All the Games on Our Shelves

I can't imagine a better game than Carcassonne to have as our milestone 75th post; on the other hand, I can't believe we played 74 other games before we got to this classic!  We've had this game and a couple of (the many existing) expansions for quite a while, and all the pieces are mixed together, so we'll count this as one game.  We decide each time we play whether or not to play by all the rules of both of our expansions or to limit things a bit - as we feel the house rules should be for any given day.  In all the years we've had Carcassonne it hasn't lost any of its appeal for us. I don't think I'd mentioned this on the blog yet, but I ALWAYS play green.  Not only is it my favorite color, but I've played it so much that I get confused if someone else plays green.  I will, however, give way if a guest is playing and would be broken-hearted to not be able to play green.  (Hosts should be gracious in that way, right?)  The picture below i...

Well, we're back to empty-nesting, so it was time for a 2-player game, and we pulled this one off the shelf.  It's a pretty clever blending of chess and tic-tac-toe.  The rules say it can be played in as fast as 3 minutes, but partway through our first game I was wondering if either of us would find a win-position.  Eventually we did.  We played best of three, and it was amazing how each time one of us did get into a position where it was impossible for the other to stop a win.  I'm still not sure if we would achieve a 3-minute game if we weren't as smart (and therefore didn't see something coming) or if it's the case that we're not smart enough to force a win earlier on.  Here are the pieces, ready to go, and then a few moves in.  I won the first game - light pieces on the diagonal.  David won the second game.  I learned on the third game that I need to keep my mouth shut!  He was one move away from winning...

Anomia is another game we hadn't played for a long time.  Elisa came over last night, and this is the game we settled on.  David, Jacob, Ocean and I were the other players.  This is our last chance for a while for large group gaming, as Jacob and Ocean fly to Australia tomorrow.  I hadn't remembered how outrageously fun this game is and how outrageously frustrating it is!  The idea is very simple. Each card has a symbol and a category on it.  You draw a card, and if the symbol on your card matches the symbol on someone else's card, then you have to try to come up with an object in the category on their card before they come up with an object in the category on your card.  Whoever comes up with a word or object first wins the other person's card.  Whoever has the most cards once the deck runs out is the winner.  The came contains 6 different decks.  I imagine that this is so up to 6 groups could play at the same time.  (It is ...

  Wise and Otherwise is a word game which is similar to Balderdash and Literati in that players try to make up creative, compelling responses to try to get others to vote for theirs and in which each player is trying to guess the correct response.  In this game, rather than working with definitions of words, players are finishing old sayings/aphorisms from other countries.  David and I played with Jacob, Ocean and Caleb just before Caleb left for the airport to fly back for the final semester of his senior year in college.  It was a good, fun way to end our holiday time together.  Players take turns being the one to choose the beginning of a saying from the card that the other players need to try to finish.  The board itself has a mix and match of beginnings and endings of sayings, each of which makes use of the number of the space that it is on.  Ocean had the brown pawn and dashed to an early lead.  She and David ended up tying in ...

My previous post was of a Christmas gift I received, and this post is of a Christmas gift I gave: the Dolphins & Squids & 5-6 Player Expansion to Survive: Escape from Atlantis .  This one was my gift to Jacob, and it was really cool to be able to play Survive: Escape from Atlantis with more than 4 people - especially given our full house right now.  This expansion does more than allowing for additional players, however.  It adds squid (which can eat you on shore or destroy your boat and eat you); it adds dolphins (that can protect you from sharks); and it takes away the tile that allows you to swim on a dolphin.  I've already posted about the original game, so if you'd like more details about play see that post .  Reading of directions and setting up is going on above.  Below is our randomized island configuration.  The randomization makes for a new game every time. Once the island is set up it gets populated.  With more pl...

Forbidden Sky was a Christmas gift to me from Ocean.  We played it yesterday for the first time.  It's both similar to and significantly different from Forbidden Island , which I posted about previously .  I had heard from gaming friends that this was a good one, so it found a place on my Christmas list.  I was impressed with how it played, and I am eager to play more.  I also love that each time I play it I'll think of Ocean who gifted it to me. In the picture below we are reading directions and setting up. As with Forbidden Island , this is a cooperative game.  Also, as with Forbidden Island , each character has a role, and each role involves special abilities which will, hopefully, help the team beat the game. Each player has health and rope (we are in space, and cosmic storms can blow us off our platforms).  If any player runs out of health or rope, they die, and the whole team loses. Also, as with Forbidden Island , there are car...