Publisher Profile: Rio Grande Games

Our third stop for publishers is Rio Grande Games (RGG).  A look at this company in comparison to the other publishers profiled reveals that RGG is the most prolific of the three.  RGG takes a different strategy when it comes to publishing games; they primarily bring established games from Europe to the United States rather than bring a new game to market.  This approach has shown itself in the number of Spiel des Jahres (SdJ) winners that RGG has published, including Dominion, Carcassonne, Zooloretto, Thurn and Taxis and Niagara to name a few.  Of BoardGameGeek’s (BGG) Top 100, Rio Grande Games has 25 titles!

The number of (SdJ) winners makes sense when you think about RGG’s focus on family games.  The first few sentences on their website say it all:

Rio Grande Games is dedicated to bringing you the best in family entertainment. We offer the best family strategy games available! We have games for younger children to play with their older siblings and parents, games for their older siblings to play with their friends, and games for teens and parents to play with each other or when they get together for social occasions.

PR was #1 on BGG for years! (Promo image)

With this focus and with the focus of this blog being so similar, it would be easy to think that RGG is the publisher most commonly found in our family’s game collection.  We do have nine of their games.  Even if we throw out Hasbro, who makes a lot of the kid’s games we own, there are a couple of other companies that are represented more on our shelves.  Fantasy Flight Games, which I mentioned a few weeks ago, is one of them.  Z-man Games is the other.  Fantasy Flight has more theme, which my boy and I love, and Z-man produces a lot of inexpensive card games, which skews things in their direction.  However, I enjoy every Rio Grande Game that we own and have played; I can’t say that about every company!

As one thinks about it, this all makes sense.  RGG has focused on publishing European (largely German) boardgames for the US market, which makes the games very family friendly.  This style of game, often called a Eurogame within hobby circles, tends to be a little less thematic, with a focus on keeping everyone in the game until the end, and with both mid-game and end of game scoring.  Great stuff for casual gaming as we discuss here at Zwischenzug.

The games are all made with excellent components.  The artwork is pleasing to the eye, if not eye popping.  RGG publishes very few games that last more than 90 minutes and most play in an hour or less.  All of these are great games for a casual night of play.

In fact, buying a Rio Grande game is nearly guaranteed to give you a game that is designed around a family.  However, it is not a guarantee of a great game.  It’s true that buying an SdJ winner will give you a great game.  Nonetheless, with as prolific as RGG is, they have published a few stinkers too.  It’s just the law of averages; no one “bats a thousand” as they say in baseball.

This is a MUST HAVE game!

What does this mean to the casual and family game player?  Beyond the SdJ winners, which are all excellent, the key issue to buying a good Rio Grande game is where you buy your games from.  If you buy from a brick and mortar game store, just ask.  As much as I find many store employees lacking in knowledge, they will probably be able to help here.  If you buy at a store like Barnes and Noble, they will only have the better Rio Grande games physically in the store.  If you buy online, things are a little more dicey, but you will be fine if you buy the most popular RGG games at Amazon or the like.  This is a publisher that has enough sales for those to be meaningful statistics. 

Personally, I would have to recommend Carcassonne.  Everyone I have ever introduced the game to has loved it.  It is one of my personal favorites.  After chess, it is the game which I have played the most.  It’s probably due for a full review, so I will stop at that.  Ah, the list of games for me grows longer.  For you, well…

It’s Your Move!

Related Posts:

• Spiel des Jahres
• A Game for the Whole Herd - Zooloretto
• Publisher Profile: Fantasy Flight Games 

Links:

• Rio Grande Games website

3 Reasons Why Your Child Should Play Chess

Last month I wrote about whether or not chess was good for schools.  If you read that post (and I will put a link at the bottom), you realize that I think chess definitely belongs in schools, but it needs to be carefully monitored.  There are ways it can go astray.  Regardless of whether or not your school has a chess club, parents should make sure their children are playing chess.  Homeschoolers should be teaching it, even if they have never played themselves – learn it together!  I will give three reasons why this is true: what it teaches, the wide open opportunities to play, and it’s lifelong nature.

