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.
I still remember the day my husband came into the house breathless with excitement. He’d found a pristine copy of the highly-rated and valued 1999 Avalon Hill version of Acquire at our local thrift store. He says he got tunnel vision, his heart was beating so hard with excitement when he found it, that all he could do was carry […]
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My first experience with Robo Rally was at a gaming invitational in Raleigh, NC. Lori, a long-time Robo Rally enthusiast and aficionado introduced me to the chaotic, programmed movement game of racing robots to successive numbered flags on a factory floor filled with movement-altering and damage-dealing obstacles that you must successfully navigate if you want to win the race. Whew! Say […]
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Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind Should auld acquaintance be forgot and games of auld lang syne. It’s so easy to focus solely on the latest releases when choosing games to review, that I thought I’d change things up a bit and reflect on some of my favorite games of auld lang syne. I have so […]
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After I get the turkey in the oven on Thanksgiving, I like to kick back and relax, visit with my family and friends, play games and otherwise have a good time. Unfortunately not all of my family and friends are as much into games as I am. These three games, however, have proven excellent for both gamers and non-gamers alike. […]
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I was raised on a cattle ranch on the edge of a one-horse town in the Valley of the Sun. My dad was a cowboy: an accomplished rider, handling everything around the ranch from sowing and bailing hay to breaking and training horses, to herding, cutting, and branding cattle. So, when I opened a door in my Brettspiele Advent Calendar […]
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Anything goes on Halloween. You can walk down the street in your pajamas and call it a costume and no one will blink an eye. So when it comes to hosting a Halloween game night, any theme goes, too. Finding good board games to suit that theme might be more of a challenge, except that I’ve done all the work […]
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I first played Istanbul at Atlanta Game Fest last year. It’s Euro-style play, colorful tiles and bits, and puzzley immersive play quickly enraptured my mind. After many plays since, I’ve decided that Istanbul boils down to a lesson in efficiency. Let’s see why. In Istanbul, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to be the first to acquire […]
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P. I., designed by Martin Wallace, is a competitive deduction game in which 2 to 5 hardboiled private dicks race to solve their own cases in three mini-games. You each must somehow work out what the crime was, whodunit, and where. The shamus who solves her case first earns the most dough. Wrong guesses will cost you some berries (2 points each), so it’s usually better to […]
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Las Vegas, a 2012 Spiel des Jahres Nominee, has been a hit with gamers of all types since its release. Casual gamers love it for its simple and easy play. Family gamers love that its flexible enough to play with kids. Hard-core gamers love its great mix of luck, strategy, friendly competitiveness, and how easy it is to entice non-gamers into […]
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Have you ever played a game that was so simple, components-wise, so elegant, rules-wise, yet so engaging, play-wise, that you thought to yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that?!!!” For me, Las Vegas is that game. Genius game designer Rüdiger Dorn, took essentially 5 sets of 8 dice, 6 pieces of cardboard illustrated with casinos numbered 1 thru 6, and […]
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I’ve been teaching and playing Qwixx a lot lately. It’s such a simple game – 6 dice and a scoresheet – yet so much fun. I wish I’d thought of it! Kudos to Steffen Benndorf, Qwixx’s designer. Qwixx is a quick-playing dice game with absolutely no boring downtime between turns. Your goal is to X off as many numbers in each of […]
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Stone Age is one of the first worker placement games I ever played – Agricola was the first. Designed by Bernd Brunnhofer, under the pseudonym Michael Tummelhofer, Stone Age was first published in the U.S. in 2008 by Rio Grande Games. Even though Stone Age is less than ten years old, I consider it a classic. It’s my go-to game when introducing new gamers to […]
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Unexploded Cow was the first Cheapass game I ever played. (It always gives me a little thrill to say that. Then in the face of a shocked response, I grin and explain that Cheapass Games is the name of game’s publisher. Unexploded Cow is a unique and hilarious light-hearted card game designed by James Ernest, owner and founder of Cheapass […]
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On St Patrick’s Day it is customary to wear shamrocks and/or green clothing or accessories – the “wearing of the green” as they call it. So, it is no wonder that the first game I thought of when looking for an appropriate game for St. Paddy’s Day was Keltis. I did a little research on the origins of St. Patrick’s […]
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Forbidden Desert: Thirst for Survival is a cooperative family game from the designer of Forbidden Island. Forbidden Desert is sort of a sequel to Forbidden Island with the adventurers finding themselves stranded in the desert where a huge sand storm rages threatening to bury them alive or sweep them away, that is if they don’t die of thirst first. To […]
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