Crokinole

Michael has looked at Crokinole boards for many years now and I have never let him buy one because they are about $150-$250! That's just WAY too much $$!! But Mayday Games now mass produces them and sells them for $99-$129, depending on if they're on sale. We, however, came across a discounted one because it was returned by a customer. The description said it had small bumps on the board but that the board was still 100% playable. It was $60. So we gambled and bought it. Boy am I glad we did!! It is an awesome game!! It also makes a nice wall hanging, lol!

*It is for 2-4 players (but some boards aren't set up for 3 players).
*It can play in 5-10 minutes.
*It is a dexterity game where you flick pieces and try to get points with them like darts.
*If your opponent has a piece on the board, you must hit one of their pieces in order to keep your piece on the board.

*If your opponent doesn't have a piece on the board, then you can flick your piece anywhere, but the very middle circle counts as 20 points. The 2nd circle counts as 15, the next 10, and the last one 5. So when you're both done flicking your 12 pieces, you count how many points you have.

Simple. Fast. Fun. 

Alhambra

Alhambra is one of my top 10 games. I think I may have more than 10 top ten games :)

I like this game because it is pretty simple, you don't have to think a ton (which many people we play with like), and I almost always get the longest wall! Lol! We just recently got the City Gates expansion but have not played with it yet.

As a bonus, the instructions come in 6 different languages! Haha!

Game Play:

You start out with a hand of cards that equals 20 or more. There are 4 different colors of cards ranging from 1-9. You also start out with a starting tile, a counter, and a tile reserve board.

You are trying to build your own Alhambra. This is done by buying & building tiles and adding them to your own Alhambra. There will always be 4 buildings to buy at a time. If one of those tiles was a red building, was located in the green market and cost 8, I would have to spend at least 8 worth of green cards from my hand to buy that building. I would then either place it next to any of my tiles in my Alhambra or on my reserve board for future placement. If I played exactly 8 worth of green cards, I get to take another turn (either buying tiles or drawing cards).

You gain points from having the most color of each building tile and for each wall that is connected to your Alhambra. Scoring will happen 3 times; twice secretly in the middle of the game and once at the end. Whoever has the most points at the end wins!!

7 Wonders

I got Michael 7 Wonders for his birthday this year. I really had no idea what it was about but I knew it was one of the games he wanted so I picked it. Now it is one of my top 10 games!

It is actually a fun game (not because I win almost every time, lol) because everyone takes their turn at the same time. This cuts down on waiting times and helps to keep attention spans of all ranges. Seven Wonders plays 2-7 players which makes it even more appealing because most games only play up to 5.

7 Wonders is a game about the 7 wonders of the world, go figure. Each player has a different wonder that can get them special abilities. The point of the game is to build up your wonder. How do you do this?

Game play:

1. Everyone starts with a hand of 7 cards.

2. Everyone picks a card they want to add to their wonder and places it in front of them face down. Then passes their hand to the player on their left or right, depending on what round it is (there are 3 rounds).

3. When everyone has picked their card, they are flipped over and any immediate effects are resolved now.

4. Then everyone picks up their new hand and starts all over. When your hand has 2 cards left, you pick one and discard the other.

After the 3rd round the points are counted. Whoever has the most victory points wins! Here's some examples of how you get points:

*The blue cards only give you points at the end of the game. The upper middle number is your points for the end of the game.
*The green cards are worth 7 if you get all 3 symbols and worth how many of the same symbol you have squared (if you have 3 of the same symbol it would be 3 x 3 = 9).
*Some of the yellow cards get you victory points based on different color cards you (or sometimes your neighbor) have.
*Red cards get you points if you beat your neighbors amount of red cards. The 1st round you would get 1 VP, the 2nd round you would get 3 VP, and the 3rd round you would get 5 VP. If you don't beat your neighbor you get a -1.
*Purple cards only come out in round 3 and get you different VP for all sorts of different things. They are pretty cool cards.

If during game play everything is confusing, it will all make sense once you score. So you'll have to play at least 2 times in a row....and you'll want to!!

**Note: There is more to this game that I am not talking about so you'll have to read the directions.

Ascending Empires

Ascending Empires is a dexterity game for 2-4 players. It's a nice little twist on dexterity games as you can also do different types of actions to take each turn instead of always just flicking a game piece (like Pitchcar or Micro Mutants).

I guess the biggest complaint about this game is the board. The board consists of 9 sections that fit together like a puzzle. Because of this, the pieces are not flush and causes your ships that you flick to stop or get misdirected when it hits a higher spot in the game board. If you think about it before you flick your ships, you can push down on the pieces to help make the board flush. This seems to work just fine.