First of all, chess teaches logic, which directly impacts a child’s performance in schools.  Studies repeatedly confirm this fact.  Kids who play chess get better grades; it’s that simple.  What’s not always mentioned is that chess is also teaching the ability to plan ahead, which is important in academics and in life in general.  Hand-in-hand with lessons on planning are lessons on consequences.  Often enough, right behind that comes lessons in digging yourself out of a hole.  (At least that’s true when I play!)  All of these things exist just as much in the classroom as they do in the game of chess.

Dayton's Chess club is a landmark downtown.

Secondly, chess is a game that can be played anywhere.  Opponents are easy to find if you want to find them.  An obvious possibility is the school.  It’s so obvious I’ll move on.  For those children who are homeschooled or do not otherwise have school opponents, there are local chess clubs.  Most small cities have a chess club; larger cities may have several.  They will be in the phone book if nowhere else.  Often a club will have a Kids’ Night, in which children are the focus of play.  They may even have some adult players providing some casual coaching.  Libraries are increasingly involved with gaming, which is particularly true for chess.  Our local library in Dayton has at least one chess night a month.

If the local chess club or library isn’t an option, chess is one game that can be played online very safely.  They should be monitored of course; I strongly believe in knowing where your kids are both in the real world and in cyberspace.  However, chess is often played with no conversation between online opponents.   There are sites exclusively provided for children like http://www.chesskid.com/, which is run by the people at chess.com.  This a very user friendly site that allows parental control.  I play at chess.com, and I find the entire experience to be easy and fun.  There isn’t any software or crazy connections, and games can be downloaded for study.

One of my boards is this old Tandy 1650, which is great!

Another way to play is against a computer opponent.  This can be a computer program either on an actual computer or on a gaming console.  Nearly all of the consoles have them for sale.  It could also be an electronic board, complete with pieces.  I have an old, small Tandy electronic board, and it is great.  I will say I rarely use it, though, since I play online and can use my phone.  I would recommend a program, since they generally have tutorials or some way to rate play, and are therefore better at helping a new player improve.  Don’t worry about buying the best software.  Anything sold these days is far better than most people will ever be.  Go with what fits  your budget.

The third reason to teach your child chess is that it is a lifelong activity.  Chess is a lifestyle game, which means that it can become a major hobby by itself, exclusive of other games.  Bridge and go are other lifestyle games.  Magic the Gathering and poker are too, but they can be much more expensive!  In any case, introducing your child to chess may give them something they enjoy for the rest of their life.

Don’t worry about equipment at first.  A simple dollar store chess set will do.  So will books out of the library, if you are on your own.  As your child shows interest, it’s easy to find more books at any reasonably sized book store.  Nicer chess sets can be found all over the internet, and tournament sets and boards are not expensive.  The important thing is to make sure your child is having fun.  The learning is in the play, not necessarily in the lecture.

It's Your Move!

Related Posts :

• The Gambit – Is Chess Good for Schools?

News and Notes

I had been told I needed an easier name to remember for this blog.  Yesterday I bought a new domain name, so now you can tell your friends and family to read familygameblog.com!  I now have two addresses that work!

I also received review copies of four games from RightGames, a Russian game publisher looking to expand their markets.  I look forward to playing these and giving you my opinion!

It's Your Move!

Educational Games – An Incomplete Grade!

This past Sunday was the monthly meeting of our gaming group, 3^rd Sunday Gamers.  Several of the members teach at my son’s school.  One of them brought a new game, Numero, and we played 10 Days in the USA.  I realized that I missed a few great games that really need to be mentioned when talking about educational games.

