Revising my collection...

A few years ago, in my initial rush of enthusiasm, I managed to collect a good number of games that I was keen to play. These games included war games, fantasy games, sci-fi, and a few other games that would provide an epic story to tell. Here I am three years later, and some of them still have the shrink wrap on them.

It's because I am a geek.

It turns out that the same personality trait that provides all of the games for my gaming group is the same trait that makes me interested in fantasy, sci-fi and epic-length games - the genres that the rest of my group is not interested in playing. So, I am changing my collection. After all, a game that no one will play really doesn't have much value.

I have traded away most of my war games for very light war games. My boy loves fantasy, and I have conceded that he will probably take most of those with him to college. Some of my two player games will just have to go.

My wife tends to prefer abstract games, and I am okay with that. I like abstracts, some of them very strongly, even if it isn't my favorite genre. Our gaming group likes European style games, and there are a lot of fantastic games that I enjoy from that vein too. I have bought a few solitaire war games to satisfy that particular itch.

My dad always said, "To have a friend you have to be a friend", and that has always stuck with me. And so I salute those great games I no longer own, even as I go join my friends a game a can all enjoy.

It's your move!

  





Related Posts

• Buying binge!
• Growing and Maintaining an Ideally Sized Game Collection
• Expending My Thoughts About Expanding My Games… 
• Take this game and shelve it! 
• Happy Birthday to Me! Happy Birthday to Me!

Publisher Profile: Hasbro, Part I -- Mass Market Brands

My father used to tell a joke, “Where does the 800 lb. gorilla sit?  Anywhere he wants!”  This is Hasbro, who could have such a positive influence on the boardgaming hobby with all of their size and money.  We all know their games, since we grew up with them as kids: Monopoly, Clue, Risk, Ants in the Pants – the list goes on and on.  Some of these had, and may still have, Parker Brothers logos, but that label is owned by Hasbro.  So are Milton Bradley, Wizards of the Coast and Avalon Hill.  Wizards of the Coast and Avalon Hill have always had their niche, so I will specifically talk about the mass market divisions in this post.

First, I have to say that Hasbro has singlehandedly given boardgaming the reputation in the United States as a children’s activity.  In that way, the company has caused a lot of harm: maybe more than can be undone in my lifetime.  This is primarily due to the large number of sub-par kid’s games they have produced.  There have also been a lot of cheesy movie tie-ins, which tend to bring down the reputation of boardgaming.

Image by Bruce LeCompte

Prior to 1998, Hasbro had a few truly great games, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer (based on the TV show), Survive! and the immortal game Scrabble.  They were lost in a sea of drivel, however.  In 1998, Hasbro purchased the Avalon Hill brand, and bought the company Wizards of the Coast a year later.  This seems to mark the beginning of Hasbro taking a more serious approach to games.  Several of the Star Wars games are excellent (just try to find a copy of Star Wars: Queen’s Gambit for under $150.00 USD).  Furthermore, Hasbro has taken Risk and turned into several very successful, first-rate games (including Star Wars editions and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy Edition), some of which were published under the Avalon Hill brand.  The revised version of Risk is an excellent game.  Plus, while I haven’t played it, I have heard great things about Sorry! Sliders.

Much of this is due to two specific designers, Rob Daviau and Craig Van Ness.  Many of these better titles are due to the efforts of one of these two gentlemen, sometimes working in concert.  A list of currently in-print, superb games which carries one or both of their names would include:

• Heroscape – arguably their all-time biggest hit.  There are four different master sets, and lots of expansions.  Each set or expansion can be played interchangeably with the others.  (Okay, technically this is now out-of-print, but you can still find sets in stores, so I am counting it!)
• Battleship Galaxies – This game has an extremely high Awesomeness Factor index.  Awesomeness just oozes out of the box.  Seriously, I might have to buy this game just because of how cool it is.  I don’t need to know how it plays (which reputedly is equally awesomely).  I just want the miniature space ships!
• Sorry! Sliders – Again, I don’t know much about this one, since my son would probably look down on it, and so we haven’t played it. 
• Risk (Revised Edition) – This is a must-own game for me.  Risk with all of the fun in less than half the time.
• Clue: Discover the Secrets – I have never played it, and only know that it has a good reputation.

Promotional Image from Amazon

From a practical perspective, knowing how good a mass-market Hasbro game is (including Parker Brothers or Milton Bradley) will not be easy to determine.  I still get teased by my wife for passing up on Star Wars: Queen’s Gambit and Star Wars: Epic Duels back in the day.  These are both Daviau/Van Ness designs also.  However, since Hasbro doesn’t list designers on their games, it will take a little research to determine who worked on the design of any given game.  In the end, that’s going to be the answer for any Hasbro game: research.  That is, unless it has a movie tie in and isn’t too expensive.  If that’s the case, buy one to try – odds are good you will eventually be able to sell it on eBay for $150.00 if nothing else.