Ascending Empires plays 2-4. I liked it better with 4 but Michael had no problem with just 2.

Here's what the board looks like set up:

Here's what you can do on your turn - choose 1 of the following:

1. Recruit troops - you can recruit troops onto any planet without having to reveal it (they all start face-down).
2. Use 2 movements - Launch a starship, Land on a planet, & Navigate a ship each count as 1 movement.
3. Create a colony. These count as +1 to the planet's defense.
4. Create a city. These count as +2 to the planet's defense.
5. Create a research station. These help develop technology but count as +0 to a planet's defense.
6. Develop technology. These help get you added bonuses.

Navigating your ships is the dexterity part of this game. It's pretty fun to do and not too difficult (except for the board issue). Ascending Empires plays pretty quickly so you don't get too bored in between turns.

Another part of the game I like is destroying other starships! You have to have 2 of your starships within range of 1 opponent's starship in order to destroy it, which is a little more difficult. Or you can just ram one of your ships into someone else's ship, which also destroys your ship. This seemed to be easier to do.

Happy gaming!

Time's Up

So we went to Borders today because they are closing and everything is 40-60% off. I bought a book and our friend Kristin bought Time's Up. She LOVES that game and we told her they had it so she wanted to get it. Anyway, it made me think of reviewing Time's Up...so....

Time's Up is a party game for 4 or more players. The rules suggest you have 2 person teams but we like playing boys vs. girls.

You start by passing out 40 cards total then dealing each player 2 more cards. Then players discard 2. If you want a shorter game, you can deal out less cards or if you want a longer game you can deal out more cards.

You pick a starting team and they pick a starting player. That player has all of the cards face down. When they timer starts the player flips over the top card and then follows the rules according to the round. Time's Up plays in 3 rounds: 

Round 1: Plays like Catch Phrase. You can give as many clues as you can without saying any part of the title or words on the card. Passing to the next card is not allowed.

Round 2: No more than one word can be used for each clue and passing is allowed. But your teammates can only guess 1 answer for each clue.

Round 3: Only pantomime and sounds are allowed. Your team can only guess 1 answer for each clue and passing is allowed.

Of course you are timed during these rounds. You have 30 seconds to get your team to guess as many clues as they can.

Once the deck runs out, meaning all the cards have been correctly guessed, the round is done. Teams count how many cards they have, each being worth a point, and note it on the provided paper. All the cards get put back into the deck and are shuffled, then the next round starts.

So as you can see it is different than other games because the rules change each round. This makes it a little bit harder and a lot more fun. The ideal thing to do would be to use pantomime from the very beginning to make it a little easier for your team to guess.

Ascension

We had ordered Ascension from coolstuffinc.com in June and hadn't received it until Friday August 12. The way coolstuffinc.com works is they ship your whole order together, but if you ordered something that is a pre-order, they won't ship everything until it the whole order is fulfilled. So anyway, we went to GenCon and learned how to play Ascension for free (oh yeah). And it was amazing!

Ascension is a deck building game (like Dominion) and plays a lot like Dominion and Magic mixed together. Unlike Dominion, there are only 8 cards total for you to look at at any given time. 3 of those cards are permanent cards that never change: Mystic, Heavy Infantry, and the Cultist. The other 5 cards are constantly changing.

Examples of changing cards: Heroes, Constructs and Monsters.

The upper right hand corner is how much the cards cost if they're in a Rune (the triangle) or how much militia it takes to defeat them (if they're in the red).

On your turn, you start with 2 Militia cards and 8 Apprentice cards. You shuffle these and draw 5. This is your starting hand. You make the other 5 your face-down deck. Your deck will start growing as the game goes on.

Game Play:

So you use the abilities on your cards to acquire new cards, put used cards into your discard pile, and then draw your new hand of 5. Some cards will let you gain honor and all monsters you defeat will get you honor. Whoever has the most honor at the end of the game wins.

We have played this game almost every day since we've received it. We love it! It's a pretty quick game for the most part. It plays 2-4 unless you get the expansion then it plays up to 6! We played with 5 yesterday and it played a little slower than 2-4 players, although 2 of the players had never played before. I think I like it best with 3.

One last picture of the whole game board set up before I end:

Telestrations

Heeeeeeere's Heather! lol!

Let's face it, many people we play games with like party games. Party games are fun, but in moderation. So here is one of my favorite party games: Telestrations!

Telestrations is based of off telephone and pictionary. Everyone has their own sketch book and marker. You draw a card and roll a die to pick which idea from that card you have to draw. It plays 4-8.


