Game Night – Steampunk theme

by Carol4 Comments
As you may know, vvB32 Reads has been hosting a SteamPink week. Since board games so often have themes very similar to books, genre-wise, I though I'd go on a search for steampunk games. Now, remember, I haven't played any of these yet, but they look cool. Edison & Co. Designer: Gunter Burkhardt Manufacturers: Rio Grande Games, Goldsieber Artist: Franz Vohwinkel Year: 1998 Players: 2 - 4 Time: 30 - 60 minutes Ages: 12 and up The players are inventors at the Edison Company where they work in teams of two to influence the outcome of driving tests for new vehicles. Players try to get their favorite vehicles to the high scoring spaces on the track at scoring time--so it's not a race, but more a question of timing since players must evaluate where they should be at a specific point in the game. With a unique movement system, each player controls only...
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Game Night – The Great Dalmuti

by Carol2 Comments
The Great Dalmuti Designers: Richard Garfield Manufacturer: 1995 Players: 4 - 8 Time: 15 minutes Ages: 8 and up We tend to go on rolls with the games we play. We'll play a game a bunch of times over a month or two and then put it away for weeks on end only to pull it out again and play several weeks in a row. Lately we've been playing The Great Dalmuti a lot. It's quick, fun, a lot of people can play, and there's no score-keeping involved. Of course, we've been playing it as a group since probably about 1995, if that's not replayability I don't know what is. (Yes, I know I made up that word, but it fits.) Here's the blurb, since it explains the game better than I could. Life isn't fair... and neither is The Great Dalmuti! One round you're at the top of the heap, and the next you're peasant scum in this fast-paced card...
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Game Night – Apples to Apples

by Carol5 Comments
Apples to Apples Designers: Matthew Kirby, Mark Alan Osterhaus Manufacturer: Mattel Artist: John Kovalic Year: 2008 Players: 4 - 10 Time: 20 - 30 minutes Ages: 12 and up As I was looking through the list of games I've talked about, I realized that I've never mentioned Apples to Apples. It's probably because I have kind of a love/hate relationship with the game. It's a great game when you have a bunch of people. It consists of two decks of cards, Things/People and Descriptions. Each turn, the current referee draws a Description from the face-down deck and players try to quickly pick, from the cards in their hands, the Things that best match that Description. We actually play that the slowest player doesn't get to submit a Thing that round. Players get to argue for the cards of their choice, then he referee chooses the Thing that appeals most and awards the card to the player who played it....
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Game Night – Mancala

by Carol6 Comments
Mancala Apparently "Mancala" is actually a family of pit-and-pebble games, which I learned today. Play involves scooping up pebbles from a pit and sowing the pebbles, one at a time, into the other pits. These games were probably created in Africa hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago. Apparently the version we play would be better labeled Kalah, but I'm still going to refer to it as Mancala. We've been playing Mancala a lot lately with Amber. It's a two player game, played on a board of 2 rows x 6 pits. The two scoring pits on each end are used in play. You start with 4 pebbles in each pit. If you sow the last pebble onto your side of the board in an empty pit, you capture all of the pebbles on the opponent’s side of the board in the pit opposite of the one you sowed your last pebble...
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Game Night – Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm

by Carol2 Comments
Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm Designers: Andrea Chiarvesio, Luca Iennaco Manufacturer: Fantasy Flight Games Year: 2009 Players: 2 - 5 Time: 90 minutes Ages: 10 and up A few weeks ago I wrote about Kingsburg, a fun game where you build buildings, influence the king's advisors and defeat monsters. This is a great expansion. It adds variety and new strategies. Lately I've been feeling a little burned out on expansions, but this one really does help the game. It doesn't feel so much like an expansion for expansion's sake, as some do. Actually, the expansion is more a collection of 5 "modules" that can be used separately or in conjunction to change the base game, add a little something different. The first module is new province sheets. They have the original buildings, but add on two new rows. The second module is single strips of building that can be used over lines in the original province sheets or the new ones. When...
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Game Night – Shadows Over Camelot

by Carol2 Comments
Shadows Over Camelot Designers: Serge Laget, Bruno Cathala Manufacturer: Days of Wonder Artist: Julien Delval Year: 2005 Players: 3 - 7 Time: 60 - 80 minutes Ages: 10 and up Yesterday was the Read-a-Thon, so I put off my Game Night post until today. It's been a while since we've played this one, but I love the King Arthur theme. You are one of the Knights of the Round Table and evil forces are gathering around Camelot and you must all join forces to protect the land. You and the others go on a variety of legendary quests, such as the search for Excalibur, the Holy Grail, or Lancelot's Armor; the tournament against the Black Knight; and numerous wars against the Saxons and Picts. But watch out, there may be a traitor in your midst. This in at heart a cooperative game. The players must work together to defeat evil, but there may be one player in their ranks who is...
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