I like looking into which boardgames work for taking on family summer vacations. The last time I looked at this question was July 2012. This year we have plans to visit points of interest in southwest Virginia - the Skyline Drive, Lexington, the Natural Bridge, and Monticello. We specifically will be leaving laptops at home. Anticipating some quality family downtime, of course that means boardgames.
Showing posts with label Empyrean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Empyrean. Show all posts
Friday, August 22, 2014
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Multi-player games for two players
Ryan Metzler recently posted a top-ten video of his favorite multi-player games for two players - that is, games made for two or more players but that are his favorites as two-player games. His video is both quick and informative, and I bumped up a number of games on my wishlist as a result.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
What to pack for a vacation
[While on vacation in North Carolina, I scheduled this re-post of my vacation boardgaming selections from last summer. Originally appeared 29 July 2011]
We recently went on a vacation in the West Virginia mountains for some white-water rafting, horseback riding, paintball, and a zip line canopy tour. (ACE Adventures, if you're interested.) In the absence of internet and video games, we anticipated the need for some quality family downtime in the cabin. So of course that means boardgames!
Last time we went, three years ago, we brought Uno and Guillotine, both of which were successful choices. This time we wanted more options without having to bring the entire game closet. So we put together a packing list of games that most of us like. Everybody got to pick at least one game. We wanted to have at least three options each for two, three, four, or five players. At least three of the games had to be accessible to the youngest of us (ten years old). We were mindful of space limitations, but we didn't necessarily cramp our style if there was something we really wanted to bring. Here's the list we came up with:
- Chicago Cribbage
- Incan Gold
- Citadels (note - this link plays music)
- Ace of Aces
- Catch Phrase
- Martian Fluxx
- Travel Scrabble
- Trains Planes and Automobiles
- Empyrean Inc
- Forbidden Island
- Car-Go Othello
- Pirateer
- Uno H2O Splash
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| Whirlpool randomizer from Uno H2O Splash |
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| Sample page from Ace of Aces |
We did play a few conventional games during our down-time in the cabin. Incan Gold played out to an exciting finish, when our ten-year-old left the ruins with the artifact and the lead on the final mission, forcing the rest of us to play out the round until scared away by monsters and leaving him with the win. Our Pirateer session saw a crazy round in which every player touched the treasure at least once before our ten-year-old stole the treasure on a perfect snake-eyes die roll and brought it home to his harbor just a few turns later. My wife beat my 18-year-old son and me in Black Jack (using cards from Chicago Cribbage and money from Incan Gold) when she kept betting all her money to get out of the game but kept winning hand after hand. My wife just destroyed me in a two-player session of Citadels, which is nevertheless still my favorite game right now.
And, oh yes, we were in the mountains of West Virginia, so we did plenty of white-water rafting, horseback riding, paintball, and zip-line canopy touring during the gaps between boardgames.
Six days until I go to World Boardgaming Championships in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Friday, July 29, 2011
What to pack for a vacation
We recently went on a vacation in the West Virginia mountains for some white-water rafting, horseback riding, paintball, and a zip line canopy tour. (ACE Adventures, if you're interested.) In the absence of internet and video games, we anticipated the need for some quality family downtime in the cabin. So of course that means boardgames!
Last time we went, three years ago, we brought Uno and Guillotine, both of which were successful choices. This time we wanted more options without having to bring the entire game closet. So we put together a packing list of games that most of us like. Everybody got to pick at least one game. We wanted to have at least three options each for two, three, four, or five players. At least three of the games had to be accessible to the youngest of us (ten years old). We were mindful of space limitations, but we didn't necessarily cramp our style if there was something we really wanted to bring. Here's the list we came up with:
So what did we actually play? Well, Car-Go Othello got a lot of action during the six-hour drive to West Virginia. The brilliance in the design of this game is that there are no separate parts. The board (a six-by-six simplification of the eight-by-eight original Othello) has an integrated rotating piece for each space on the board. Each space can be rotated to show a green blank, a white piece, or a black piece. The game can be passed back and forth without risk of something falling on the floor of the car and getting lost under the seat (as happened with Travel Scrabble).
In the hot tub at our cabin, Uno H2O Splash got a lot of action. Here is another clever production idea to solve the problem of a challenging game-playing venue. The cards are clear plastic, printed in such a way that one side shows only the card face, the other only the card back. The game plays like the familiar Uno with a water-themed twist: Certain cards have a "splash" icon that, when played, require the next player to take a spin on the "whirlpool," a device rather like a small "Magic 8-ball" with an eight-sided die inside to yield a random outcome that the player must perform.
