves as dice in Pass the Pigs: The Go Hog-Wild Dice Game.  This is a game for 2 or more players.  You roll the pigs and score points depending on how they land.  If the pigs land on their sides (one right, one left) it's called a "pig out," which ends your turn and causes you to lose all points for that turn.  You can choose to pass the turn at any time.  It's often a good idea to pass the turn after a few successful rolls, as it can be emotionally painful to get up to 30 or 35 points and then get a "pig out" and lose those all of those points!  It's also a hard choice to pass the turn, since you can feel like you've got a hot streak going and not want to give that up. The first person to 100 points wins. Within the outer box is this clever, convenient carrying case containing score pads, pigs and pencils.  Here's an action shot during David's turn:  The following roll is called a "mixed combo," ...