Games in a Pub – 25th November 2012

One big Mayan game and the return of the the pirates

Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar (the beautiful worker placement game)finally made it to the table. This was one of my favourite games from Essen but being a more medium weight game it needs the right opportunity. With 5 players this wasn’t ideal, as it is a 4 player game, but as this was my best opportunity to date I took it with both hands - offering to teach the game to the others and watch / check out rule clarifications as the game progressed. This is a reasonably complex game and whilst I had played it twice Simon ‘s interjections as I walked through the rules (based on having watched a 40 min video about the game on BoardGameGeek) where very helpful.

Review – Riff Raff

2-4 Players, Aged 8+ with a 30 minute playing time 

A review copy of Riff Raff , designed by Christoph Cantzler, was kindly provided by our friends at Zoch Verlag.

This is a tactile game of dexterity with quality components set loosely around a pirate theme. In the game blurb we learn that for some bizarre reason Captain Bullseye has decided that he should stow his cargo high up in the ships rigging, “so no peg-leg can get it”. Given the possibilities of losing the cargo to the pitching and rolling of a ship at sea, let alone the able bodied crew the last thing I would have thought the captain would worry about is those crew members with peg legs! As with so many games don’t worry too much about the theme, it is only loosely held together and doesn't stand up to close inspection. That said we think this is a real gem of a game so read on.

What follows is an overview of the game broken down into 5 sections: The Game Components, Setting Up The Game, How To Play The Game, What Did We Think? and finally Who Do We Think Will Like It?. So if you don't want to read the whole review scan down to the heading that interests you.

Olympic Games In The Office

Some ideas for running a games session in the office, inspired by the Olympic games

Now that the 2012 Olympic Games have started and interest / enthusiasm for the games is increasing I thought I would offer some ideas for games you might choose to use in the office as a bit of fun. Some of the following we have already used in a very successful lunch time session last Friday.

My aim was to bring people together from across the organisation and from every level for a fun relaxing session. It was less about competition and more about laughter. Importantly each game took no more than 30 seconds to explain. Having a wide selection of games I had a few to choose from however there is a link at the end of the article that will take you to a pack of games ideas produced by the Friends of the Elderly.

Interview with Albrecht Werstein CEO of Zoch Verlag

We have had untold hours of fun playing the many Zoch games in our collection (Bausack, Hick Hack in-gackelwack, Furchs and Fertig and Safranito to name just a few) and I felt it would be interesting to interview their CEO, Albrecht Werstein and find out a little more about the company and its history.

Review – Safranito

2 to 4 Players, Aged 10 + with a 30+ minute playing time 

A review copy of Safranito (released in 2010), designed by Marco Teubner was kindly provided by the German publisher Zoch GmbH.

Players are cast in the role of top chefs from around India jostling around Rajive’s booth in the Mumbai spice market seeking to obtain the best spice blends and thus be the culinary trend setters. In order to buy or sell the spices players try to throw roasted bread chips into the desired spice bowls. Hoping their fellow chefs do not knock their bread chips out of the bowls when they come to throw!

Safranito is perhaps an unusual game to the British eye in that it requires a degree of dexterity blended with some tactics as players try to both buy and sell spices as they seek out the winning combinations. However to those that follow publishers like Zoch in particular this blend of:

• Quality components;

• a dexterity mechanism;

• a game that can be enjoyed as much by adults as children.

is unsurprising. Zoch is after all the maker of games like Villa Paletti (a Spiel des Jahres winner) and Bausack amongst others.

What follows is an overview of the game broken down into 5 sections: The Game Components, Setting Up The Game, How To Play The Game, What Did We Think? and finally Who Do We Think Will Like It?. So if you don't want to read the whole review scan down to the heading that interests you.

News Update - More Zoch Games Available In The UK

Following discussions at Essen Spiel 2011 I am pleased to be able to announce that some of the great games we have been talking about on my blog are at last going to be readily available in the UK through our friends Paul and David at GamesLore.

Aquileia	£32.49
Fuchs and Fertig	£7.49
Bamboleo	£45.99
Bausack	£45.99
El Paso	£18.49
Safranito	£27.49
Geistesblitz	£9.49

The prices are indicative and so may change.

Having only taken delivery of them today (19/12/2011) they may still show as 'pre-orders' on the GamesLore web site but its is great to see that games that we have picked up in Germany and have had so much fun with like Fuchs and Fertig, Geistesblitz, and Bausack are going to be more readily available in the UK.

