All the Games on Our Shelves

  I can't believe I hadn't yet posted on this common classic, Sequence .  Caleb requested to play this today, after I had suggested Dominion and Splendor .  He wasn't in the mood for that sort of game (unusual!) and went upstairs to look at the shelves.  He saw this and said he remembered it being one of his favorite games in childhood.  So we played.  We used to play it quite a bit -- decades ago!  It's not one I've been drawn to because it's so simple and doesn't involve a lot of strategy, but I was pleasantly surprised at how engaging I found it to be today.   The game consists of a board with a grid of card images on it, and you begin with 7 cards in your hand.  You can play a token of your color on a spot on the board that matches your card.  (There are more than one of each.)  The goal is to be the first to get two sequences, a sequence being five in a row.  There are no jacks on the board, as they have special abil...

  We've had an extended time with extended family, involving four generations staying at our house, so obviously a lot of gaming has taken place.  We started with Mind the Gap , which some of us northern California folks REALLY like and thought would be a particularly appropriate game with which to start the family visit -- a generation-based trivia game.  Not everyone was as much of a fan, but that's OK, as we certainly have plenty of other games from which to choose!  Below is a picture of family members who were gathered together; the group ranges in age from 0 to 85. Next game is one that is a time-honored tradition in our family: Rook .  EVERYONE likes Rook ! Qwirkle is a favorite of Al and Jo, our Michigan guests, and do they ever know how to maximize their play!! Then a card game called Dutch that our middle son learned in Thailand, ironically enough. The next one, Skull King , is a favorite of David's.  This game is very similar to the games Up an...

  Normally we would play Say Anything with friends rather than as a small family group.  It's a game similar to Apples-to-Apples or Puns of Anarchy in which players "turn in" responses to another player for "judging."  In this game, the players whose turn it is to "judge" takes a card from the top of the deck and chooses one of the five possible questions.  The other players then write a response that they think will best resonate with the reader.  For instance, the second question on the card below is "What's the best Tom Hanks movie?"  As a writer you don't write what YOU think is the best Tom Hanks movie, you write what you think the reader considers to be the best Tom Hanks movie.  Once all the responses are turned in, the reader selects his favorite response (using the disk to indicate the selected response and setting the disk face down on the table).  The other players then use their two tokens to vote on which response they...

 Stick Around has been sticking around on our shelves for decades.  It's from the Great American Trading Company, the board game publisher that put out many of our favorite games that we've been playing since the early days or our marriage.  We hadn't played this for a long time - partly because it's a 2-player game, and we often have our sons at home and are playing with a larger group.  I may have subconsciously avoided it a bit because it's a territory game, and David generally dominates those entirely. Coincidentally, I won the first game tonight decisively.  We went on to play best two out of three.  Above are our first few moves. I played red.  David played yellow.  The first player cannot place in such a way that the stick touches or crosses the central intersection.  The goal is to be the last player to be able to place a piece.  As we were playing, I started feeling like my brain was thinking about lessons I'd been teachin...

 Tyler and Anna are so good at getting us out of our house and over to theirs for marathon gaming, and it is always a marathon when we get together.  Currently "we" has included the two of them, me and David and our two youngest boys, Jacob and Caleb.  Our first game of the night is one we had not played before: Deep Sea Adventure .  It's not yet on our shelves, but this one is going on my wish list.  It's a very simple game to learn and to play, but after the two rounds we played I'm still not quite sure how to go about determining effective strategy on this one.  I love games like this - simple rules involving possibility of deep strategy.  This is one I want to come back to.  (I also like the fact that it comes in a nice, compact box!)  The idea of Deep Sea Adventure is that of diving for treasure and trying to get as much as you can without being so greedy that you run out of oxygen and don't survive the journey!  The original ...