What Would You Do To Help Your Child? Play With Them?

The theme of parents, children and play is one we have visited a number of times before in various guises within this blog. However, recently I unearthed a study reported in NewsWeek concerning a 32% improvement in reasoning abilities and a 27% increasing in processing speeds achieved by a group of 7 to 10 year olds who started using games in school. This level of gain would normally only be achieved over a year of education but was in fact achieved over an 8 week period using games for

Match Report 9th May 2011

3 light games and a lot of laughter

With Crispin, Natalie and Daniella (and then Ben joining us half way through the evening) we had what turned out to be one of the funniest evenings we have had in a long time, getting three games in, two of which we had not played for many months. I only hope that my efforts to record the events do the evening and the participant’s justice.

Bohnanza (Age 12+, 2-7 players, 45 min playing time)

We started the evening with one of the group’s favourites Bohnanza . A game that requires every player to be vocal and creative in proposing trades that seek to maximise the cards they have available and so generate the richest harvest of beans. This is not a game for the hesitant or quiet, or at least not with

Games in a Pub - Week 5

Lots of games but less people

Bracketed between two Bank Holiday, with the weather still gorgeous and having broken the pattern of these events with a three week break it was always going to be a tough ask to maintain the numbers from last time and so it proved.

On the good news front Phil joined us again along with his wife (Jenny) and three dogs plus Oliver who had seen the poster during the week and fancied giving the games a go.

We managed to get in two games of Quoridor an abstract strategy games, three of Dominion a simply brilliant card game that followers of my blog will have seen me comment on in the past and is outlined here. Lastly we managed the ever popular Straw.

Our new attendees both said how much they had enjoyed the evening and that the social dimension was part of what appealed.

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The next event is at the Blue Anchor on the 15th May 2011 anytime after 7pm.

A Special Wedding

Our nephew (who has been playing games with us since he was a small boy) got married recently to a lovely lady. Imagine my delight and surprise when over dinner at the venue on the night before the wedding I heard that he had brought along the collaborative game Shadows over Camelot to while away the hours ‘til bedtime! So he, another friend and I proceeded to play (using his bed as a table) into the early hours.

Up to that point he had played the game 11 times but only won it once so it was the icing on the cake (so to speak) that we managed a victory that night.

Hopefully they will have a long and happy marriage.

Match Report 11th April 2011

Our first evening playing two games simultaneously

The 11th April was a while ago now and we have been distracted by many different things, not least two 7 year old boys, so apologies for the delay in getting this post together.

We had a good turnout and after much discussion over the weeks we finally took the plunge and broke the group in two with Gwen leading one and me the other. So at one end Gwen played a game of Stone Age with Crispin and Daniella. A simply brilliant game that I was lucky enough to be given by my Russian

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

Match Report 28th March 2011

The evening our legal beagle won Galaxy Trucker by a mile (or is that a light year?)

With Crispin still away in sunny Florida and Ben off sailing around the west coast of the British Isles the turnout was always likely to be small. Strangely Gwen didn't join us as she was working away in her study on a job related issue, only to find the following day she was made redundant – funny old world!

The good news for the games evening however was that Daniella, Natalie and Malcolm were able to join me the former two both bringing some home made munchies.

Galaxy Trucker (Age 10+, 2-4 players, 60 min playing time)

With a pile of games to choose from in the corner of the room the group elected to have a go at Galaxy Trucker (a game Gwen gave me for Christmas and that I had tried out with Ben and Alex one evening the previous week). Given the name I was asked by at least two of the players if this was going to be anything like Race for The Galaxy, to which I said no and they then went ‘well