Games for Christmas 2011

New and alternative board game ideas for this Christmas

As the pressure builds towards the Christmas and New Year bank holidays many people will start thinking about what game to buy for Christmas. Having played some brilliant games this year with people representing a broad cross-section of society from primary children to people in care homes (and every point in between) I thought it might be worth highlighting some of my favourites from this year. I have broken this article into three section:

• Games We Have Had Lot of Fun With During 2011
• Alternatives To The Perennial Favourites
• Where To Buy The Games In This Article

And it maybe that an article written earlier this year may be of interest on Why Games Work in Some Families and Not Others.

A common factor amongst the games in this article is they generally seek to emphasise social interplay, maybe a touch of strategy, more skill than luck, short playing times and rarely have player elimination.

Games We Have Had Lot of Fun With During 2011
These games are not necessarily games that have been released this year but they are games that I have seen being enjoyed by many different people and or caused a lot of laughter when we have played them.

Mini Review - Fuchs and Fertig

2 to 5 players, Ages 6+, 10+ Minute Playing time
A review copy of Fuchs and Fertig was kindly provided by the publishers Zoch GmbH.

This is a short fun game that will delight adults (families) and children alike, although it can also be very frustrating. Described by one of our games team as something she could imagine even the most unlikely games player playing, Fuchs and Fertig would be a great game for family gatherings over Christmas. It is quick to explain, has fast play, is funny and whatever end of the age spectrum you are everybody will have an equal chance of winning. Plus it would be pretty funny to watch as well.

Games in a Pub - 2nd October 2011

Frustration and chaos in a very funny racing game

With apologies from a number of regulars and Gwen at home following her second foot operation the previous day I knew the turnout might be small. But thankfully Oliver and I were quickly joined by Karen and Martin (the green team from the last Sunday meeting). At the last Sunday meeting we played Ticket To Ride and Oliver had requested that we have a crack at one of the other two classic gateway games Carcassonne or Settlers of Catan so this week we started off with Carcassonne. This is a game in which I had lost interest until playing it recently with my nephew on a camping trip reawakened my enthusiasm; I was confident that both Karen and Oliver would really enjoy it (which they did) and Martin knew what he was letting himself in for.

Carcassonne is a tile-laying game where players build up a landscape reminiscent of that around the southern French city of Carcassonne famous for its Roman and Medieval fortifications. As the players develop the area around Carcassonne they deploy their followers (Knights, Thieves, Monks and Farmers) on the roads, in the cities, in the cloisters and in the fields earning points as they complete various elements of the landscape. It is a gentle almost collaborative game but still has a competitive dimension as players seek to score as many point s as possible. With Martin and I having played this one many times before (although never together) there was always a good chance one of us would come out on top and so it proved in the end with Martin finishing significantly ahead of the rest of us.

Whilst we had been enjoying the delights of the French country side Nick, Andy Chris and Adam had arrived and played the ever popular Bausack.

With both games complete we rearranged the furniture (as there had been a request for a game that could accomodate all eight of the evenings attendees) and set up the chaotic but very funny

Games in a Pub - 10th August 2011

More new faces and much laughter

Another Sunday evening of games at the Blue Anchor and yet more new faces. Although I have said more than once in the past that this pastime really is not a geek thing the fact that our five new faces (including our first journalist so keep an eye out for the next Crowborough Directory) were all ladies maybe goes some way to supporting this contention!

It is never easy to judge numbers or be sure how many will actually turn up on the night so with five people ready Gwen

Games in a Pub - 24th July 2011

Wooden games aren't just for kids!

Another very positive turnout saw four very different games being played, two of which would benefit from being videoed rather than described.

We started with Bausack as a light amusing game about building unstable towers with an assortment of wooden blocks. This worked well as more people turned up they could just slip into the game easily and with its daft nature winning was never really particularly important. It was more about the challenge of what absurd shapes could be used by the various players.

With this done we broke into two groups for Dominion. Gwen led the advanced game using

Games in a Pub - Week 4

10/4/2011 - New people, new games and lots of laughter

This was the last of the planned events for which the aim had been to raise the awareness of the fun that can be had with modern analogue games amongst non gamers. Not entirely an altruistic motive as I had also hoped to raise the visibility of Imagination Gaming and the work we do with schools and community groups.

The audit shows that we had limited, but increasing, success and that perhaps as one of my favourite quotes goes “No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit then ripen.” Epictetus

That said last night was by far and away the most successful of the evenings with returnees from the 3rd week bringing new people, who as far as I could tell had never played anything like the games we had available.