Photo by Tony Archer

Numero was very interesting and very good.  Essentially, players are attempting to lay down numbered cards into multiple piles from their hand to make matches.  Once a match is made, the matching player takes that pile and set it before them, sort of like taking a trick.  Rather than create a new pile, players can change the value of the pile by adding numbers to it.  There are also “wild” cards that allow you to perform other arithmetic operations to a pile.  In this way, the value of the pile can be matched and taken.  Not only were there the basic operations (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing), but with percentages and a cube root thrown in, this game was a math refresher in a box, yet actually was a lot of fun.  It could be tuned to younger players by taking out some or all of the wild cards.  I had never seen it before, but it definitely bridges the “educational” vs. “fun” divide.

Photo by Nathan Morse

To start things off, though, we played 10 Days in the USA, which is part of a larger series of games that I should probably write about.  I actually gave this game to my wife for Christmas a few years ago because it reinforces United States geography, so I really had no excuse for missing it.  In this game, you are attempting to create a trip throughout the states by walking, driving or flying.  Walking and driving requires you to know which states touch or are close together.  A map board is provided.  This game not only bridges the gap, but builds a autobahn between “educational” and “fun”!

Photo by Z-Man Games

We closed the night with Pandemic, which thinking about it, also has a map board as part of play.  It shows the major cities around the world, and therefore would also be educational to some extent.  I miss that because this game is so much fun!!  Honestly, this is one of my favorite games.  It is also a big hit in our group, with roughly 20 plays in the group.  Beyond geography, it really teaches teamwork.  I won’t go into it more; I will put a link to my previous review.

We also played 7 Wonders.  While thematically based on history, game play really doesn’t teach history.  There might be some background on the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World somewhere in the box, but then I missed it.  It was a very good game; everyone liked it.  I had prepared much more than the last time I tried to teach it, which was a disaster due to lack of preparation.  We managed to get in two plays, a learning game and a real play.  I will review it in the future.

Playing four games, and one of them twice, made for a great day.  Any of these games would be great in a family or casual setting.  I’d love to be able to tell you who won what, but we really don’t care that much.  Hey, we have enough trouble keeping track of who’s turn it is!  But now,

It’s Your Move!

Related Posts:

• Educational Games
• A Second Chance at a First Impression 
• Saving Humankind from Death and Disease: Pandemic

Publisher Profile: Days of Wonder

Days of Wonder is a board game publisher based out of both the United States and France.  They focus on family friendly games that vary from easy to moderately complex, have high quality components, and excellent art work.  Of the BoardGameGeek Top 100 games, there are six published by Days of Wonder.  Three of them are Ticket to Ride games, one is Small World, and the other two are BattleLore and Memior ’44.  These last two games are light wargames (light being a relative term for wargames) that use a common rule structure, based in fantasy and World War II respectively.  Small World is a fantasy themed, world conquering game that loosely has the same feel as Risk.

I actually have all of these games except for BattleLore, and while I haven’t played them all, I have been extremely happy with what I have.

Days of Wonder games generally are ones where the rules do not take a lot of gaming experience to understand.  Rules are actually one of their strong points.  Days of Wonder stays away from “gamer jargon”, uses a lot of illustrations to explain the rules, and the rules are well laid out overall.  The games do have either small figurines or illustrated tokens, and depending on the game the Awesomeness Factor is at least better than average.  These games will generally appeal to young and old alike, with nearly everyone being able to play – including the wargames.

Memoir '44 in play (image by Rollo Tommasi)

I would love to come back and say that there is some big issue, but there really isn’t.  Days of Wonder produces excellent games that are enjoyed by many people.  The only caution that might be offered is dependent on what type of games you prefer.  With the exception of the wargames and a few games such as Small World, Days of Wonder tends to produce what would be referred to as Eurogames: games that have a fairly tight rules structure, with abstractions to ease game flow, less direct confrontation, and points awarded both during game play and again after the end of the game.  Eurogames are very appealing to some, and less to others, and some people are game junkies and will play it all (that would be me).

