play more board games

And this week’s new game (not being strict about boardlessness) is… Scrabble Slam!

Lay down a 4 letter word, divvy up the rest of the deck of letters, then see how fast you can slam down letters in one of the 4 spots to create a new word. Pretty fun… good for quick thinking, practicing spelling, learning new words – fast paced and fun but after several games we decided to switch to Blokus. 2 days ago

Also known as Pickomino, Heckmeck is a fun & quickly moving dice game, sent to us by the fabulous and generous Colleen_C_C who saw this goal and thought we’d like it. We do indeed! (Thank you, thank you, thank you again!)

This was Isak’s chosen game reward of the week (for completed schoolwork), and the week went well. We opened it up, figured out how to play, and promptly did so several times. I’d never heard of Heckmeck, but it’s a good play length, a great portable size, deliciously sturdy, and rather addictive – worms, chickens, dice, tiles, math, luck, odds, and the occasional sneaky thievery of your opponent’s latest acquisition. A great addition to our growing games cabinet!

Thumbs up! Definitely one of the coolest things we’ve received in the mail lately! 1 week ago

Denting the dozen… Chess! Isak’s learned how to set up the board and how the different pieces move (both here and with my parents), and is now at the point where he can play a pretty good beginners game. I’ll sometimes point out how a move might lead to his king being in check down the line, and get him to think about ways to avoid it, but I don’t pull too many punches, just enough to keep him from getting too frustrated. The more you play, the better you get.

Yesterday was the perfect rainy day to stay at home and play games, so after some old favorites we pulled out my old magnetic mini-board.

^{That makes a dozen, but I’m having too much fun to stop now! I’ll hang onto this goal for a while longer, at least until we’ve played all the games in the house.}1 week ago

Monopoly! But not just any Monopoly… Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas Monopoly!

This was the reward of the week for schoolwork. We started a family game last night and are still playing today (although I’m afraid we’ve now pummeled daddy out). Still deciding on what our official house rules are going to be, but Isak’s having fun wheeling and dealing and using his mad math skills.

Love it! Very clever and witty, with wonderful little custom pieces (I’m using the Mayor’s Hearse), funny money, and amusing cards/properties. I’ve just traded in some orange houses for purple hotels – am in the money and flush with the Holiday Towns, but Isak has houses on Jack’s Tower and Sally’s Alley and inherited all daddy’s properties when he went bankrupt (plus he seems to consistently land on free parking). 3 weeks ago

We lucked out with games this Christmas, getting about half a dozen both from others and as gifts to ourselves.

Uno is obviously a card game not a board game, but in still suits the purpose of spending fun family time together playing something. Isak picked it up right away and promptly kicked my butt 11 times. We had so much fun – especially when we decided to add other “players” and invited random stuffed animals to play (all the better to utilize those change direction cards), each playing for one as well as ourselves.

On the actual board game front, we finally got to unwrap Blokus, which we’re enjoying immensely (we were introduced to it months ago by some avid gamer friends) and getting better at quickly. This one is quite different from the others we have, so it rounds out the game shelf nicely. If nobody eats any of the pieces, we’ll be playing it for a long time to come.

It looks as though we’ll have to expand the game shelf now… and there are more unwrapped games waiting for us!

^{Gameboardgeek has been a good resource for game reviews and suggestions.}1 month ago

It boggles the mind…

Word games… yay!! We played this one several times last week, both in real life (such satisfyingly loud letter rattling) and a great app version on the ipad. We played together rather than against each other, trading off and finding as many words as we could before the time ran out. A benefit of the virtual over the tangible is seeing the list of words you miss, but both were great fun and a good brain jostler. 2 months ago

Counting these two as one (I’ll make the check-off point a baker’s dozen).

We sat down after dinner recently to play Cranium, but soon realized we couldn’t because it (at least this version that we have) requires at least 4 players, and Iris isn’t helpful to that end quite yet. A couple of different friends are keen to join in though, so we’ll look forward to playing soon.

Ramses Pyramid was fun to put together, but we went cross eyed trying to figure out the game play instructions, which is apparently a common complaint. We found a demo online which helped clear up a few things, but we’ve yet to make it through an entire game. We’ll try again, maybe make up some of our own rules.

We picked up another new game we wanted, but plan to save it for Xmas.

On the Wii front, I’ve been having fun playing Lego Star Wars with Isak. No, it’s not a board game, but it’s pretty entertaining and I like working cooperatively. He’s promised to show me how to use a jet pack properly next time… 3 months ago

I played against the guys. I sunk their battleship... 4 months ago

This last week we’ve been playing a combination of the usual, but last night Isak pulled out his Chinese Checkers set for a game before bed, which was a nice change.

I’m hoping to slit the cellowrap on something brand new this weekend – perhaps the Cranium Family Edition or Tim Burton Monopoly… 4 months ago

Based on one of my most beloved childhood storybooks, the game, well… doesn’t measure up. I’d been so excited when I first bought this and then found it pretty disappointing. The rules are confusing, the spinner is shoddy, and it’s a bit dull for my liking, but Isak occasionally gets in the mood to play it and last night was one of those times, so we played a game after dinner. We all got stuck repeatedly spinning moons at one point, which was funny, and Iris seemed quite taken with the graphics, especially the butterfly. Itching to try something new… 4 months ago

Magikus is another Lego board game, and we needed something fairly short and sweet last night. We all like this one, and it’s easy to change the rules and switch up the game. Not as much strategy required as Minotaurus calls for, but good when short on time. 10 to go! 4 months ago

I ♥ board games… all kinds of board games. I have wonderful childhood memories of game nights and rainy afternoons playing games or putting together puzzles with my family; the excitement of learning something new, the graduation from Candyland to chess. M. and I also have lovely early relationship memories of smoldering passions garnished with scrabble, boggle, cards…

We started playing games with Isak pretty early, and now he’s gotten to an age where he really, really loves them, even preferring a tangible game with the family to the bells and whistles of technology, which we’d love to cultivate further, so we’re trying to build up our collection.

We already have some family favorites, but we also have brand new, vintage but previously unplayed, and on-the-list-to-buy games waiting in the wings. Hopefully this will lend more motivation to replaying the old and trying some of the new.

Tonight’s game, a staple since last Christmas… Minotaurus. 4 months ago

I would love to spend more time, with friends, on the simpler things in life and having fun, especially over winter. Hope my two new house mates will be up for this when they arrive! 5 months ago