Another brilliant game design that got some action was the old classic World War I dogfight game Ace of Aces. This game requires neither board nor cards but is played with just a pair of books through which players flip from one cockpit view to another as they try to outmaneuver one another and get into firing position to inflict damage on each other's aircraft. While I was in the Navy, I played this game many times with my chief engineer because it was so well suited to the tight confines of a submarine wardroom. My sons each successfully chased me out of the skies, but in both cases I was able to escape with my badly damaged plane before being shot down.
We did play a few conventional games during our down-time in the cabin. Incan Gold played out to an exciting finish, when our ten-year-old left the ruins with the artifact and the lead on the final mission, forcing the rest of us to play out the round until scared away by monsters and leaving him with the win. Our Pirateer session saw a crazy round in which every player touched the treasure at least once before our ten-year-old stole the treasure on a perfect snake-eyes die roll and brought it home to his harbor just a few turns later. My wife beat my 18-year-old son and me in Black Jack (using cards from Chicago Cribbage and money from Incan Gold) when she kept betting all her money to get out of the game but kept winning hand after hand. My wife just destroyed me in a two-player session of Citadels, which is nevertheless still my favorite game right now.
And, oh yes, we were in the mountains of West Virginia, so we did plenty of white-water rafting, horseback riding, paintball, and zip-line canopy touring during the gaps between boardgames.
Six days until I go to World Boardgaming Championships in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Last time we went, three years ago, we brought Uno and Guillotine, both of which were successful choices. This time we wanted more options without having to bring the entire game closet. So we put together a packing list of games that most of us like. Everybody got to pick at least one game. We wanted to have at least three options each for two, three, four, or five players. At least three of the games had to be accessible to the youngest of us (ten years old). We were mindful of space limitations, but we didn't necessarily cramp our style if there was something we really wanted to bring. Here's the list we came up with:
- Chicago Cribbage
- Incan Gold
- Citadels (note - this link plays music)
- Ace of Aces
- Catch Phrase
- Martian Fluxx
- Travel Scrabble
- Trains Planes and Automobiles
- Empyrean Inc
- Forbidden Island
- Car-Go Othello
- Pirateer
- Uno H2O Splash
|
| Whirlpool randomizer from Uno H2O Splash |
|
| Sample page from Ace of Aces |
We did play a few conventional games during our down-time in the cabin. Incan Gold played out to an exciting finish, when our ten-year-old left the ruins with the artifact and the lead on the final mission, forcing the rest of us to play out the round until scared away by monsters and leaving him with the win. Our Pirateer session saw a crazy round in which every player touched the treasure at least once before our ten-year-old stole the treasure on a perfect snake-eyes die roll and brought it home to his harbor just a few turns later. My wife beat my 18-year-old son and me in Black Jack (using cards from Chicago Cribbage and money from Incan Gold) when she kept betting all her money to get out of the game but kept winning hand after hand. My wife just destroyed me in a two-player session of Citadels, which is nevertheless still my favorite game right now.
And, oh yes, we were in the mountains of West Virginia, so we did plenty of white-water rafting, horseback riding, paintball, and zip-line canopy touring during the gaps between boardgames.
Six days until I go to World Boardgaming Championships in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
My top ten card games
Inspired by Dice Tower Episode 206, Chris Norwood (GamerChris) recently posted his favorite card games. Since inspiration begets inspiration, I thought I'd explore the topic myself.
Before I get into my top ten list, I'll mention that the definition of a "card game" might be ambiguous. I think Alhambra qualifies, for example, because the card play (among four suits or "currencies" of a range of values) drives the purchase of the tiles that are placed for scoring. But I wouldn't include games that just "have cards in them," like Agricola or Clue, because card play isn't the primary aspect of the game (even if they are essential to the mechanics). I'm not sure how to write the definition of a "card game," but I'd be curious to know people's thoughts on which games are close to the frontier between card games and "other games" and how you decide on which side of the boundary a game falls.
My honorable mentions would include:
Chrononauts: A goofy title from Loony Labs that my wife really seems to like. I prefer Martian Fluxx, but this one is also a likeable game.
Incan Gold: I'm always fascinated by the way teenagers play push-your-luck games, so this is a fun one to play with my kids. I never know what they're going to do.
Guillotine: The artwork in this Wizards of the Coast title still makes me chuckle.