For the family or casual gamer, I would say that the odds of getting a good game for your family and friends is pretty high when purchasing a Days of Wonder game.  Of course, it is always better to try before  you buy, but in a pinch I personally would take the risk. 

It’s Your Move

Related Posts:

• Ticket to Ride at Target 
• Never Underestimate the Awesomeness Factor
• Getting on Board with Ticket to Ride

Links:

• Days of Wonder website

Educational Games

Image by Jesse Elliot

My wife hates it when I do this.  And she is right, I should not disparage games like Following Directions, or any number of games that just sound boring!  Following Directions might be an incredibly fun game, despite is rating of 2.0/10.0 on BoardGameGeek.  Who am I to judge?  The simple fact is that the title of the game was written to appeal to teachers and parents, and not to students.  That’s the problem I want to address as our thoughts turn to the upcoming school year (at least in my little piece of the cosmos).

 We have a tendency to divide the world of games into two camps: games that educate vs. games that entertain.  The first are almost universally seen as worthwhile (though I might be the lone exception to that rule), and the second are seen by many as an indulgence (particularly when played by adults).  Very few games, maybe just chess, are seen as both, though most people I know have only a passing knowledge of chess.   However, that division is a false one that is largely brought about by the laser focus our culture has on academics.  Not only do our kids have more homework at a young age, but heaven forbid they play a game that is just for entertainment!  We even turn sports into hard work!  How do we know that a game is educational?  One glance at Following Directions makes it pretty clear that it’s not fun, so it must be educational.

Unfortunately, the kids have exactly the same impression.  Whether or not Following Directions is fun (and I really have no idea), the simple fact is that it doesn’t pass the cover check, and that’s all the kids need.  Children tend to be incredibly influenced by cover art and other (missing) glimpses of the Awesomeness Factor, including the title.  What results is a game time that requires effort just to get the kids to play!   There are ways around this problem.

Promotional Image from Jolly Rogers Games

The first is to find games that have at least a fairly cool name and a nice look.  At the very least, it can’t be boring.  This is less important if the class is all involved in the same game and cannot really see artwork; my wife has had the after school program playing exciting games of 20 Questions for Kids and was asked to bring it back.  Bananagrams makes a great, short word game.  I would love to see a game of Founding Fathers used to teach about the writing of the United States Constitution.  Art Shark is a solid game that shows off classic works of art and their artists, reinforcing the history of art.

Another approach is to re-theme a game so that it has more relevance to the classroom.  Play Risk, but with a map of the United States, teaching geography.  Play memory, but make it so that you pick three cards, and must make a math sentence out of them.  (Hey! I just thought that one up!)  One of the easiest games to do this with is Trivial Pursuit, by making up your own set of cards.  Break the classroom into four or five teams and you are set!

Lastly, expand your idea of educational.  Personally, I think that most game teach some very important life lessons that are key to success.  Most games teach kids, “be patient, and wait your turn”.  (How many video games teach that?)  From games, kids learn that sometimes you have to make due.  My dad would say you must “play the hand your dealt”, and he wasn’t just talking about cards.   Games teach that sometimes you don’t get to “have it all”, you must make tough choices.

And if you must play Following Directions, for heaven’s sake please disguise it.  Lose the box and call it “Traffic”.  (“Oh no kids, the words ‘following directions’ on the backs of the cards is just what you do with the cards…”)  The game board actually is pretty well done.  And who knows, maybe with a teacher that shows a little enthusiasm, the game is actually fun!

It’s Your Move!

Related Posts:

• Bait Games – Getting your family and friends to play
• The Gambit – Is Chess Good for Schools? 
• Never Underestimate the Awesomeness Factor 
• Mass Market Marvel – Qwirkle 

Ticket to Ride at Target

At least in Ohio, Target has started carrying Ticket to Ride.  That means there are now five games that I can heartily recommend available for purchase there:

• Ticket to Ride
• Risk (Revised Edition)
• Settlers of Catan
• Qwirkle
• Bananagrams

Any and all of these games would be great for friends and family!

