Games for Christmas 2014

Some fun dice games for Christmas plus stocking fillers

For those looking for their once a year games purchase, be it for children or the family, or just another game to add to their collection, then this article will hopefully offer some interesting possibilities. Possibilities all easily available online and most at around £20 or less!

This years's article focuses primarily on dice games, however towards the end of the article there are also ideas for Stocking Fillers all under £10 and mostly card games.

Each game has a suggested children's age it is suitable for; however this also gives a really good indication of how thoughtful or complex the game is and therefore what to expect when you open the box. All the games fall into one of three categories:

· Simple Family Game (8 years)
· Stimulating Family Game (10 years)
· Thoughtful Family Game (age 12 and up)

I recognize that you may have stumbled on this article and know little about modern board games, and be a little intimidated by games you will probably never have seen in the shops. No worries; using the power of Google and YouTube you will find lots of video reviews that will both expand on my short explanation and give a clearer idea of how to play any of the games that interest you.

A New Begining

It has been a long time since I have put pen to paper, and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since I last wrote anything, but the joy I encounter around the world of games is still there and the desire to record it is slowly returning!

Many keen Gamers will have a circle of friends and family around them that I would call ‘Social Gamers’. These people enjoy games when they encounter them but rarely buy any themselves and it is unlikely they would list Board Games as a hobby. However it is these people on the periphery of the avid enthusiasts that are fuelling my enthusiasm to start writing again. In particular this brief post was prompted by:

• Turning up to see friends for a BBQ (with no games) and once the table was cleared it was the friends that raided their son’s small stash of games so we could play a game, or two: Straw, Hick Hack and Hey, That’s My Fish! In over 20 years of friendship this was a first!

But this most recent fuel is in addition to:

• Mentioning modern board games (and our Friday lunchtime group) in passing to a colleague at work and having her come back and ask ‘did you mean board games, I love board games! I used to love playing them as a kid and now I have children of my own……’ The conversation that ensued revealed that she was completely unaware of the word of modern board games and for those that know the film the Matrix it was like she had just taken the ‘red pill’. Her eyes where opened and I don’t think it would be going too far to say she was overjoyed at the feast of games now available to choose from! With her desire to involve her young children then her first purchase is not a gamers choice but an excellent little game none the less, Sherlock. It has proven a great success with her family. Gamers will no doubt be pleased to hear that other purchases are Race for the Galaxy, Pandemic, Comuni, Voluspa and Qwirkle.
  
• Highlighting the London On Board Meetup group to another colleague at work (and member of the lunch time group) and he going off over the bank holiday and spending 5 hours gaming with a group of people he had never met before and having a wonderful time.
  
• Combining a love of modern jive dancing with a love of food and obviously games I have been hosting monthly dinners where different people bring different courses and we intersperse each course with a game. The dance friends have never played any of the games before but the combination of good company, good food and good games is proving great fun.
  
• Following last year’s Essen trip it was the game (The Sheep Race) I didn’t buy that ultimately caught the attention of my Social Gaming friends and when I did buy they also wanted copies to play with their families and friends.
  
• Lastly, introducing games designers to the team at work and seeing it result in a Print and Play game for schools – The Flood (more of that in future posts).

It is also nice to report that the gamers group at Crowborough whilst not very visible at pubs in the area is alive and well meeting at a variety of people’s houses anywhere between Tunbridge Wells, Hailsham and Haywards Heath and has drawn in a number of new members. 
It’s meeting are a bit adhoc but its active and has a huge collection of games between its members. The only sad part (from my point of view) is I had hoped to start a Social Gamers Group and it is ultimately now a group of Gamers!

Reviews will follow slowly and other posts as the inspiration takes me but they are likely to be occasional rather than regular! Happy Gaming!

Games in a Pub – 17th February 2013

8 Year Old Holds His Own At Pub Games Night!

As the group gathered they kicked off with one of our most popular fillers, Straw. Straw is an excellent card game that is simple, fast and has sufficient screwage to make it great fun. It is also a great way of helping children with their maths based skills.

With George joining us (Simon and Laura’s 8 year old son) the consensus was to go for a slightly simpler game next (although as will be seen later this really wasn’t necessary) and Abandon Ship was selected. This is an amusing, but lightweight, race game about rats abandoning a sinking ship. Each player has 3 rats to look after. However the fun comes from the fact that the rats are shared and nobody knows who is looking after which rats. As the water level rises sadly the slowest rats get washed away. However the danger for the first rat on deck (the rats climb / race through 50 deck levels) is that it will get trampled by the passengers who are also trying to get off the ship; a close game that was won by George.