Triumvirate: A recent discovery that I am only beginning to appreciate
Mille Bornes is a nostalgic favorite that has fond memories going way back to when I was growing up. It was a family favorite then and still sees the light of day from time to time even now.
So, my top ten card games:
10. Alhambra: I used to dislike this game because I thought it had a "run-away" aspect to it, in which an early leader was hard to catch. That is, until I thought I'd run away with a game in the PrezCon semifinals and then lost somehow in the final scoring. Perhaps I completely misplayed near the end, but I prefer to think that my worthy opponent had a more subtle appreciation for the game and how to score big without leading in many categories.
9. Munchkin: My kids have taken a sudden recent liking to this game, and I like anything I can get my kids to play. Another good one for laughs.
8. Empyrean, Inc. This is a regular go-to game for my wife and me, a surprise hit we received as a gift. We love this game so much that we started to wear the cards out, so I bought a backup copy.
7. Martian Fluxx: A genius little game from Loony Labs. What a crack-up.
6. Down in Flames III: Zero!: A very clever card-play mechanism for air combat
5. Race for the Galaxy: This is a game I want to like more than I do. My wife and I found all the symbols confusing and frustrating, and we haven't played it since. Having said that, I'd still like to try it with a fresh (patient) group and find out why people rave about it. (San Juan is worth mentioning here as something we explored as an alternative to RftG, but I think we found it a little simplistic and perhaps disappointing. We kept thinking, "Why don't we just play Puerto Rico instead?")
4. Battle Line: Great mind-bending game with my wife, except that she always wins. What is up with that?
3. Condottiere: I haven't had a chance to play this nearly as much as I'd like. I fell in love with it in just one session. I wish I could play it a lot more to fully appreciate it.
2. Pacific Typhoon: Very fond of this game with a bigger group of people. I love the historical photographs. Very clever game-play structure that motivates some pretty lively negotiation.
1. 7 Wonders: Currently my favorite game of all. I will play this at the drop of a hat. Will Wonders never cease?
Before I get into my top ten list, I'll mention that the definition of a "card game" might be ambiguous. I think Alhambra qualifies, for example, because the card play (among four suits or "currencies" of a range of values) drives the purchase of the tiles that are placed for scoring. But I wouldn't include games that just "have cards in them," like Agricola or Clue, because card play isn't the primary aspect of the game (even if they are essential to the mechanics). I'm not sure how to write the definition of a "card game," but I'd be curious to know people's thoughts on which games are close to the frontier between card games and "other games" and how you decide on which side of the boundary a game falls.
My honorable mentions would include:
Chrononauts: A goofy title from Loony Labs that my wife really seems to like. I prefer Martian Fluxx, but this one is also a likeable game.
Incan Gold: I'm always fascinated by the way teenagers play push-your-luck games, so this is a fun one to play with my kids. I never know what they're going to do.
Guillotine: The artwork in this Wizards of the Coast title still makes me chuckle.
Triumvirate: A recent discovery that I am only beginning to appreciate
Mille Bornes is a nostalgic favorite that has fond memories going way back to when I was growing up. It was a family favorite then and still sees the light of day from time to time even now.
So, my top ten card games:
10. Alhambra: I used to dislike this game because I thought it had a "run-away" aspect to it, in which an early leader was hard to catch. That is, until I thought I'd run away with a game in the PrezCon semifinals and then lost somehow in the final scoring. Perhaps I completely misplayed near the end, but I prefer to think that my worthy opponent had a more subtle appreciation for the game and how to score big without leading in many categories.
9. Munchkin: My kids have taken a sudden recent liking to this game, and I like anything I can get my kids to play. Another good one for laughs.
8. Empyrean, Inc. This is a regular go-to game for my wife and me, a surprise hit we received as a gift. We love this game so much that we started to wear the cards out, so I bought a backup copy.
7. Martian Fluxx: A genius little game from Loony Labs. What a crack-up.
6. Down in Flames III: Zero!: A very clever card-play mechanism for air combat
 |
| Image courtesy of Rio Grande Games |
4. Battle Line: Great mind-bending game with my wife, except that she always wins. What is up with that?
3. Condottiere: I haven't had a chance to play this nearly as much as I'd like. I fell in love with it in just one session. I wish I could play it a lot more to fully appreciate it.
2. Pacific Typhoon: Very fond of this game with a bigger group of people. I love the historical photographs. Very clever game-play structure that motivates some pretty lively negotiation.
1. 7 Wonders: Currently my favorite game of all. I will play this at the drop of a hat. Will Wonders never cease?
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