It's Your Move!

Related Posts:

• Getting on Board with Ticket to Ride
• Mass Market Mêlée – Risk: Revised Edition
• The Game That “Settles” In, Never To Leave - Yeah!
• Mass Market Monkey-business: Bananagrams
• Mass Market Marvel – Qwirkle

The Powerful Magic of the Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

I might as well follow up last week’s post about Fantasy Flight games with a review of one of their new offerings, entitled Lord of the Rings: The Card Game.  As I mentioned before, I had to read the rules a few times to understand how this would work.  My son and I finally managed to play it this weekend, and it is not only a lot of fun but tells a good story.  The components are modular, so the story can change and the game should provide a lot of variety.  A quick rereading of the rules showed that we had done only a few minor things wrong, which would have actually made the game easier, so I can’t wait to play it again.

Image by Surya Van Lierde

Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is a “living card game” (LCG), a concept that has been pioneered by Fantasy Flight recently.  If you have played Magic: The Gathering, or even watched your kids play Yu-Gi-Oh!, you have seen a similar concept that has been around for a while – the collectable card game (CCG).  The difference between the two is in the expansions.  A CCG has expansions, aka “booster packs”, which have a randomized set of cards in them, so the player buying the booster pack has no idea what they will be getting.  Those cards are then used to build a customized deck of a certain number of cards to play with.  Very powerful cards are more rare, so one might have to buy quite a few booster packs to assemble a good deck to play with, particularly if the goal is to play competitively.  Add to this the fact that new cards come out every year, and you will understand while your child has a ton of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and empty pockets!

In contrast, the booster packs for an LCG have titles, and every deck with the same title will have the exact same cards in it.  The player knows what they are buying beforehand.  This makes it easier to keep away from the arms race a CCG can turn into.  The market is that group of gamers, many of them ex-CCG players, that want the same game play experience but no longer have the means or desire to spend a lot of money.

This particular game has one more unique element to it; it is a cooperative game.  The players all play together to complete quests.  The events happen in Middle Earth, the world of the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.  For you Tolkien fans, I will add that the timeframe of the game is those years between the defeat of Smaug and Bilbo’s eleventy-first (111^th) birthday.  This allows the game broader artistic license for storytelling.

Lord of the Rings: The Card Game comes in a very oversized large box for what’s inside: 228 cards, two accessories for tracking a player’s “threat level”, some counters and a set of rules.  At first I wasn’t thrilled with this, since my shelf space is at a premium.  Then I realized the boosters will fit in the box too, so in the end it will probably be a good thing.  A breakdown of the cards shows that there are two broad categories: player cards, further broken down into heroes, attachments (weapons and such), events (special actions) and allies; and non-player cards which are quests and encounters.  Quests make up the objective of the game, while encounters are the creatures, places and events that work against the players.  Heroes are placed in front of the players, and each player has a hand of cards that will strengthen the abilities of the heroes to complete the quest.  This is done in a sequence of actions, which include flipping over encounter cards, to see what befalls the heroes in fulfilling the quest.

Gandalf is a major ally, though he doesn't really change up the rules as some other cards do.  Image by Chris Norwood

While this sounds pretty straightforward, it’s not.  First, the game play sequence has seven stages to it, and so is a little involved.  Secondly, one of the characteristics of this type of game is a lot of text on the cards.  This text actually modifies or suspends game rules during the course of the game, so the game play is always in flux.  Lastly, the cards are designed to work in various combinations with each other, so that understand the optimum sequence of card plays takes some experience.  Sorting out the results of conflicting cards takes some getting used to, and actually is benefitted by prior experience with other games.  Anyone can learn it, that is certain, but the amount of time required to be proficient is more than casual.