Games played during the evening included the very popular Bausack, and Saboteur which the largest of the groups had an absolute riot with. Another group of returnees started with a collaborative game Forbidden Island and then moved on to For Sale, whilst the family that joined us with two young children played Ligretto, Hick Hack and Army of Frogs. This last game has what may appear a childish name but is, as the father soon spotted, like a good Pixar movie not

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

Social Afternoon with Games - 22nd February 2011

The best way of promoting a games event is word of mouth

With half term upon us, it was time to break out the games and invite the parish of St Mary's, Crowborough and the surrounding Deanery along for another afternoon of fun and games. This occasion saw 15 joining us with 4 new faces and apologies from a further 5.

In many senses I think this may have been the most enjoyable one yet with people moving between groups when the games came to an end and a

A Christmas Match Report for 2010

Here in brief is a summary of the gaming activities of the last two weeks, at our house, allowing for a combination of the appalling weather (some days Ian and I cleared our drive of snow 3 or 4 times), my wife’s broken leg (meaning increased duties around the home) and all the socialising over the Christmas / New Year period. 

The 20th December saw Crowborough deep in snow and ice with the sad result that only Crispin (who lives within walking distance) ventured out to join the regular Monday night session. In truth I am not sure whether it was the allure of games or the promise of seasonal munchies that encouraged him out but he is always a welcome guest. Food aside we had a good game of Dominion plus Hick Hack and Sushizock im Gockelwok (details of all the games played over the holiday season can be found here).

More games were inevitably played through Christmas and Boxing days, perhaps the most memorable ones being a game of RoboRally where not only did I not end up spending the whole game on a conveyer belt and but was actually winning when it was time to break for food. The other was a game of Dixit (which Gwen agreed to play despite her previous view that it was the game from hell) with Effie and her children on Boxing Day. This turned into a really

Match Report 6th December 2010

With Gwen’s injury forcing her to work from home she joined us for the first time in ages, plus Ben now back from Greece for the winter, Alex with a month off from the joys of flying and old favourites Crispin and Ian. Sadly Daniella was suffering with a bad back and Malcolm had an outbreak of male pattern forgetfulness remembering at 9pm where he had planned to be that evening!

We managed three games with another run out of Hick Hack to start (a game where the foxes eat the farm birds trying to eat the best feed – it’s silly but great fun) , this was won by Ben shortly after saying how badly he was doing!

We then moved onto Dominion which was unfortunately hindered on this occasion by an incorrect interpretation of the rules – my fault. However it was a pleasant surprise that Gwen was enthusiastic about this game and thought that it compared well with Fresco, a game I thought she would prefer. Somewhere along the way we managed to squeeze in some chocolate panatone as the munchies for this evening, sorry no photo’s.

Bausack

Then to the last quick game that was so much fun we played it twice overrunning our normal ending time. Bausack is a gem of a game with rules for 4 different ways of using the 90 odd wooden pieces, all with the general aim of building towers and gaining points for their either their height or instability! However as at least 50% of the wooden pieces are blatantly

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:

A fun filled family weekend

As our nephew and his family (which includes two 6 year old boys) left us on Sunday night I was surprised to realise that over the course of four days we had played 12 different games, a number several times over. I know I am a keen advocate of modern games but even I would never have dreamt that we would play so many in such a short period of time. Yes, it rained during their stay but we did many other things during their visit, including a mountain bike ride involving lots of muddy puddles, a trip to Brighton and a pre-Halloween party, however the other notable things were:

• the boys arrived wanting to play games - Uncle Kevin’s place equates to games unlimited to them;
• the TV only got turned on three times and in each case to watch a DVD;
• that the little boys didn’t ask to play with technology games;
• they asked for some games that surprised us - Take It Easy being one example;
• they were very good at games we had felt that they would struggle at - Bausack and Take It Easy being examples;
• none of the games played are available from normal high street shops so are largely unknown to most people.

It is safe to say they left with many ideas for Christmas presents.

If you would like to see what games we did play then click here.

Social Afternoon with Games – 26th October 2010

This session saw four new games being introduced to the group, the return of Peter S, one of the earliest members of the games group in Crowborough and the first visit by Mary and Julia.

The first game introduced was Dixit played the previous night at the games evening and described in a little more detail here.

Then we moved onto Bausack a new acquisition in Germany, only days before, and one that I am sure will prove popular with a wide range of people across the age range.

Bausack (Age 6+, 1-10 players, 45 min playing time)

The Bausack box contains a mass of well made wooden object in natural and red of interesting and non uniform size, none of which are designed to aid you building a tower and that is the nature of Bausack. A box containing 4 distinct games where you aim to build towers in a variety of ways which depending on the game provides opportunities to buy good pieces and pass the rubbish to your