Example of game play:

I start with the word weightlifter. There are 4 people playing. I write the word weightlifter

then I draw it on page 1 and pass it to the left.

Player 2 looks at page 1, guesses what it is on page 2, then passes it to the left.

Player 3 looks at page 2, draws the guess on page 3, then passes it to the left.

Player 4 looks at page 3 and then guesses what it is on page 4 and passes it to the left.

I now have my own booklet back. I look through the pages and laugh at what people drew and guessed! It gets a lot more interesting with 8 players. This game allows you to get to know people from their guesses/drawings. It's a lot of fun when the guesses don't match the original pictures!

Quarriors!

We just received Quarriors on Thursday. Michael was SO excited for this game because he loves dice games so he read the rules and we played Thursday night. I have to say it was pretty cool!

It is a deck building game (like Dominion or Ascension) but with dice instead of cards. Here's what the game play area looks like:

Each card represents a monster or a spell. You are trying to build up your Quarry by using Quiddity (magic that acts like $) to gain them. Each card has a cost. If you achieve that cost with your Quarry, you add the die to your Quarry. Here's how a turn works:

1. Doesn't pertain to your 1st turn. But every other time you would score your creatures you have in your Ready area. Each creature is worth a certain amount of glory.

2. Draw 6 dice and roll your Active Pool. Place these dice in your Active area. Here is a picture of what the dice look like. They are cool!

3. Ready spells and summon creatures. Each creature has a cost located in the upper left corner of each die. You must pay to ready them. Spells do not cost anything to ready.

4. Attack! This is part of the game and actually makes it quite fun. Unlike other deck building games, there is not much interaction with players so having to attack your friends makes it a little more exciting. As you can see in the picture above, the attack is located in the upper right corner. If I were attacking with a 3, I would kill any creature with a 1 or 2 defense (located in the lower right corner of each die). Each die has different sides. Not all sides contain the creature. Some contain Quiddity. This makes it a little harder to always roll a monster. Each creature card contains a picture of every side of the dice so you can see your odds of rolling a monster each time. Monsters that did not die remain in the ready area. Monsters that did die go into the used side of each players game area.

5. Capture 1 new dice. You can now use your Quiddity you rolled to gain one new creature or spell. This will be moved to the used side of your game area.

6. Move spent dice to used pile. All of your Quiddity, whether used or not, goes into your used pile.

That's how the game works. It is fun and a nice little twist to regular deck building games. I love playing with dice because it makes it harder to get what you want every time. I think that makes games more fun!

Our 1st GenCon Experience

Michael and I went to GenCon Indy, the biggest board game convention in America, I think. It was from August 4-7. We arrived Thursday evening and made it over to the convention to look at our options for the next few days. It was a lot to handle! Things I noticed the 1st day:

*There are some weird people.
*There were a ton of people.
*Every room in the convention center and rooms in the connecting 4 hotels were filled with events!
*There was a ton of games you could play either by buying event tickets or sometimes for free!
*There was an auction to bid on items.
*It didn't smell nearly as bad as I thought it would.

We were able to learn and play Ascension (which is a game we have, but never played), Talisman (which is another game we have but never played), Munchkin Quest and Dungeons & Dragons. We really wanted to play Descent, but it was $6 and 5 hours long for the intro game and they were sold out. Bummer!

So we realized that it is important to look at the list of all events and plan our days out before we get to the convention so that we can buy our tickets the 1st day we get there.

All in all, it was great and we will definitely be going again next year!

Small World

It's a world of slaughter, after all! Haha!

Heather here.

Small World is definitely in my top 10! I love this game, everyone I play with loves this game, and everyone I know loves this game.

Small World has a fantasy theme where you are a certain race and have a special power to accompany it. Every time you play, the combinations will be different. I know you are DYING for me to tell you some of the races and powers so here we go:

Races:

1. Elves basically don't die. That's awesome!
2. Dwarves collect extra coins.
3. Ratmen have sheer number on their side.
4. Giants get to conquer areas for 1 less token.

Special Powers:

1. Seafaring allows you to conquer seas and lakes (which no one else can do).
2. Spirit allows you to keep your declined races on the board, if they don't die.
3. Beserk allows you to roll the die before each conquest.

Now you must be wondering, "What the heck does all this mean?" Good question!

Game Play for 1st Round:

1st: You start by picking the person with the pointiest ears to go 1st (which is always Michael). For your 1st turn you will pick a race and special power combo. Before the start of the game, you set up 5 combos, chosen at random. So on your turn, you pick one. You then will take all tokens that go along with your race and sometimes for your special ability.