It’s Your Move

  

Related Posts:

• Mass Market Myth – Scrabble (it’s really not about vocabulary)
• Mass Market – Monopoly 
• Mass Market Mêlée – Risk: Revised Edition 
• Never Underestimate the Awesomeness Factor

Links:

• Hasbro official website

Getting back to it...

I probably owe an apology to anyone who regularly looks for my posts.  Life has been crazy, as I have mentioned, and I have had no time for gaming.  This has resulted in a combination of writer's block and tiredness for the past several weeks.  Another issue with these circumstances is that I can find the time (thanks to the wonders of smartphone technology) to troll eBay for games.  As a result, my gaming purchases have gone up a little.

So now I am getting back to playing.

I am getting ready for this Sunday's monthly Game Day.  Our gaming group will be playing one or more of the following games, all with a Halloween theme.  Which games will depend on how many people show up, and what they pick:

• Fury of Dracula
• Fearsome Floors
• Coach Ride to the Devil's Castle
• Spooks

We have only played the first one, which is fairly complex; I have read the rules of all but Coach Ride to the Devils' Castle. I have that in my briefcase, and will read it at some point.

The next thing coming up is the school chess club, which starts again in a few weeks -- November 2nd to be exact.  I am a little scared, over 50 flyers have been taken by students, and I have no idea how many of them will show up.  This is probably the year to start taking dues.  Just a few dollars from each would help with some equipment needs, and it will help cut down on those kids who want to just wander in.

I am having a lively discussion over on BoardGameGeek about starting a chess club.  Another BGG member is taking up the task with his wife, and asked for advise.  One German gentlemen and I have a friendly debate going on over including chess variants and chess clocks.  He favors including both; I would exclude both.  Nonetheless, as Shakespeare says, "The play's the thing."  What ultimately matters is that the children learn to play the game!

Which leads me to ask if it's time that YOU get back to it.  Clearly, you have some level of interest in games, or else you wouldn't still be reading this.  There is a school out there where the kids are itching for someone to teach them chess.  The benefits are so clear for those kids who do play.  Is it your time to "get back to it"?

It's Your Move!

Related Posts:

• 3 Reasons Why Your Child Should Play Chess
• The Gambit – Is Chess Good for Schools? 
• Chess and the End of the School Year
• I am asking too much...

Publisher Profile: Z-man Games

Some of the other publishers I have highlighted have distinct characteristics such as producing games with sky-high Awesomeness, or concentrating on family games.  Then we have Z-man games, who are the buffet line of games.  When I say this, I am not suggesting they produce lower quality games for the masses (Hasbro can keep that crown), but rather that they produce a variety of games for different tastes.  Perhaps there's a better analogy, but the makers of games like Wasabi! and Wok Star need a restaurant reference.

Z-man got it's start publishing card games, particularly those related to B-movie horror themes.  They still continue to produce many card games, and some of their most highly rated games feature a lot of card play tied to a board.  1960: The Making of a President and Campaign Manager 2008 come to mind.  Both are games based in American politics and are also share game designers. 

One of the most popular and highly rated family games, Pandemic, is a Z-man publication.  This game also features a lot of card play, but is a cooperative game rather than a competitive one.  Since I have previously reviewed it, I won't go into a lot of detail here.  Suffice it to say that it is a good representative game for the company, with strong game play, reasonable play times, and quality European style pieces, all packed in a very sturdy box.  That sounds blasé, but the level of game play is the key.  Pandemic is within my top five games of all time, and I have played it 19 times so far this year -- exactly half the number of times I have played it. Nearly all of my plays have been in our gaming group, so it isn't just me.

Image by Benjamin Pachner

There are other great games produced by Z-man also:  Tales of the Arabian Nights, Fairy Tale and more.  The most notable is Agricola, which spent quite a while as the Number 1 ranked game on BoardGameGeek.  This is where the cautionary word to the casual gamer comes in; Agricola is not a casual or family game.  This is particularly true for families with pre-teeanage children.  This leads us back to one of the defining characteristics of Z-man -- their lack of defining characteristics.  Z-man produces good games, and the man behind it all, Zev Shlasinger, is less concerned about the genre.  To finish my cautionary thought: the Z-man label is a harbinger of an excellent game, but not necessarily of a good family or casual game.  Many of their games are targeted at the hobby gamer.  Ask at your local game store to make sure the game you are considering is a good match.

