All the Games on Our Shelves

So, the family played this without me early in the weekend last weekend when I was grading mid-terms and had no time for gaming, but I got them to play it again later when I was able to join in.  We are up to a 95-game count with this one, and nowhere near the end of the "Games on Our Shelves!"  This game is very simple, yet fun.  The object  .  .  .  well, the object is to get the most points  .  .  .  but getting "qwirkles" (all one shape of all different colors or all six colors with the same shape) really helps with that, since you get an additional six points for doing so!  In order to place tiles, you need to match color or shape (without matching both).  It's a little bit like Scrabble, in that you have a number of tiles in front of you (in this case 6) that you can use on a turn - and that you have to use what is already on the board as you add.  Instead of making words, you are making strings that are al...

 In over 90 games it hadn't happened that I wasn't involved in play, but I gave my first set of midterm tests this past week and have been grading most of the weekend.  I just walked into the living room to find Jacob and Caleb playing this game from our shelves that we had not yet played.  As I post this, they are still playing, and I can hear them taking turns reading paragraphs from the adventure as they make decisions together.  It looks and sounds good.  I may request this as one to play next time I get a break!  (Caleb just drew a card and shouted out, "We found an alien notebook!")  The picture below is of the layout they've got going on in the living room:   Any game that has a "Danger Meter" and a "Psychic Scale" has got to be good!  The picture cards below are premonition cards - something else that sounds very appealing to me. Alas, after this short post, I return to my planning, now that my grading is finished....

 Ahoy, mateys!  Did ye know that today be "Talk Like a Pirate Day?"  So what better game to play than Pirate Fluxx?  Not only be it "Talk Like a Pirate Day," but, shiver me timbers, it also be the 98th birthday of Petey the Pirate, mascot of Modesto Junior College (where I teach when I'm not out doing piratey things).  So before posting game pictures, I gi' ye some photos of Petey and me:    And now, on to the game.  It begins with the basic rules, which are "Draw 1, Play 1."  Three cards are dealt to each player.  But the game is called Fluxx for a reason!  One type of card is the "New Rule" card, which does exactly that - puts a new rule down for everyone to follow.  I felt like tonight was the weirdest game of Fluxx I had ever played, since for a very long time there was only one "New Rule" card out there.  Usually there's such a mass of cards in the middle of the table that I can't keep track of what I...

 This will be a very short post, as I have already written about this game, Deep Sea Adventure, in my bonus post from July 19:  Deep Sea Adventure in Ripon .  We played this game at our friends' house, and I liked it so much that I put it on my birthday list  .  .  .  and since it wasn't "on our shelves" at that time I couldn't officially count it.  My son Jacob got it for me as a gift (along with a box of Junior Mints - yea!).  I find I'm still trying to work out the strategy for this game.  No matter how careful I try to be, I still end up drowning most of the time and losing the treasure I had collected (though I try not to delve to greedily and too deep!).  I've only ever played it as a 4-player game, and I don't know if it makes a difference to have a different number of players.  This is my first week of school, so I had to drop out last night after one game. David, Jacob and Caleb played a 3-player game after I bowed ...

 This game, Walt Disney's Mary Poppins Carousel Game , has been on my shelf since I was 5 years old.  Today is my birthday, and during the dinner celebration I was asked about my memories of birthdays past.  As kids we didn't often have "friend birthdays;" normally it was immediate family or extended to aunts, uncles and cousins.  I do remember, though, that for my 5th birthday my mom hosted this big party including all the neighborhood kids.  A boy named Doug who lived across the street a few doors down gave me this game.  (This might be proof-positive that I NEVER get rid of games!)  I'm sure I haven't played this since my age was in the single digits!  But when I mentioned it over dinner, one of my boys said, "We should play that when we get home!"  And so, we did.  It just seemed especially appropriate tonight.  We each chose a character and got started.  It's basically a matter of rolling dice and moving ahead, but th...

 My dear son Caleb couldn't quite wait for my birthday to have me open my gift, the game of Imhotep .  Since my semester begins Monday, just before my birthday, he felt it would be a good idea to give it to me on the weekend so we would have time to play.  Good idea!  I had never heard of this game before, but I like it, and I think we all did, based on just one play.  A great deal of this game depends on timing.  There are multiple ways of earning points, all of which have to do with bringing building materials to port on ships.  The trick is that you can only take one action on a turn, so you can place a block on a ship or use a card to do a special action or move a ship to port (if the ship is full enough) or you can re-supply from the quarry.  Since any player may move a ship, even if his building materials aren't on it, someone might move your ship to a port that affords you fewer points that turn or overall.  This causes for some inte...

 I feel like I keep writing this, but "here's another game we haven't played in a while."  I supposed that's bound to happen when playing all the games on the shelves, since playing current favorites repeatedly is a natural tendency.  I've been wanting to get back to classics for a while though - or at least for the past few weeks, since watching the documentary Alpha Go  (which I highly recommend to any game enthusiast).  I've labeled this a classic, as it is one of the oldest known board games.  Backgammon  is thought to have originated in Mesopotamia and has been played for approximately 5000 years. I figure if a game has that much staying power it's gotta be good.  Much as I love Seven Wonders  and Splendor and Karuba , I'm not sure they'll still be played 5000 years from now, but I imagine Backgammon will continue to be played!  I've just posted a few pictures from various points in the game.  Above, David has hit one of...

 I've had it in mind for quite a while to get this old classic off the shelf.  Last night David asked us all if we wanted to play a game, but he didn't say which game.  We said yes, and Tripoly is what he surprised us with.  This isn't standard fare these days in our household, as we're usually more about Seven Wonders , King of Tokyo , Stone Age , etc., but a fun time was definitely had by all.  I remember playing this quite a lot as a child and really loving it.  It's basically three games in one.  The first stage involves possible bidding on an extra hand (the "dead hand") and collecting chips based on the cards in your hand.  The second stage is poker, which consists of making the best poker hand you can of the 10 or 11 cards in your hand (4-player) and betting.  The third stage is Michigan Rummy, and here the first person out of cards take the kitty and also receives one chip from each other player for each card remaining in their han...