Family Game Day II

So I decided that at each family game day we need to try new games to find the ones we like and the ones we don't! Sadly Family Game Day part deux revealed two new games... that... well... we don't :(

Lost Cities turned out to be a dissappointment. It was a thinly disguised rummy type math game. Unfortunately while the cards had pretty pictures of lost civilizations, it lacked a lot of depth. My wife was not fond of the math for scoring at the end either (which I didn't have too much of a problem with). The game itself just really felt lacking. It was neither very competitive, nor cooperative. Sad, because I thought the Indiana Jones type theme looked really interesting, but nope the game just didn't deliver.

This game really needed the addition of other elements: challenges, traps, treasures or ANYTHING else to give the game some depth. Where are the crocodiles? quicksand? torches? maps? ANYTHING?!?

Ah well...

Next up was another VERY highly rated Euro game called Carcassonne:



Carcassonne is a tile laying game that has really great components including colorful thick cardboard tiles that depict countryside, roads and medieval city walls. It also comes with cute little painted wooden followers nicknamed "Meeples".

Despite the quality of the pieces the game seemed a bit boring. At first I was annoyed that my wife immediatly seemed to dislike the game, but as we played it steadly became apparent that this game was a slow paced, low impact game not at all like the American "battle fests" that companies like Hasbro and Milton Bradley put out.

There was also some initial confusion about allowable tile placement and we definately messed up scoring (all of us ended up with well over a hundred points each and the scoring board only goes to 49 points). I think that given time this game could grow on me, but honestly I don't think my wife will be willing to try it again without altering the game completely. To her it's all yawn and snores. I have to be sympathetic. This one is not in my top ten (even though I wish it could be). The kids seemed to like it alright though so I may look for games that have more painted wooden bits or games that have a cartoon/colorful style.

In the end we decided to break out Ticket to Ride again. We had some more fun with that until mr. kitty-cat jumped right into the middle of the board and caused the worlds most horrific derailment every seen!

Next week I'm going to try some interesting fantasy games and see how they do:

Citadels - a card game of building districts in a fantasy city

and

Quest for the Heros - a cooperative RPG style fantasy game somewhat akin to Heroquest & Talisman (both great old fantasy games from years gone by)

Wish us luck!

Journey to the Dark Side has begun!

What can I say? I love games! Always have. Back in the day my pop and I would play Risk, Axis & Allies and Fortress America (I love that game!) When we were a lot younger (and shorter on children) my wifey and I would play roleplaying games, card games and board games all the time. Now as a daddy and a worker-bot I miss those fun times so very much. We just never seem to have enough time to sit down and play those great games from our youth...

In an effort to get my wife back into gaming (or at the very least to letting me push little plastic heroscape pieces around a board with her) I decided to "trick her" into the fun. I did some diligent reseach into terms like "gateway games" and "spouse approved games" to find just the right sneaky kind of games that are both fun enough and interesting enough to creep up on you and get you wanting to try even more games... sort of like crack for gamers haha!

What I ended up deciding on was 2 games: Ticket to Ride and Lost Cities, both of which I grabbed from a great online store called Thought Hammer that offers 35% off on board and card games (no I'm not an affiliate, but I really was impressed by thier speedy service, large selection and low prices)

Ticket to Ride has got to be hands down the perfect game for suckering in non-gamers or just casual gamers.



It's a fun board game where you plunk down rows of colorful plastic trains all across the Umited State. It has pretty simple rules and though it says ages 10 and up, my six year old had no problem catching on to laying down sets of cards and putting his trains on the board (albiet he missed the finer details of connecting long routes together, but he did understand the basics and more importantly he had a lot of fun doing it!). I highly recommend it as a family game. It seems very insidious too because I can see you developing lots of strategy as you play the game more and more (you could gobble up lots of short routes, go for super long routes, focus on connecting lots of destinations, block your competition out, etc. etc.)

All in all a great game and my wife who initially thought she wouldn't like it at all insisted on playing twice and I can see the glimmer in her eye for a future rematch (since I won the second game we played hehe ;)

Lost Cities on the other hand is a 2 player card game about archeological expeditions. I have read from many other guy gamers that it's the perfect game for playing with your wife or girlfriend and that they get quite good at it so watch out!



Sadly we didn't have time to try it out tonight, but I'm sure it will be fun to play as well.

Hopefully these games will lead not only to more family game nights for all of us, but also to more elaborate and interesting games to play like Carcassone, Alhambra & Settlers of Catan and maybe into the really neato stuff with lots of little plastic monster and character pieces like Runebound, Arkham Horror & Twilight Empire. Oh and of course maybe back to my old love roleplaying (Hey killing orcs, zombies and dragons is fun too! Honest! ;)

So the only time I blog is???

When I have a silly meme to post of course! My friend Simple American posted his and I was intrigued... so here's my visual DNA!

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