Image by Tim Fowers

As for Wasabi! and Wok Star, I don't own them but really want to play them.  Both are about preparing Asian food, but one is competitive and one is cooperative.  I think they might appeal to my wife, who loves to cook.  (I love to eat; it's a good match!)  I can't personally say how good these two games are for families, but that seems to be the consensus on BoardGameGeek.  Wok Star is currently out of print, and is supposed to be reprinted.  I hope so, since the asking price for a used copy seems to be around $100.00 USD!

It's Your Move!

Related Posts:

• Saving Humankind from Death and Disease: Pandemic 
• Happy Birthday to Me! Happy Birthday to Me!

Links:

• Z-man Games official website

Three Years of Gaming!

I think the schedule is back to normal – at least for the moment.  No, that’s not it either.  In reality, I have adjusted to a new “normal”, which will last until the end of October.   At that point, football will end and “normal” will be redefined again!

This past weekend saw the three year anniversary of our gaming groups formation.  When we started in September 2008, it was just three of us:  Geo (my wife’s brother who I am close to) and Spud (one of our neighbors).  Others were invited, but didn’t come but once or twice.  Tom, our next door neighbor, started coming shortly thereafter, though he tends to come only during certain parts of the year.  As time went on, the group has expanded and contracted, but Geo and your truly have made every session.  There was even a session where it was just the two of us.  Now there are four regulars, and a few that come when they can.  The time we had twelve was a little crazy, but my wife, Kay, played so that she could help teach.  She’s better at that than I am anyway!

So it was fitting that Geo spent the night after my son’s football game Saturday.  (They won and are 4-0!)  The rest of the family was out of town, so it was just the two of us.  After watching Notre Dame dismantle Michigan State’s running game, we had dinner, finally breaking out a few games when we probably should have been thinking about going to bed.

First, we played The Kingdoms of the Crusaders, which I received a review copy of, and which will get a full review shortly.

Next we played Risk: Star Wars; The Clone Wars Edition.  This game is out of print, but can easily be found on eBay for a reasonable price.  (I would love to have the Original Trilogy Edition, covering Episodes IV-VI, but those are going for over $75 USD).  This is game that I really enjoy, and certainly does feel like the movies.  With Risk being the core game, the rules are familiar to many, which allows everybody to start playing quickly.

Image by Amazon.com

Next, we played Triumvirate, a two player trick taking game.  We walked away from that figuring it needed more play.  However, since it was 2:00am, we decided we were too foggy to really grasp any strategy.

Our gaming session started at the normal 2:00pm on Sunday, with two games of 7 Wonders, then a game of Ticket to Ride.  We had new players at each game, so things took longer than usual.  Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun.  These fall sessions are just about the only gaming I get right now, so having the extra time before was great!

Over the next couple of weeks I will also be talking about a new adventure in gaming.  I am going to start painting my figurines for some games.  Specifically, we are coming up on that time of year that calls out for Fury of Dracula, and I need to paint my miniatures to add to the Awesomeness Factor.  I am one of those rare people that can paint as well with my feet as with my hands – which is to say I can’t paint at all!  Hopefully, when I am done they look as good as these:

Image by Jacob Stormo

 

I will post pictures of mine when I get that far, with tales of how I am doing.  For now,

It’s Your Move!

Chess is now a Boy Scout Merit Badge

This just has to be announced.  Boy Scouts of America has just approved a merit badge for chess.  I guess I will add "merit badge councilor" to my titles "school chess coach" and "troop leader"!

That time of year again...

It's that time of year when things get so busy that gaming just seems to fall by the wayside.  Not that I want it to, but our family life is dominated by one thing - American football.  No, I am not one of those football fanatics who watches constantly.  (I am only a Notre Dame fanatic.  There was a lot of positive in last week's loss, but I digress...)  However, our 8th grade son plays on a team, and with practices four nights a week, we are running him around a lot.  Furthermore, with homework added on to that, I have lost my primary gaming partner.

This past weekend was a holiday weekend here in the US - Labor Day.  There certainly was labor (which seems to defeat the whole purpose of a holiday!), but there was picnicking and fishing too.  As a result, I missed my normal Tuesday post.  This day-late and dollar-short post will have to do.

Onirim (image by Shadi Torbey)

I did manage to play more games of Onirim this past weekend.  This is a solitaire card game (though it does have 2-player cooperative rules) with a dream-walking theme.  It sounds strange, and it took a couple of games to get into it, but there are definitely some interesting decisions to be made.  I'd have to say it has grown on me, and is my favorite solitaire game at the moment.  While it isn't played with standard playing cards, the game isn't too expensive.  Z-man Games makes a lot of good card games, and this is one.

