Board games; what are your favourites? What would you like to play more of?

[ghoti_mhic_uait]

The main thing for me is that I'd like to play *more* tabletop games of all types. For this reason, I seek out games that are interesting family games (ie, at least two of the children want to play them, and they're not boring for adults). I grew up playing games after dinner, I always thought that would be how my life would go, and I get grumpy when it's not going that way. Games in this category include Carcassonne (Andreas enjoys if the game play is generally quick), Continuo (a rather nice tile/colour matching game), Pandemic (this is one for B not A :)), Ascension. I'm sure there are more but it's quite hard to tempt B out and A is really little yet. Hon. mention: I like Hey, That's My Fish but A is too young and B is not interested.

So let me talk about Ascension. Ascension is a bash-the-monsters game that has a very simply game play. The play reminds me of child-friendly card games like Qwitch: when we regularly played games with xanna, we used to open her card game book at a random page and play a game, and a lot of those games had a mechanic of 'draw a hand, play the cards, discard' which is exactly the mechanic here, so it feels comfortable and accessible, and the hit-the-monsters-buy-stuff-get-points aim is also fairly standard, but combining the two really works for me. I'm told by people who play Dominion that they two are very similar - I have never played Dominion.

I tend to choose a game for Date Night too, whereas Colin usually goes for a film (last night's choice was his, and we watched Fight Club, before that we had a few times in a row where we both wanted to watch the same thing) but two player games are good. Lord of the Rings is great for date night; we've played Keyflower for date night once and that worked, so we'll definitely do that again, Smash Up is awesome.

The prompt is quite specific, but I'd like to mention card games too. I love Bridge, which Colin introduced me to, but find it difficult to get enough practice and often muck up because of lack of familiarity. So I'd like more opportunities for that - when we were newly weds we'd semi-often have couples over for dinner and bridge. Now we have three bridge players in the house, it seems like it should be easier to just grab a fourth! Or fifth if we're playing somewhere that needs a parent to be watching the littles more closely. I'm definitely looking forward to Judith learning :) I'd like to play Mao more often, too, and have vague plans for late night Mao parties, which we managed a couple of times when away in the summer. And I miss the gin rummy which was the game I played most often as a teenager, even though my family version bears very little resemblance to the wikipedia version. We recently bought card holders but have yet to try Judith on gin rummy, which was one of the reasons I wanted them.

Comments

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

I seek out games that are interesting family games (ie, at least two of the children want to play them, and they're not boring for adults)

I have more recs in this category if you're interested, all of which are fun for all-adult groups at GamesEvening but also suitable for Bethany:

Blokus: placing Tetris-shaped tiles according to simple rules (your pieces must touch each other at a corner and may not touch at an edge) and trying to get all yours out on the space-limited board.

Lemming - one of angoel's, a racing game formerly known as Rally Car. Play a card from your hand, with a colour and small number on it, into the pile of that colour. If it <= the number on top of the pile, move your lemming a number of spaces equal to the sum of the pile; otherwise, restart the pile and change one terrain hex.

Gravwell - this is like a simplified one-dimensional Robo Rally, but still fun for grown-ups. You have a hand of cards with a letter and number on, and everyone simultaneously plays one card. They execute in alphabetical letter order, and you move spaces equal to the number, in the direction towards the greatest number of other players' pieces, which might not be the direction you predicted.

Castellan - this is only 2-player by default, but you can buy two sets in opposite colours to make a 3-4-player game. There are 3D plastic pieces for building castle walls: long walls, short walls and turrets. (Kids like to play freeform with the pieces.) You play a card from hand, take the pieces depicted on it, and add them to the collaboratively-built castle; you get a point if you complete an enclosed room, so you don't want to leave a nearly-finished room for the next player.

Friends have also played Settlers of Catan and Hanabi with their kids of about this age, but I don't think Bethany's quite ready for either of those yet.

We find with Bethany there are games she's intellectually equal to, but can't manage emotionally, like games where you visibly thwart each other's goals, like Connect 4. But my impression of J and A is that they're more mature in that way, so that opens up a few more possibilities.

[cjwatson]

We have Blokus and generally like it.  Gravwell sounds fantastic and I'd like to give that a try.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

We have Blokus and I'll play it if Judith asks - and it's almost in Andreas' reach but not quite - but I'll never choose, maybe because I can't even come close in terms of ability level? A bit like Pizza Theory, which Judith loves but I can't get my head around the strategy.

We have Settlers, and I nearly mentioned it but we haven't played it much - I initially bought Catan Junior, which we've played more, and in a small collection it didn't seem worth having both, so it was only as our collection grew that we acquired Settlers. I'm surprised about Hanabi, because we found it needed a lot of concentration and therefore discarded it for Friday night date night.

[angoel.livejournal.com]

If playing a two player game of Lemminge, I recommend playing with three rather than two lemmings, as gives a slightly better level of blocking.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Oh, good tip, thanks.

(Our set is "Lemminge" but I thought I saw one at the Paulls' called Lemming; I thought it was a more recent international printing.)