From the storytelling perspective, the cards were excellently designed.  In a game where you are travelling through the mysterious Mirkwood Forest, there three smaller decks of enemies and locations  that are combined to form the encounter deck.  A few similar small decks stay in the box.  For a different quest, the encounter deck will be created from a different combination of these small decks, and this keep the enemies and locations appropriate to the quest.  The result is excellent, and combined with very good artwork the story really comes through.

All of this combines to make Lord of the Rings: The Card Game a really great game, but one that is not suitable to a casual evening with some friends or a game night with the family.  (If you are thinking, “Maybe, but I bet I would have fun with so-and-so”, I submit that you may be transmogrifying into that creature known as a gamer, and are beginning to fade from the world of casual gaming.)  As a result, while I am really looking forward to exploring this game further, I can already give it a thumbs down for the purposes of this blog.




It's Your Move!
 

Related Posts:

•  Publisher Profile: Fantasy Flight Games 

Links:

• Lord of the Rings: The Card Game on BGG 

Funagain Games Free Shipping Starting at $70

Some people may have known this, but I just discovered it.  Funagain Games has lowered their free shipping threshold to $70.  This is an excellent online store with a great reputation.

Time to put together an order!

It's Your Move!

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• Game Stores – “Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys"
• Better Selection at Barnes and Noble

 Links:

• Funagain Games

Publisher Profile: Fantasy Flight Games

Wednesday I posted a link to Fantasy Flight’s announcement of some new Star Wars games.  It started me thinking about the personalities of the different game publishers, and what it means for the family and casual gamer.  While it’s not a sure fire way to tell whether or not the game will suit your tastes, it might help.  I thought I might dedicate a few posts to looking some of the game publishers and the common characteristics of their games.

The mere mention of Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) immediately brings one thing to my mind: Awesomeness Factor.  FFG spends a lot of effort on the artwork and production of their games, which is particularly important because FFG publishes a lot of heavily thematic games: games that tell a story as they play out.  A look at the top 100 (out of 53,000) games on BoardGameGeek will show fifteen are FFG titles.  Only Rio Grande Games has more.  Of those fifteen, eleven are fantasy themed and three are science fiction themed.  Many times these games have specific tie-ins (Lord of the Rings, Battlestar Galactica) or are set in a common fictional universe such as Terrinoth, a world that sets the backdrop for the games Runebound, Runewars, Decent and others.

This attention to production plays out in several different ways.  First of all, the artwork is top notch.  Secondly, all of the game components are well made.  Cards, typically a good indicator of the production quality, are always of the highest quality.  Many FFG titles come with miniatures, and though they are a monochrome plastic, many people take the time to paint their minis in keeping with the other artwork.  (I haven’t done this – yet!  I have bought some paints and brushes though.)  The attention to detail and thematic art helps the players feel as though they are in the story.  If that’s an important part of your fun, this company is hard to beat.

Painted Fury of Dracula minis by Kevin Duffy

The downside to FFG titles is that they are often complicated.  The simple reason for this is that stories are complicated.  If you are trying to create a game that feels like you are in the middle of the fight against Sauron, it’s not going to be simple.  After all, Tolkien told the story of the Lord of the Rings in three volumes.  This certainly isn’t true of every single game, but the more thematic (and in FFG’s case, the more popular) games are all pretty involved.  FFG takes a lot of flak about their rule books, and the fact that they aren’t particularly well written.  Personally, I think the level of clarity isn’t as good as some other companies' games, but I do think they are in line given the level of game complexity.   Fortunately, FFG is very good about publishing FAQs and other clarifying material on their website.

Excellent artwork and card construction are an FFG hallmark (Photo by Matti Luostarinen)

A couple of months ago, I would have said the second thing to come to mind about FFG was customer service, which was so far above “top notch” that it redefined the term.  However, their customer service department, which consisted of one person, recently resigned to pursue other opportunities in life.  (Thaad, you will be missed.)  We will see how well they do with her gone.