(For those of you who are curious, Daniel's football team is 2-0.  They beat their rivals 15-14 in a nail-biter, and won last night 33-0.  If they win Saturday they will have had the highest number of wins they have had in four years.  You do the math - they haven't been good in prior years!)

It's Your Move!

Carcassonne

Earlier this week I discussed Rio Grande Games.  At the end, I mentioned Carcassonne, which is a “must have” game for everyone.  Realizing I have never reviewed it, I thought I would correct that problem today.

(Image by Big Woo)

My wife would tell you that Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride are the two games that everyone joining my gaming group should play before playing any deeper games.  They show new players who are generally used to Monopoly, Risk and probably their kids’ roll-and-move games something entirely different; games that have a lot more going on and are incredibly fun.  I am not so exclusive.  However, Carcassonne scratches the strategic itch in a way that many games do not.  There are a lot of reasons why you should by this game.

(Just to clarify – I am not one of those that believes a game must be strategic to be a good game.  Many games, like Bananagrams for example, are primarily tactical, and are very fun.  However, there are times when I want to play something more strategic.  Hmm, maybe I need to talk a little bit about strategy vs. tactics in an upcoming blog.)

The first gotcha for new players is the fact that there is no board, just a blank table and a bag of tiles.  The board is built during the course of the game!  On their turn, each player lays a square tile with several possible terrain features on it: city, monastery, road or field.  Tiles must be place so that they touch a tile already  on the table, and each side must match the features of adjacent tiles.  The player may then place a token (meeple) on the tile just placed to claim it.  Once enough tiles have been place to build a complete road, monastery or city, they score points.  Farms are scored at the end of the game.  As you might guess, with a somewhat abstract theme and both ongoing and end game scoring, this game classifies as a “Euro”, a European style game.

 

Carcassonne in play  (Image by Aaron Tubb)

 First of all, Carcassonne plays 2-5 people, and six with the Inns and Cathedrals expansion.  Many games claim to do this, but few actually are a good game with the full range of players listed on the box.  I’ve talked about this before, so I won’t dwell on it.  Suffice it to say that Carcassonne works really well for 2-4 players, and is still a good game with 5 or 6.  Regardless of whether it’s two people alone after the kids are in bed, two couples getting together, or a fairly large family, this game will work for any number.

For the amount of strategy in this game, it is accessible to new players.  This game is easy to teach, and is one of those uncommon games that can be taught in stages.   Cover the basics of tile placement in a few minutes, then after a turn or two explain in more detail how scoring is done.  As the game rolls along, the game explainer can show how players interact in the game.  At the same time, there are many experienced hobby gamers that are completely willing to play this – including me!  Once again, it covers the range of players.

Lastly, this game accomplishes all of this in an hour.  With some experience, the games will move quickly.  A few years ago and another job ago, I played at lunch with a couple of others.  Once everyone knew the game, it was not uncommon to get in two games within our hour lunch.  The three of us even managed to play three games in an hour one day!  The game length is just about perfect for any evening.

This is the one expansion to get! (Image: Surya Van Lierde)

Carcassonne has a lot of expansions.  A lot.  Some are very good, and some are downright silly.  Personally, I think there is only one worth getting:  Inns and Cathedrals.  This expansion adds one more player (the sixth player) and several more tiles.  Two tiles have cathedrals on them, and several have inns on them.  Cathedrals make cities high risk, high reward propositions; inns do the same for roads.  They can be played for yourself to increase your score, or played late in the game to foul up your opponents big plan.  Of course, it may not work out as planned!  I would leave the other expansions alone.  While Carcassonne can be bought in a “Big Box” version that includes several expansions, I would save my money (and my shelf space) and just by the base game and Inns and Cathedrals.

I guess the biggest endorsement of this game is that we own 3 copies.  Yes, I said three.  Three copies of Inns and Cathedrals, too.  One set is at home (and it has a few more expansions which largely just sit in the box).  One set is at my wife’s place of work, and one is at her mother’s house out of town.  This is a game that we all enjoy, which can be a trick in our household!  It hasn’t made it to the discount stores yet, but I have seen it at Barnes and Noble as well as game stores. 

It’s Your Move!

Related Posts:   

• Publisher Profile: Rio Grande Games 
• Games of Grief: How many players does this support?
• Expending My Thoughts About Expanding My Games… 
• Bait Games – Getting your family and friends to play 

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