Game Night – Caylus

by Carol1 Comment
Caylus Designer: William Attia Manufacturers: Ystari Games, Rio Grande Games Year: 2005 Players: 2 - 5 Time: 60 - 150 minutes Ages: 12 and up 2006 Spiel des Jahres winner, Special Award for Complex Game. This is a great worker-placement game. We've only played it twice, but it's one of those games you can just tell is going to be played over and over. The year is is 1289. King Philip the Fair has decided to have a new castle built in order to strengthen the kingdom's borders. Now Caylus is a humble village, but soon workers and craftsmen will be flocking to the town, attracted by the great prospects. Around the building site, a city is slowly rising up. The players are the master builders. By building the castle and developing the city around it, they earn prestige points and gain the King’s favor. When the castle is finished, the player who has earned the most prestige wins...
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Classic Family Games

by Carol5 Comments
I ran across a mention of a board game in a book I'm reading this week, so I though I'd share. The next afternoon Harriet didn't get home until five o'clock. She had purposely Stayed away all day, first following her spy route, then playing Monopoly with Janie and Sport. The game had made her irritable because she hated to sit still for that long. Janie and Sport loved it. Janie had all sorts of systems worked out for winning, and Sport was so passionate about money that they were kept continually interested, but Harriet couldn't keep her mind on it. (pg. 135, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh) I can understand where Harriet's coming from . Monopoly can leave me irritated too. It can be such a long game, and I never, ever win. On the other hand, I do think it's a game that every family should own a copy of . There are just some classic games that are great...
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Game Night – Ad Astra

by Carol1 Comment
Ad Astra Designers: Bruno Faidutti, Serge Laget Manufacturers: Fantasy Flight Games, Nexus Editrice Year: 2009 Players: 3 - 5 Time: 60 minutes Ages: 13 and up This is not my favorite game set in space. That would be Race for the Galaxy, but Ad Astra's fun enough to play occasionally. Basically players explore the galaxy searching for new planets. Most planets produce a resource, allowing you to build colonies, factories and more ships. Sometimes, however you will run across an alien artifact that can give you a distinct advantage. The turn system is unusual. Each player has a handful of cards allowing different actions like exploring, building and trading. At the beginning of the round, these action cards are placed face down on the main game board on one of fifteen slots, whatever is open at the time. The number on the slot indicates the order in which that action card will be resolved. Since all players may be able to benefit from...
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Game Night- Dominion: Seaside

by Carol2 Comments
Dominion: Seaside Designer: Donald X. Vaccarion Manufacturer: Rio Grande Games Year: 2009 Players 2-4 Time: 20-30 minutes Ages: 10 and up I've talked about Dominion a couple of times before, both the original and Intrigue. It's one of the games we play on a regular basis, but we've finally played the new Seaside expansion a few times. I think it's as good as the other two, although this one is a true expansion. It does not come with any treasure, victory or curse cards, so you must have one of the other editions. From Rio Grande Games: All you ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by. And someone who knows how to steer ships using stars. You finally got some of those rivers you'd wanted, and they led to the sea. These are dangerous, pirate-infested waters, and you cautiously send rat-infested ships across them, to establish lucrative trade at far-off merchant-infested ports. First, you...
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Game Night – Cranium Super Showdown

by Carol3 Comments
Cranium Super Showdown Publisher: Cranium, Inc. Year Published: 2006 # of Players: 4-6 Playing Time: 20 minutes Suggested Age: 8 and up I tend to like Cranium's games, and this is another good one. It a funny, goofy game perfect for families. It gets everyone thinking in illogically logical ways. You use cards in your hand to pick wacky challengers to take on crazy contests, like monster truck rallies and bubble-gum bubble blowing. Who would win a pie-eating contest: a monkey with backup dancers or a pirate on a pogo stick? Everyone gets to state their case and the judge decides who would win. The person(s) whose character wins earns coins for that round, and everyone gets a chance to be the judge. It sounds silly but it really is a blast. We've even played without keeping score, just to see what silly combinations end up being the best at the contests. Or who can come up with the most creative explanations that are still reasonable in a...
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Game Night – Igloo Pop

by Carol1 Comment
Igloo Pop Designers: Heinz Meister, Klaus Zoch Manufacturer: Rio Grande Games Artists: Victor Boden Year: 2003 Players: 2 - 6 Time: 15 - 20 minutes Ages: 7 and up This game is entirely different from every other game we own. The theme is on the silly side. The young ice giant has a big problem: he wants to buy fish sticks, but he cannot remember how many and he has nine shopping lists in his basket. So he goes from igloo to igloo and shakes each. In each he listens to the delicious fish sticks bouncing off the igloo walls. When he thinks that the igloo in his hand has the same number of fish sticks as one of his shopping lists, he takes it home. When he gets home, there are no fish sticks in the igloo. Instead, wild and laughing Eskimo children tumble out of the igloo. Excitedly they shout, "Shake us again!" "That was great fun!" "This is super", thinks the young ice...
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