For the family or casual gamer, I am sorry to say that FFG productions are probably not what you are looking for in gaming.  They do publish games that are more casual, but generally the level of complexity might well be higher than is fun.  The rules take some getting used to.  We recently purchased Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, and I read the rules three times before I started to understand what was going on.  Even then, I went to BoardGameGeek and looked at the FAQ's to finish my education.  It’s a game designed to include solitaire play, so Saturday morning I hope to actually play the game.  I am sure I will end up reading the rules again afterwards, and seeing all of the things I did wrong. 

The practical upshot for the family or casual gamer is this:  make sure you do your homework before buying a Fantasy Flight game.  While the kids will probably get into the story line, think twice.  Read reviews, including comments made on BoardGameGeek.  Feel free to drop me a line and I will answer as best I can.  If you do purchase it, and it is more than you are “game” for, let me know.  Who knows, maybe your close enough that I can come teach it.  Or, you could send it to me to decipher…

It’s Your Move!

Related Posts:

• "Feel the Force"
• Gaming Resources: BoardGameGeek - the Doorway to My Demise

Links:

• Fantasy Flight Games Website

"Feel the Force"

I am not sure these will be family/casual games, but this is just too cool NOT to report.  Fantasy Flight games has just obtained the license for Star Wars products, and has announced two games are in the works:

• Star Wars: X-wing
• Star Wars: The Card Game

While the second is cool, the first sounds awesome!

“I Have An App For That!”

Or at least a game…

When people find out I have nearly 250 games, I get one of two reactions.  If they are under 13, I get, “Really!  Cool!”  In the back of their minds they are trying to figure out if they might be invited over, or how to befriend my son.  If they are older, I get a simple “Oh.”  In their minds, they are trying to figure out if they are dealing with a mature adult, or someone who’s wife dresses him in the morning.  (No, she doesn’t.  Einstein’s wife dressed him in the morning, one could be in worse company.)  Nonetheless, I am not likely to drop the boardgaming hobby, or reduce my number of games.  There are advantage to a large collection and the variety that goes with it.

First of all, I have a game to suit any “thinkiness” level.  There are people who feel that “thinking = work”,  and I have games for those folks.  These games have a fairly uncomplicated set of rules, but interesting decisions to be made.  I am not talking about kids games, though they generally could play them.  At the other end, I have games for the hobby gamer who feels that four hours of concentration leaving you drained of energy is a good afternoon.

I have games that cover a wide variety of themes.  Incan Gold, for instance, is a press your luck game that casts players as archeologists ala Raiders of the Lost Ark.  The further you go in, the more riches you bring out, but the more likely it is you will die.  I have wargames, party games, economic games, sports games, sci-fi games, fantasy games, horror games, double-think games, word games and a game on the 2008 presidential election.  If you have an interest, there is a pretty good chance I have a game that covers it.

I have games for two players, and games for 20 players.  Again, some of these are light and breezy, and some are brain-burners.  (Though I don’t have a twenty player brain-burner.  Even I wouldn’t play that!)  While most games are designed around two or four players, I have made a point of getting games that include solitaire play (it’s hard to find wargame opponents) and can cover a room full of people.

The end result is that I have a game for nearly any situation.  And while your family doesn’t need 250 games, some variety might be good.  You and your spouse might only have two kids, but a six player game might be handy when their dates come over for dinner.  That game for two players may seem unnecessary, but eventually when those two kids marry those dates, you’ll be back to two player games.  The casual gamer might have an even wider variety, with their own significant other, friends, parties and others.  So, when you are looking at buying games, or even cleaning out that closet in the hallway, think a little beyond your normal gaming situation and have some variety on hand.

It’s Your Move!

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• Growing and Maintaining an Ideally Sized Game Collection
• Take this game and shelve it!