Category: Family gaming

Jan and I spent the afternoon sat on the patio playing a few games and then continued with a couple more after noshing our roast beef dinner.

City Square Off

Started off with this two player game that has a Blokus vibe. It ended with neither of us able to fit in a tile so Jan won by having the larger contiguous area of empty spaces 15-9

Start 11! The Board Game

We then played one of our favourites, Start 11, which we’ve not got to the table since May 2021. Jan was keen to play again having lost the first game … and then the second. Game 3 went in her favour and, for a final game, we played the variant that includes the symbol tiles. It doesn’t add any real complexity and is a good alternative way to play. I say that even though Jan won this match convincingly for us to tie the series 2-2.

Cuatro

Next up was this game that combines Yahtzee with Connect 4. We played one very quick game as Jan was reminding herself of how to play (meaning I won) and then we had a tighter encounter but I also came out on top with that one too.

Kribbeln

The final play before the break for our meal was Kribbeln, a Yahtzee variant that we played just a few weeks ago. Jan scored big on her second Kribbeln and that meant she was unable to gain points for her later attempts so I ended up winning 14-10.

Pig 10

After tea, I dug out a couple of card games we’ve not played for a while. Actually, Pig 10 was only on the table back in May but it’s easy to get through a couple of games, which we did with Jan winning the first and me winning the second.

Pearls

Pearls, on the other hand, has only hit the table once before in August 2019 so was definitely due for a revisit. It probably came down to Jan being able to time her final draw of cards just as the deck was running out with a nice set to cash in. She ended up winning with a comfortable margin 86-51.

It’s five years and one day since I last played this terrific gambling game. Auf Teufel komm raus sees you betting on how much coal can be pulled from the cauldron without bumping into the devil. Great fun and the last round saw us all with a chance to win but Becky prevailed. pic.twitter.com/63IP4KClC9

— Garry Lloyd (@trickylight) June 6, 2020

Family games night with Jan and Becky at home and Cat and Frank over Skype. Tonight we played Wits & Wagers and Pickomino. pic.twitter.com/SM9MeszFKl

— Garry Lloyd (@trickylight) May 25, 2020

Yesterday saw us dig out Fabled Fruit. It was Jan’s first and my second play of this. I really enjoy the simple turns and the prospect of the game developing through multiple plays by introducing new action cards. The game is short so it really is a race with two players to get fruits converted into juice as quickly / efficiently as possible. Jan won 5-4.

Then today we tried Hanamikoji, which is a great two player card game where you try to gain control of four out of seven geishas or three geishas worth at least 11 points. Each player gets four actions per round after which you check if someone has won. If not, you play another round. Games take between 10 and 30 minutes depending on the number of rounds needed to produce a winner.

I finally got my own official copy yesterday and so Jan and I played this evening. The picture below is the end of round two and Jan (the side closest to the camera) takes the win with four geishas on her side, as shown by the round markers.

Last night, Jan and I played one of our favourite relaxing games, Finito. It’s a Take It Easy style puzzle game where the roll of a 20 sided die determines where within a 6×6 number grid the players have to place one of their 12 bakelite discs. The discs are numbered 1-12 and once someone has ordered their discs in correct ascending order within the grid, they win the game (or round). Each round takes 5-10 minutes to play so we normally play three rounds counting up each player’s longest sequence of sequential numbers.

Jan was on fire tonight and, although we both went out at the same time in the first round, she won both of the other two rounds for a perfect score of 36 (3×12). I only managed 22 (12+5+5). Really fun game for up to 4 players.

Tonight we played Carcassonne: Star Wars Edition for the first time. I was playing Yoda and the force weak with him was. Jan kept beating me every time I tried to attack her planets (and she had quite a few of them). The final score was close but she triumphed 127-122.

The photo is just before final scoring.

Tonight’s game was the fun dice game, Dice Heist, which we played on our Caribbean cruise last year and Jan won it easily. This time, I turned the tables by pretty much ignoring the paintings and going for gem groups. As a result, I ended up winning 50-38.

I also got another delivery today containing Dream Home and First Class: All Aboard the Orient Express. That makes five new games this month already. I need to start playing some more.

I received a parcel today containing One Deck Dungeon, The Oracle of Delphi and Dingo’s Dreams.

The rules to the last of these are so short that Jan and I tried Dingo’s Dreams this evening. It’s a neat simultaneous puzzle game played on a 5×5 grid, where you reveal animals each turn and then push tiles in your grid (Amazing Labyrinth style) trying to manoeuvre them into a specific configuration. First to do so shouts “Dingo” (or should that be “Bingo”) and wins the game – or round if you’re playing to a certain number of target wins. Very simple and quick but fun for a really short game. Jan won.

I also noticed this morning that French online retailer Philibertnet had in the last 24 hours managed to get some more copies of Hanamikoji in stock. I’ve been waiting for this for ages so put in an order for that game, the Oink Games version of Twins and iello’s Time Bomb, which is the French version of Don’t Mess with Cthulhu / Tempel des Schreckens.

No, not three messages from secret admirers – rather Jan suggesting we play the three different versions of Love Letter that we have. Maybe I should have been suspicious – having scored some brownie points with the red roses this morning – but winning all three games is inconceivable. I hardly ever win so Jan was probably going easy on me.

It was interesting to play the original, Batman and Hobbit versions back-to-back and each has just enough of a difference to make it worthwhile playing in its own right. Good fun!

I got an English copy of Steam Time today by Rudiger Dorn and Kosmos. I tried it this evening with Jan and it was a very good medium weight game – slightly on the heavier side than Jan prefers but she coped with the rules fine. It’s a worker placement game played over five rounds where you are moving through time collecting and using resources (crystals and steam) to power your airships to conduct expeditions and missions that will give you esteem (VPs) during and at the end of the game. Lots of paths to victory and some forward planning required to optimise your turns – which we didn’t really try to do on this learning game.

Scores were close with me winning 63-58 but that  may have been due to Jan misreading a 9 point mission card that she thought she could use more than once – she had the resources to score it a second time so would then have won. Very good and took us marginally over an hour as a two player game. Four player likely to be around 90-120 minutes.