Family Camping Holiday In England

Friday saw us heading up to Rutland for the Bank Holiday weekend to meet our nephew and his family for a few days camping - in the pouring rain!

It was no surprise that both he and I took quite a few games with us and that given the weather we played many of them. More details on these a little later. However it struck us that there were some important points to note from the weekend that might be of interest to other families and parents with young children.

1. That the two 7 year old boys had each bought only one cuddly toy with them so improvised endlessly (when it stopped raining) with sticks, logs, trees, etc (found around the camp site) and their imaginations in re-creating Star Wars speeders, light sabres characters and situations. It is amazing to see how much fun children can have when

Match Report 23rd May 2011

Two starters, one muffin and no main course!

With Gwen still not feeling her normal self it was always going to be touch and go as to whether she stayed the course or turned in early. This together with Natalie and Ben arriving a little (or in Ben’s case a lot) late had an impact on the games played. It was a good turnout with Malcolm back from his walking holiday in the Orkneys, Daniella, Ruth, Gwen and the aforementioned late arrivals. Sadly no Crispin (suffering with a gammy leg torn a cartilage in his knee) or Pauline both of whom we hope to see again soon.

For the keen eyed amongst you, you will have noted that the ladies

Games in a Pub – Week 3

27/3/2011 – From the sublime to the ridiculous – from quiet to very noisy

Sunday night saw a step in the right direction as far as building awareness and getting people involved in some of the games we have available. A total of nine people turned up to play games through the evening and one group joined us around 6:30 and stayed through till 9:30. They were a boisterous group that immediately requested a game of Bausack, presumably because they had seen the flyers around the bar area over the last few weeks.

Bausack is game produced in Germany with only limited availability in the UK and far from the cheapest in our collection, it is described elsewhere on my blog. However in many respects as a dexterity game it is ideal for a pub environment where some players may be suffering the cumulative effects of

Match Report 28th February 2011

The night we failed with Dominion

Monday night saw another good turn out with Ben, Daniella, Matt, Ian, Crispin and Malcolm joining us. Gwen working in the background was sadly not able to join us and Natalie had similar problems having hoped to be with us but found herself deluged with work at the last minute.

Straw (Age 6+, 2-6 players 30 minutes playing time)
Having not played Straw for a while we gave this a run out to start the evening and get us limbered up for more serious fare. Ben and Ian joined us midway through the game and so not surprisingly finished well down the rankings. On this occasion the laurels went to Crispin with a deft and almost unnoticed demonstration of how not to

Games In A Pub – Week 1

27/2/2011- A Quiet Start

The first of our Social Evening with Games events at the Blue Anchor Crowborough got off to a very quiet start. Whilst the pub had been absolutely buzzing at lunch time our little group made up half (or more) of the clientele for much of the evening. I guess the end of the month, a local wargames event through the day, TV scheduling and the end of half term all contributed to why the pub was so quiet, with its knock on impact onto our event.

Having set up a number of games on the tables within the restaurant area and with no interested takers for games my band of supporters

Games for Christmas 2010

What to do with guests over Christmas / Some Christmas Gift Ideas 

If you are thinking computers games and Wii, DON’T; Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble etc NO; the miriade of commercial games based on popular films or TV shows STOP !

There is whole world of great games out there waiting for you, just not in the high street stores. They are less well known because they are rarely sold by high street retailers (with the exception of specialist games shops) and so are largely unknown to the UK public. If you want to buy any games mentioned below (prices will range from under £6 to £40) then there is a list of internet retailers on the right hand side of my blog titled Where to get the games.

As we approach the festive season our minds turn inevitably to the various ideas for presents and there are a number of lists out there of games that would work for Christmas (as just a couple of examples Mark Rivera's list is here and the BoardGameGeek recommendations here), so I thought I would approach this blog from a slightly different angle and look at what games you might want in the house for others to enjoy over the festive season.

Modern board and card games come in many forms but the best ones are not designed around hackneyed old games or some cult TV program / film of the moment, but rather stand out from the aforementioned games because frankly they are better. You know the saying ‘a pet is for life not just Christmas’ well so it should be with modern games. The games talked about in this blog post and my blog generally are great fun and hopefully you will be tempted to play them at other times of the year, not just over Christmas.

To those who say 'they don't like games' or have had bad experiences in the past with games I would make the following points concerning these games:

• You don’t need to be good at spelling, general knowledge, computers or anything else to play them and have fun. I guess maths and a little logic will help but we all need a lot more of these elements to survive in the modern world than you will find required in the games listed below. 
• There is not a dice in sight, the games are about how you deal with the situations and cards you are dealt not about trying to roll a 6 or indeed any other number.. 
• The games are more about building than destruction, meaning that direct conflict between players should not be something to worry about, particularly if everybody remembers that when playing games it is more important to enjoy the journey and have fun than win at the expense of ruining the journey for the other players. 
• There are games listed below that are in all probability unlike any games you have played to date.

