Family Games are easy to learn, have a relatively short playing time, and feature player interaction, decision-making and light strategy. They’re also usually accessible to kids 8 and up at least, maybe even a little younger.
Family Games often involve lighter strategy and planning than Strategy Games, but you’ll still have a chance to put your skills to use.
Pandemic Legacy, designed by Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau, hit game stores worldwide October 8, I received my copy October 9. I couldn’t wait to unwrap its mysteries and proceeded to open the box and examine and inventory its immediately visible contents – and read the rulebook. I say “immediately visible” because not all of the contents are meant to […]
Read more*** SPOILER ALERT *** Many sections of this report have been redacted (placed in Spoiler boxes). Revealing redacted details may spoil some of the surprises in store for you in Pandemic Legacy Season 1. January 2015 For our first game of Pandemic Legacy, my husband Tim and I chose Scientist and Researcher hoping for some good card draws so we […]
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Every time we think zombies are dead, they rise back up and prove us wrong. Not only on television, where Fear the Walking Dead, the spin-off of the highly acclaimed television series The Walking Dead, debuted last month, but also in the board game arena. With The Walking Dead television show returning to our living rooms this weekend, I thought I’d take a […]
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With Halloween right around the corner and The Walking Dead scheduled to return to our living rooms Sunday, October 11, Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game shambled into my brain as a good choice for a review this month. Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game is a semi-cooperative board game of Zombies versus a bunch of B-movie Hero […]
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Carcassonne fans and newbies alike will love this stand-alone addition to the Carcassonne family of games. Carcassonne: South Seas features gorgeous artwork depicting an island paradise, new Islander meeples, and 60 wooden wares (bananas, shells and fish) in two sizes. As in the original Carcassonne, up to five players can build the landscape, tile by tile, placing meeples to claim features. […]
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Pandemic Legacy, designed by Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau, is scheduled to hit game stores worldwide October 8. Each group of gamers that plays the game will write their own Pandemic Legacy as the game unfolds, campaign-style, in literally unique ways based on how each session ends. Because Pandemic, with the On The Brink Expansion, is my favorite cooperative game, I’ve been avidly […]
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With Pandemic: Legacy set to make its debut October 8, I thought I’d visit an old friend, the purely cooperative game that started it all: Pandemic designed by Matt Leacock. In Pandemic, you and your friends play the role of scientists trying to prevent a pandemic from laying waste to the world. There’s only one way to win: find the cure […]
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Dimension is a real-time puzzle game in which players, racing against the clock, attempt to build an 11-ball pyramid without breaking any of the current 6 rules. The player who’s the most successful at this over 6 rounds of play, wins the game. Players begin the game with a rule reference card, their own trivet, and 15 colored balls: 3 […]
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“Working in the Coal Mine, Goin’ Down Down…” Coal Baron is a medium-light worker placement game in which your goal is to become the richest Coal Baron. To accomplish this you’ll need to acquire and fulfill orders for specific combinations of four types of coal: yellow, brown, grey and black. I’d never thought about there being different types of coal until I […]
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Carcassonne: The Phantom is my favorite mini expansion for Carcassonne. I consider it a must-have, though it’s now out-of-print and hard to find. The Phantom shadows your followers. With Carcassonne: The Phantom Mini Expansion, when you place a meeple on a tile, you may also place your Phantom (if not already in play) on the same tile, but on a […]
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Now is the time for all ye wizards and would-be wizards to grab your wands and don your pointy thinking caps for some spell-casting, deductive fun in Abracada…what? In this family-friendly game, you and your fellow wizards take turns casting spells on each other. It’s a strange contest. You all know the same eight spells, inscribed on ancient stones. There’s one number 1 spellstone that can summon the Ancient […]
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Since its debut in the year 2000, Carcassonne, the classic tile-laying game, has received numerous awards and had many expansions and mini expansions created for it: 40 and counting. The latest large expansion, #9 Carcassonne: Hills & Sheep, hit shelves July 2014. Each expansion adds one or more new tiles and special rules which enhance play and increase replayability. Here’s a quick […]
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The tile-placement game Carcassonne just got a new expansion in 2014: Carcassonne: Hills & Sheep. This full-sized expansion for Carcassonne adds shepherd meeples, sheep and wolves, hills and vineyards, and 18 new Land tiles (identified with a little sheep icon). To add the Hills & Sheep expansion to your game, all you need do is shuffle the new tiles in […]
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Last month I reviewed Elysium after reading the rulebook and everything else I could find on it. I normally don’t review a game until I’ve played it, but with the pre-release coming up I felt it was important to give everyone a heads up about what it’s about. Since then, I’ve taught and played Elysium several times and would like […]
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Cloud 9 is a quick, push-your-luck style card game. You earn points by daring to stay in the basket of a hot air balloon as it rises. Your points increase as the balloon climbs higher from cloud to cloud, but so does the risk of the balloon crashing. Should you jump ship to save your points or trust that the […]
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