2nd: Conquer some regions. You need 2 race tokens to conquer a region + 1 for every other token on that region. You can also redeploy your troops, trying to reinforce your regions.

3rd: Gain your victory points! You get 1 coin for each region your race tokens occupy, then add any extra that your special powers give you.

Game Play for all Other Rounds:

1st: Conquer new regions. (same as above #2)

2nd: Go into decline. You flip all your race tokens over, discarding all but one on each region it was occupying. Discard your special power (unless it states otherwise). If you already have a race in decline, you must discard all those tokens, leaving only one race in decline. That is your turn. So when it's your turn again, you'll pick a new race/special power combo.

Game End:

The game ends after the marker gets to the last round and everyone has had their turn. Count all your victory points and whoever has the most wins!

We do have some expansions to this game that add some cool races and special powers. It's just nice to have even more options and variety.

Why I Like This Game:

This game is fun because you get to kill people, conquer regions, kill yourself and get new characters, and get victory points after each turn. I like having some of the expansions to help keep this game from being monotonous. But even without them, it keeps me entertained because the race and special powers are never combined the same.

I do have to say that Michael and I went and demo'd (spelling?) Small World Underground, which is a new stand-alone game. The races and special powers are just about the same as Small World, but with underground creatures. I don't think I will buy it because it's just too similar. If you like more dungeony things, get Underground, but if you like more bright/outside things, get regular Small World. 

Lost Cities vs Lost Cities

Michael and I have had Lost Cities the 2 player game for a couple years now. We just recently purchased Lost Cities the Board game in an auction on BGG. Then I had an idea to compare and contrast the 2 similar yet different games.

Lost Cities the 2 player game:

Number of Players: 2

Contents of Game: Cards

Time: 20-40 minutes

How to Play: You start with a hand of cards. The deck consists of four different colored cards numbered 0-10. You want to collect the same colors and in assending order place them one by one in front of you. The order of play is play a card then draw a card. The game is played until the last draw card is drawn and then 2 more rounds are played. The score is figured out by totaling the value of the cards played, then subtracting by 20. So you want to have a value more than 20 when all your cards are placed. Whoever has the most points at the end wins!

Lost Cities the board game:

Number of Players: 2-4

Contents of Game: Game board, cards, event tiles, figurines, victory point chips, and artifact chips

Time: 30-60 minutes

How to Play: You lead a team of 5 to search for lost cities. There are 5 different paths they can take and each team member must use a different path. You have a hand of cards with a deck consisting of 5 colors with 0-10 twice in each color. You want to place the cards in ascending order to advance a team member along the path. The least amount of cards you have, the more negative points you'll get. Along the way, you may gain event tiles that give you special bonuses. You play 3 rounds and whoever has the most victory points at the end wins!

Awesome 2 player games

Upon request, here are some FUN 2 player games and a little description of them:

1. Micro Mutants: This can play 2-4 and is a dexterity game. You flick bugs to try and land on opponents bugs to kill them.

2. Hive: This is only a 2 player game. You have a hive of insects that all have different capabilities and you try to surround your opponents queen bee with your color of bugs.

3. Alhambra: This plays 2-5. You purchase tiles to add to your own Alhambra. Some tiles have walls and others don't. Having a long wall gets you extra points as well as having the most of each color tiles.

4. Space Hulk: This is only a 2 player game. The pieces of this game are amazingly cool! One side is the genestealers (alien) and the other are the marines (humans). Each piece can do something different. The genestealers are trying to kill the marines with sheer number and the marines are trying to get out of the scenario unscathed. The only con to this game is....it's expensive! Especially for just a 2 player game, but it is super fun, every piece to the game is intricate and sturdy, and the scenarios always change when you play. This makes for an exciting and different game every time!

5. Alien Frontiers: This can play 2-4. You have ships (dice) and can place them on certain docking stations depending on your roll. See Michael's earlier post of this game for more info.

6. Earth Reborn: This plays 2-4. This game is different every time you play it. There are different scenarios to set up the game board, it reminds me of a puzzle. Every time you advance to a new scenario, a new task or item is added. So the 1st scenario is basic and the 10th scenario is advanced. It is amazing!

7. MagBlast: This plays 2-8 and is a card game. I don't know about 8 players though. That seems like it would be a little long in play, but it's fun with 2-4. You have a command ship surrounded by your fleet of 4 ships. Each player is trying to blow up opponent's command ships to win the game.

8. Lost Cities: There is a card game that plays 2 player only and then a board game that plays 2-4. I will actually be posting about these two games in more detail soon. The basis for the card game is you have 4 different colors of cards numbered 1-10. You are trying to gain these cards to play in ascending order. The least number you use, the more negative points you get.

