All the Games on Our Shelves

   .  .  .  and this was the other game that Caleb gave me and David as an early birthday gift (along with Sagrada ).  This is a very casual game that plays quickly and allows for talking during play - doesn't take too much concentration - unlike the other game we played this morning, Dutch , which I'll post about tomorrow.  The idea in Final Touch is that you are an art forger who has been hired as part of a team of forgers to recreate masterpieces.  You can work with your fellow painters or you can work against them.  The player (or team) that finishes the masterpiece gets the full payment, so if you sense that you (or your team) will not be able to complete the painting you can "smear" it so that although the other team still gets the pay, they get less pay.  First player (or team) to $25 (yes, twenty-five dollars) wins the game.  Maybe there's a lesson there about forgery not paying off?  You start with 5 cards in you...

 Sagrada is quite possibly the most visually gorgeous game I have ever played.  This is an early birthday gift from Caleb to me and David.  It allows for 1 to 4 players, so David and I can play with just the two of us when we're back to empty-nesting.  The idea is that players are building a stained glass window in a cathedral.  The building is done with brilliantly-colored translucent dice.  I love dice and cathedrals and Alan Parson's Project (whose song La Sagrada Familia was running through my head the whole time I was playing!) and the act of creation, so what's not to like about this game?  We played with four people today.  Each of us had our own window to build.  There are a variety of limitations and of goals that cause you to reach for certain possibilities and to have to block out others.  There is one private goal for each person, and there are a multiplicity of public goals.  Along with the goals and limitations,...

  Snake Oil is a good party game - most especially for creative people who like to talk.  I don't do as well with this game as the rest of my family, especially my sons - but we all have fun equally, regardless.  The idea is that the player whose turn it is has a certain label - cheerleader or caveman or kindergartner or pirate or hostage, etc.  The rest of the players try to "sell" this character a product.  Each player is holding 6 cards, each of which has one word on it. In order to create the product they need to put two cards (i.e. two words) together and then promote the product described by those two words.  The player whose turn it is chooses which product he finds best suited to his needs (or simply most entertaining), and the player who "sold" that product basically earns a point.  The next 3 pictures are of Caleb and Grandma pitching their products.  It really does get quite entertaining.  Below I've shown the car...

 Well, OK, in some sense this is more a puzzle than a game, but we often do play Colorku cooperatively rather than singly.  It's the game of Sudoku but with colors instead of numbers.  It's got a great look and feel to it.  I found it slightly hard to adjust to initially, having played Sudoku, because it's easy for me to look at a row and see instantly what digits I have not used yet.  It seemed harder at first to process what colors you were missing in a row, column or square, but after playing it a few times that gets easier.  It helps that with most colors you have a light and a dark version of that color - light green and dark green, light purple and dark purple, etc.   David and Caleb sat down to a game of Colorku together tonight.  Colorku comes with cards that give you the set-up for different games.  There is also a booklet of solutions in case you get totally stuck and need a little clue to get you moving in the right di...

I feel like I say of almost every game I post, "This is one of my favorite games!"  But there is so much variety in games that I tend to have a lot of "favorites!"  I love the two versions of the Codenames games that we have - words and pictures. The word version of Codenames was the version we played at family game time on the Fourth of July.  It's a game for two teams; one player on each team is the spymaster who is trying to come up with clues for the rest of their team to identify (i.e. make contact with) all of their "agents" first.  Twenty-five cards, each containing a word, are set up in a 5x5 grid.  Among these cards are all agents for each side (red and blue) as well as innocent bystanders (white), and a single assassin (black).  On their turn, each spymaster may give a one word clue in order to direct their team to cards that relate to that clue.  The clue can be very challenging to come up with, as it needs to lead the players to the ...

 This was one of the games played with family during our Fourth of July celebration.  It's put out by Grandpa Beck.  I really like the products that Grandpa Beck puts out.  I especially like the fact that Grandpa Beck is a real grandpa who loved playing games with his kids and grandkids and because of that developed a business producing games. Sometimes I'm bothered by the fact that some of them are games that he didn't really create but rather are games that I'd played for years with a regular deck of cards.  That's the case here where Skull King is almost identical to the card game Up and Down the River .  To be fair, Grandpa Beck has created some special cards that add some significant twists to the game, cards such as Pirate Cards and Escape Cards. Basically in this game you earn points by trying to correctly predict the number of tricks you will take on each hand.  Some cards are also worth points.  The first hand consists of each perso...

 We were with family today celebrating American Independence Day.  We hadn't been to Tony and Stacey's house in 8 years or so, but some things never change.  One of the first things I saw when I walked in the door was a recently-finished game of Pinochle (below), after which I noticed the selection of games set out on the coffee table (above).  Oh yeah, this was set up to be a very good day!  Some games we played are also on our shelves.  Some were new to us, and we always love learning new games!  A group played Skull King (a game on our shelf that I'll post more about later).  A couple of rounds of Mine Shift were played.  I didn't get a chance to play this one, and it's not one we have.  It looked really good, though - seemed to be a matter of placing pieces and rotating tiles in order to force certain positions - I think.  This is one I'll have to try. A new one for me was Bohnanza , in which the resources are be...

We played the original Machi Koro a few days ago as a "bonus game" - a borrowed game and not one on our shelves.  Caleb likes it so much that he went out and bought this expansion - I should probably actually say combination of expansions, with the original game included.  I have to admit it is a pretty fun and addicting game.  There's a lot of luck, often coming down to die rolls; there is strategy too, but I've played the original once and this one once, and both times I was under time pressure.  This is a game I/we will definitely be coming back to, and we'll see how it goes as we become more familiar with it.  As the game progresses you purchase cards that give you different rewards (money from the bank, money from other players, etc.) based on various die rolls.  The game starts rather slowly, but once you've purchased a lot of cards you've got more options and more than can happen on your turn.  To win the game you need to "construct"...

Nine Men's Morris is a true classic - having been played at least as far back as the time of the Roman Empire.  I've also heard of the board being found carved on the tops of ancient Egyptian temples, probably by builders who would play by way of a break.  In some European travels that I did a couple of years ago I came across this game in various locations in Scotland, England and Germany, and I've added at the bottom of this post the post I put up during those travels.  The set in the picture is the boxed version we have on our shelves.  I no longer remember where we got it or when, but I'm pretty sure we picked it up at a garage sale or thrift store early in our marriage. Each player has nine "men" to place on the board.  The game consists of three phases: placing pieces, moving pieces, and "flying."  Three men in a row forms a mill; if you are able to accomplish this either by placing or moving, you get to remove one piece belonging to the...