Next up at Simon’s suggestions was Infinite City, a game that I would not immediately have picked to play with somebody as young as George but at another level doesn’t surprise me given experiences with other children from families who play lots of games.

Infinite City is a tile laying game where each tile represents one of a number of different types of buildings each of which has some text narrative at the bottom of the tile explaining its special powers when placed in the city. As you place a tile you also place a marker in your player colour and it is these markers that indicate ownership of building which at the game end give victory points. In addition to these points you also score one point for each marker that is connected to 3 or more of its own colour. This was a game George clearly understood and was more than comfortable reading and understanding the text as well as making appropriate decisions! Whilst George didn’t win he competed well at and needed little help and when dad offered help George generally responded with a reasoned and logical argument for his actions.

The final game was The Dwarf King (reviewed here) and is best summarised by Martin’s comment that he would pay good money not to play it again. This is because, I think, that in the final hand the previous scores where completely reversed and the looser at the end of round two became the winner. It may be fun but balanced it is not, particularly if you don’t play the recommended number of hands (put no. in here?) where some of the big swings may get evened out

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More photo's of the evening can be seen here.

Our next event at the Crow and Gate (please note note NOT the Blue Anchor), Crowborough is in two weeks time on Sunday 3rd March starting at 7.00pm - £1 per head. More details can be seen on our Facebook Page Social Gamers - Crowborough

Match Report - 11th February 2013

A treasure island and the Robots of Doom! 

This is a very short report & overdue - there are just not enough hours in the day! Although as ever there are plenty of photos (if you click on the link at the bottom of the post), in particular a series that show the progressive destruction of the robots involved in the second game Goblins Inc.

On this occasion we had a group of four gamer's and Gwen slipped off to have a quiet evening not playing games! Malcolm had just returned from a two month holiday in the Far East, Robin’s wife had just had a baby boy and Natalie had once again baked some lovely cakes. We started with one of the Zoch games, Tobago. This went down well with the group, however as a family game I find the lack of player interaction makes it a little dry. I wonder if it might work best as a 2 or 3 player game, where there would be less down time between player turns? Note to self - must try those configurations at some point.

With coffee and munchies (wholemeal and apricot muffins) consumed, our second game was one of CGE’s new games, Goblins Inc. This is an interesting co-operative game were players work in teams of two to build two robots. It has many similarities to Galaxy Trucker, which depending on your point of view is the better game. Goblins Inc introduces the co-operative element in much the same was as is found in games like Saboteur, Bang! or Panic Station i.e. you are working together in some way but perhaps not everybody is working to the objective you think they are! It also introduces a more combative approach in that you are building a robot to fight the other team’s robot. This element will appeal to some but perhaps not all! Thanks to some inspired driving by Natalie our robot pretty much destroyed Robin and Malcolm’s and through good fortune rather than ability on my part I somehow amassed the most points.

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More photo's of the evening can be seen here.

Our next event at the Crow and Gate (please note note NOT the Blue Anchor), Crowborough is in two weeks time on Sunday 3rd March starting at 7.00pm - £1 per head. More details can be seen on our Facebook Page Social Gamers - Crowborough

Match Report - 28th January 2013

From Norse gods to bikers! Two mini reviews - Voluspa plus Skull and Roses

We only had a small turn out but pleasingly there was a willingness to have a go at two of my favorite games from last years Essen.

Match Report - 14th January 2013

With the winter snows just around the corner the group gathered to eat the remains of the Christmas munchies and obviously play a few games!

At one end of the table Gwen led Crispin and Daniella in one of her favourites, Alhambra with many references from Crispin to the need for his palace to have plenty of Seraglios! Gwen, unsurprisingly, emerged victorious.

At the other end of the table Kingdom Builder was played by Robin, Claire, Brian and I. This game again proved popular and, whilst far from being my favourite game from Essen 2012, it is growing on me due to its simplicity, speed of play, replayability and the balance of tactics to fun. Robin again won this game, although in part because I spotted a strategy that whilst I loused it up myself I had pointed it out to him. He obviously took the guidance with open arms and profited mightily from it!

Review – Geistesblitz 2.0

2 to 8 Players, Aged 8 with a 30 minute playing time 

Gesitesblitz 2.0 designed by Jacques Zeimet was kindly provided for review by our friends at Zoch Verlag.

In Geistesblitz 2.0 –we meet the ‘ghostess’ (and 4 new objects) a friend of Balduin the ghost in Geistesblitz and this new game is essentially a re-working of the original. It is styled as ‘an independent game’ playable without the original but that can be combined with the original, in my view for unnecessary pain!

Given the similarities to the original Geistesblitz this review will build on my first review and seek to highlight the differences rather than go through the whole game again, although it will follow my standard approach.

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.