This blog post is divided into three elements, so you can just go to the part that interests you:

1. Quick Games for Christmas Morning
2. Fun Games for Christmas Afternoon
3. After the presents – Boxing Day
4. Conclusion

Quick Games for Christmas Morning 
With people coming and going and a focus on food preparation you may need ways of amusing and distracting people for 20/30 minutes at a time. The following are some simple games that are quick to teach and will amuse both young and old:

Match Report 8th November 2010

This week saw the return of Malcolm, Ian and Daniella but no Crispin! Sadly he was not feeling well and was no doubt concerned about this affecting his performance and the possibility that he might loose again.

Fresco (Age 10+, 2-4 players, 45 min playing time)

With so many games coming back from Essen it is no great surprise that another one found its way onto the gaming table for this week’s fun. The game chosen was Fresco, a game that’s theme (given away in the name) is the restoration of a ceiling in a renaissance cathedral. Unlike a number of the games we have played of late where there is plenty of opportunity for devilment this game is more about

Match Report 27th September 2010

With continued distractions keeping some of our members away it was great to welcome a new face in the form of Matt. Having expressed interest in the evenings in the past he managed to squeeze a little time into his busy scholastic schedule to join us – great stuff. The rest of the line up for this weeks meeting consisted of Ian, Malcolm, Crispin, Daniella, Alex and of course, me. With apologies received from Liza and Joe, both deep in ‘A’ level course work and Pauline studying photography at the moment.

Straw (Age 6+, 2-6 players 30 minutes or less playing time)

With Alex indicating he would be a little late and me distracted with various other duties around the house Ian kicked the evening off leading a game of Straw, with Alex and I joining as it progressed. This is quite simply a brilliant card game that is

Board games + children + parents = FUN ?

What seems incredibly sad is that according to a recent report commissioned by Disneyland Paris and written by Professor Tanya Byron “Parents have forgotten how to play” with their children. This study interviewed 2,000 parents and 2,000 children (aged between 5 and 15) across the UK and the findings suggest that not only have a significant number of parents (21%) forgotten how to play with their children but 30% of parents think that playing with their children is

St Mary's Social Afternoon - Week 4

Well it was a riotous and fun filled afternoon of board games, the numbers were slightly down over previous weeks with only 13 people; a couple of people were unfortunately kept away by health issues.

Games played this time round included:

Incan Gold – A very good new addition to the games collection that is ideal for large groups (up to 8 players) and wide age ranges. It reminds you a little of the Indiana Jones films where the treasure hunters explore deeper and deeper into a lost Incan temple. The further you go the more treasure you find but you only get to keep it if the monsters in the temple don’t scare you and send you fleeing from the temple dropping all your loot as you seek to escape. This was played by two different groups, during the afternoon and one was a very noisy affair, in part because all the adventurers except Jennie had fled the temple. This left Jennie to continue exploring on her own with the potential of gaining lots of treasure all for herself. As she pushed on she found a vast wealth of precious gems that would have ensured she won the whole game. However sadly for Jennie she

St Mary's Social Afternoon - Week 3

This week saw some previous attendees returning from their holidays and the absence of others as they headed off. Overall the number was up by 1, however the ratio was quite different with a total of 10 youngsters and a reduction of those at the other end of the scale to a mere three.

We started the afternoon with a game of Straw on one table, Zeus on The Loose on another and The Mysteries of Peking on a third table. This last game was brought along by Daniella and family and enthusiastically played by 5 youngsters and watched by one of our older friends who came in to see what we were getting up to for half an hour. In essence Mysteries of Peking is a detective game where players look for clues to solve a crime with the ability to hamper other players.

Later we moved on to play a game of Saboteur with 10 players which I believe Leonie won whilst others played Othello and Carcassonne. Interestingly not all the youngster went for the fun but light game Saboteur, preferring more thoughtful games with older players.

Castle Panic – A collaborative game 
As the afternoon continued four of us played Castle Panic an unusual game to the three young people playing with me in as much as

Match Report 28th July 2010

With plans advancing for our first “Social Afternoon With Games” (Monday 2nd August 2pm ‘til 5pm in St Mary’s parish hall) it was time for a quick planning session with some of our evening gamers who have offered their support (and were available) plus two younger supporters of this exercise.

With the planning done we inevitably thought it a good idea to have a game or two or indeed four, albeit none were very heavy or serious.

Straw (Age 6+, 2-6 players 30 minutes playing time)

We started with Straw, a new addition and filler type game which has beautiful cards on very good quality card. The idea being to place objects on the camels back without breaking it. Each object has a positive or negative (if a magical object) weight with some cards altering the direction of play, typically when you least want it. The looser of a round is the person that