[ceb.livejournal.com]

Lemminge seconded; it's that rare kids' game that isn't dull and interminable but is genuinely fun for adults too.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

We play Settlers of Catan/Pandemic/Carcassonne/Fluxx/Concept/Takenoko on a very regular basis. I also grew up with after-dinner games as the norm, though more often cards than board games because we were always losing the 'bits' out of games and we had hundreds of packs of cards. :D

Concept is a great game - you have to illustrate a keyword using only the prompts on the board so e.g. "fictional" + "person" + "comic" + "male" + "flying" + "red" + "blue" is Superman; "toy" + "person" + "female" + "pink" is Barbie; "movie" + "living creature" + "mouth" was enough for my dad to guess Jaws successfully. :) You start with a "main category" indicator and add more and more refinements as people fail to guess; the guesser and the hinter both get points so it's quite easy for kids even if they can't guess well.

Takenoko is a very cute game involving a panda, a gardener, a lot of bamboo, and luck. You build the board as you go, you irrigate your growing plots and try to achieve particular goals, while the weather [via dice], the panda, the gardener and your opponent(s) help or hinder you. It's a final tally game and you can win simply by having your opponents achieve your goals for you inadvertently or - equally likely - by very carefully implemented strategy, so it's great for all ages.

I also am very fond of the Discworld Ankh-Morpork game, and of Ricochet Robots which involves a lot of logical thinking, but I find it hard to get people to play those with me. :)

(Dominion is, by the sounds of things, exactly like Ascension - I've got Dominion but only read about Ascension.)

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Concept sounds perfect. Takenoko I've had near the top of my wishlist for a while, it looks so cute and promising. I'm not so good at/fond of strategy games, but Judith is, I might be able to cope with logic games though.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Concept is great, we've recently been introduced to it at GamesEvening. I can't see it working for Judith age group though, because you have to read the cards and know the person or place or film or whatever.
But if she can do all that, that opens up lots more games, like Articulate, Taboo, etc.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

*nod* she's not great at reading yet so maybe not. We bought Andreas Disney Apples 2 Apples (which doesn't need reading) for Christmas, which hopefully will work well (and Judith's getting Munchkin Junior, which I think she'll love).

[alextfish.livejournal.com]

Ascension is exactly like Dominion except all buys work like the Black Market in Dominion does. In Ascension, rather than having free choice of all the kingdom cards to buy, you have a big deck of one-offs, and you only have a chance to buy the ~three that are revealed on your turn. Someone else happens to get lucky and have all of the first three trashers appear on their turn? They've won that game through nothing but luck. I really dislike Ascension.

(I can see it might be okay for playing with kids like ghoti describes.)

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

But normally you don't have enough money to buy the big things straight off, and it's only through buying small things that you get there, and that depends on whether you've bought up infantry or mystics. I've not found the first few rounds to be that influential.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I'd like to clarify 'you only have a chance to buy the ~three that are revealed on your turn'. The cards don't go away at the end of the turn, so there's a limited amount that can be bought in the first turn anyway, and they'll stay there until someone buys or banishes them. In a 5 card hand that can have at most 5 money, there's at most one good card that the first person can buy, and as the starting deck only has 2 militia, no good monsters can be killed first round.

Now, I'm perfectly prepared to accept that you will just never like Ascension, and I can just play different games with you, but I wondered whether you were discarding all cards in the centre row at the end of turns, which would make it more about what turns up on your go rather than everyone having similar luck?

[badriya.livejournal.com]

I used to play monthly D&D and for a while a weekly one too, and then there was a Skyworlds of Jorune for a while and one whose name I forgot but it was cyberpunkish. I don't live near enough any more to the various people I played with and miss the role play games. I also played board games with other friends more or less weekly and they still do I think but a 40 minute drive to play in the evening is a bit much for me. The D&D monthly was an all afternoon and evening thing. The weekly was a 5 minute drive.

Board games were that one with railway tracks where you put down bits of track, I think it was Roborally? Also civilisation and one with armies and taking over territories.

With grandson we do card games. I made a set for pelmanism using opposite words, big/small etc to practise reading and we did it with cards for numbers too. Then things like sevens,rummy and this year Cribbage, which he liked a lot. He got Monopoly for Christmas last year and we played with mum,dad,me other daughter and her partner, but new partner refused to play for ethical reasons.

He is Toby Miller, wrote books on Greening,supports daughter in Greenpeace things, veganism, and both mum and dad are anti global organisations, business, and anarchists from way back. They were WOmbles. Dad was the lead Womble.So it was very very funny how enthusiastically they played Monopoly. Grandson turned out to be ruthless, and held the bank with help from dad. Dad and otehr daughter's bf went out broke first. I did and the two daughters turned out to be the business experts, with my Green, Transition #1 child winning.

Grandson continued to be a Monopoly fan for a month or two and I had to play with him, just the two of us, on the day I collected him from school. This was annoying as he always won! I was not helping him and am not sure how I always lost. I am actually not good at board games though.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

That all sounds nice. I always loved playing with my grandparents. I never have liked Monopoly, though.

[badriya.livejournal.com]

I've never been that keen. I first saw it when I was about 7 and older cousin had all his friends over to play and they said I couldn't :). I really enjoyed the whole family game because of who was there and the interactions.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

*nod* I definitely play games just because of who else is playing often. Like, there's a game Kahuna which is about building bridges and occupying islands, and I'd never choose it to play with adults, but I play with Judith because she wants to.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love Kahuna! I don't think of it as a kid's game.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

I bought it for Colin, but actually we just didn't like it when we played together, but for Judith (and almost Andreas) it's a good game and it's growing on me.

[nevboo.livejournal.com]

I love Articulate but I haven't tried playing it with Alice so no idea if it is too complex. I guess you'd have to modify the way of playing in pairs one describing and one guessing somehow until little ones can read.