All the Games on Our Shelves

 The a-MAZE-ing Labyrinth is a whimsical game for all ages.  In this game each player has specific treasures he or she must find in the maze.  The benefit (or detriment) in each turn is that the maze shifts by one space in one row or column.  The player whose turn it is pushes a new tile from the end of a row or column, thus shifting that entire row or column and causing another tile to drop off at the other end.  This newly dropped tile is the piece the next player will use to shift the game.  As you try to create pathways in the maze that get you to your goal, other players are trying to make pathways that work for them (or perhaps to block your pathway).  The board starts out with 16 permanent, unmoving pieces.  There are then another 34 pieces, 33 of which are placed randomly on the board to start, and one of which is the tile that the first player will use to push with on the first turn.  Each player begins on the corner spot of...

 We're not 100% sure if the name of this game is "Camel Up" or "Camel Cup."  We've discussed it a bit among ourselves and with friends and have read arguments online.  Both titles fit - "Cup" because it's a race, and "Up" because the camels stack up as they go around the track. I imagine the game designers were purposefully ambiguous.  I have to make a choice here, so I'm going with Camel Up .  Below you see us setting up - Jacob clearly ready to take on us old folks in this game!  The cool pyramid on the board is what you used to shake and dispense the dice, which is pretty fun.  The camel's are on the starting line reading for the initial roles and to take their starting positions.  The 6-sided dice have only 3 different numbers on them, two each of 1, 2 and 3.  Each die is a different color, each one matching the color of a camel.  The color rolled indicates the camel to be moved, and how many spaces to move it.  Bu...

 Posts continue to become fewer and further between, as the academic year does not leave much time for dilly-dally, let alone game play!  David, who is not a fan of this game, was gone tonight, so Jacob and I decided to play it.  As you can see, we have many versions of Fluxx : Oz, Cthulhu, Zombie and Pirate.  I thought we also had the original.  Maybe it's hiding behind other stacks of "littler" games, or perhaps I'm thinking of the Fluxx: The Board Game , which we also have.  The game is well-named, as that is exactly what happens - things are in flux, and the rules and win conditions change as you play.  Above is what Jacob and I were dealing with towards the end of our game, and below is the card you start with, the basic rules, which are that you draw one card and play one card each turn.  But on each turn you have opportunity to change the basic rules so that you are drawing more (or less), playing more (or less), can have a certain num...

  Cathedral is a game from early in our marriage.  I love anything that has to do with medieval times, castles or cathedrals, and I love anything that's as beautifully hand-crafted as this, especially of wood.  And, as I've mentioned so many times before, David is really good at games of territory, which this is, so I certainly always know I'm going to be challenged and more than challenged, which is fine with me.  David did win the first game 8 to 0, but we did tie in the second and final game.  The first piece to be played is the cathedral, which is a neutral piece.  You may play pieces anywhere, but one goal is to claim territory by connecting edges of the board - at which point you are the only person allowed to play in the claimed space, and if one (and only one) of your opponents pieces ended up in space you claimed, then that piece is removed and returned to that player.  It can be played again in a legal space, but it basically amounts...

 The game of Pinochle involves its own special deck of cards rather than a standard Poker deck.  It has two of all the cards 9 through Ace, so there are 48 cards rather than the standard 52.  Once upon a time, when I was a child, I wanted to purchase a deck of cards for my very own.  I went to the Raley's grocery store, and, being a young child and having very little money, I bought the cheapest deck of cards I could find.  When I got home and opened the deck, I was very surprised and disappointed to find that this deck had 2 of all the face cards but no cards below 9.  It turns out that the reason this deck was cheaper was that it was a Pinochle deck of only 48 cards, rather than a standard deck of 52 cards. I was disappointed then, but I'm very happy to have Pinochle decks to play from today!  Normally my school year is too busy to allow for getting together with friends (you may have noticed how my posting has slowed since summer!), but I'm tr...

 Kingdomino was one of my birthday gifts this week.  It has been on my wish list since our friends the Kirks introduced us to it earlier this year.  It is the 2017 Game of the Year award winner, and it is very deserving of the award.  In this game each player builds his kingdom (a 5x5 grid) using domino-shaped terrain tiles.  Each domino must be placed in such a way that at least one of its halves touches terrain of the same type orthogonally.  The start-tile for each person is a 1x1 square that is "wild;" terrain of any type may be played against this piece.  Points are scored by multiplying the number of tiles of a given territory (all connected) by the number of crowns appearing on tiles in that territory.  The player with the highest total wins.  Above is a picture of the game after 3 turns.  Below is a picture as we near completion of our kingdoms.  We use "king meeples" to select the terrain domino that we want.  ...

We have finally come to the end of summer birthdays in the family - with mine - and the game Prime Climb was one of my gifts, and what a perfect gift a game about primes is! I'm a gamer and a mathematician and just turned a prime number of years old on this birthday!  (I also received the game Kingdomino - planning to play and post soon!)  Although this was a perfect gift, I feel I can't do a good write-up on it yet, as this day was not only my birthday but also the first day of the semester, and I was utterly exhausted by evening - having stood and lectured for nearly 5 hours straight (after having been on break) and having been absolutely swarmed by students about enrolling, wait-lists, add codes, etc.  We played it that night anyway, but not until very late, so I was not thinking at all about strategy - in fact, I don't think I was thinking, period!  We have a long weekend coming up, so we'll have to give it another try.  I have a mathematician friend ...

 I'm so glad we've decided to play through all the games on our shelves, because with as many games as we have it is easy to get into ruts and to forget some games completely - thus losing some minor gems.  The game Guillotine is one of those minor gems, and we had a great time playing it today (which probably sounds rather macabre!).  Basically the game is set during the French Revolution, and nobles are lined up to be guillotined.  You earn points depending on the "status" of the noble (for example, Marie Antoinette is worth 5 points, Robespierre is worth 3, and Lady in Waiting is worth 1), and the person with the most points at the end of the third round (i.e. the third "day") is the winner.  Each "day" there are 12 "nobles" lined up for the guillotine.  I put "nobles" in quotes because there are also such characters as Martyrs and The Hero of the People, and if you end up beheading them you lose points!  Some charac...

HOORAY!  A trivia game!! I like the twist to this trivia game; rather than just answering questions, you are given three terms, and you have to determine what links them.  For instance, if the three terms are JUPITER, BLUE WHALE, SEQUOIA, you would need to answer that these three things are each the largest of their type.  There are 4 categories: entertainment, sport and recreation, academics and miscellaneous.  You roll a die to determine what category you get, but there are two other symbols on the die - one let's you choose your own category, and one gives you a free play.  There are three tracks that you need to complete before winning.  There are multiple different ways to challenge other people (and possibly move yourself ahead while sending them back), so part of the play has to do with decisions about whether to make a break for it on one track or to try to make a bit of progress on all three tracks.  Both David and Jacob were partic...