Stone Age

Heather here....

OK so I have been thinking about my top 10 games and of course I have to add Stone Age to the list!

The basis of this game is that you live in the Stone Age (imagine that) and are trying to master the art of agriculture, process resources, and build huts.

 So each round is broken down into 3 Phases:
1. Play your people on the board (you can place one or more at a time, depending on where it is)
2. Use the actions of your placed people
3. Feed your people

Here's a part that makes it fun! You can almost never place all of your people where you want them to go. Here's how and where you can place them:

*The starting player starts. Every round the starting player changes.
  
Phase 1: They can place one person on the tool maker, 2 people on the hut (the baby makin' hut), 1 player in the field, as many people as they want in the field to hunt for food, up to 7 people in the forest, clay pit, quarry, and river, 1 person per each civilization card and 1 person per building (hut). Once they place one or more people (depending on where they put it) the next player puts one or more people into one place until everyone has placed all of their people.

Phase 2: So the tool maker gets you a tool that starts with a value of 1. This tool helps when you roll dice. If you needed a total of 18 with the dice but only got 17, if you had one tool you could use that to bump you up to 18. Only one person per round can get a tool.

   *The baby makin' hut gets you one extra person. Only one player can place 2 people here per round.

   *The field gets you one extra food for your people. At the end of the round you need to feed your people so having one extra food you would only need 5 food if you had 6 people.

   *The hunting field gets you food. You get one die per person you have in the field. You then total your die roll and divide by 2. That's how many food you get.

   *The forest, clay pit, quarry, and river are similar to the hunting field. There can only be a total of 7 people on each one of these resources. You roll a die for each person you have in that resource and then divide. But the forest is divided by 3, the clay pit divided by 4, the quarry divided by 5 and the river divided by 6. So it's harder to get more of the other resources.

   *Civilization cards get you extra goodies. Those can be extra points, food, or resources.

   *Buildings get you extra points.


Phase 3: Feed your people.

Whoever has the highest score at the end wins!

SO make babies, get tools, get points, get resources, get food. Simple. Easy. Fun.

Roll Through the Ages

Heather here!

So...

I have decided to write about Roll Through the Ages!

Thank you Tippy for being my model.

So basically I like this game because you can play by yourself or up to 4 people. But also because I like the fact that you can talk during this game and not really slow the game playing process down. Sometimes I HATE waiting for people to think about their strategy, even though I'm guilty of doing that also :)

Everyone gets a board, 6 pegs, and 1 sheet of paper. You start off with 3 cities which allows you to roll 3 dice. For every city you have, you get to roll that many dice. Thus there are 7 dice and 7 cities. Looking at the picture above, you notice that the dice give you a variety of options. 

Starting from the left: gain people to build cities or monuments, gain goods to be able to buy developments, add $ to buy developments, gain food to feed your cities, gain goods yet get disasters, and gain either food or people.

The point of the game is to collect the most victory points, which are attained through purchases and building. 

This is a great game to introduce new people into games. It's an easier one to teach and learn but also helps learn mechanics of many other games.

Happy Gaming!

Earth Reborn!!

Michael Here...

So a few weeks ago I ordered Earth Reborn http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/73171/earth-reborn from Tanga. I started noticing that a bunch of retailers were having great deals on the Z-Man Games board game.

I am going to go off on a little tangent...

I have not ever ordered from Tanga before but was excited about their prices!!! I quickly lost my excitement due to a couple of different reasons.

     1. It took Tanga over 2 weeks just to process my order and another half week for it to be picked up from the warehouse and shipped. Then to find out that it shipped from Chicago. LOL!! A 45 minute drive for me to just go and pick it up.

          I am not sure why it takes Tanga so long to process their orders?

     2. Tanga did not put any type of packing materials in the box that they used so I recieved a game that had a dented corner.

I do realize that I am sounding a little anal, but I guess I have become quite spoiled by the customer service of online board game stores like boardsandbits.com and coolstuffinc.com.

O.K.

Back to Earth Reborn...

I am really excited to get a play or two in. I have read a lot of great reviews on the game and have had a chance to read through the rule book. The game has a lot of different mechanics to it but the way that Z-Man organized the rulebook seems to make learning the game really easy.

I am planning to due an in-depth review, including photos, of the game once I have had a couple plays under my belt.

So far this game reminds me of a Space Hulk or Descent. The game play, dice and one-side versus the other mentality seem to resemble many of the adventure or dungeon crawling games.

I am really excited to get together with some gamers, including Heather :), and give it a play!

Update: BGAMES Weekly Board Game Group

Michael here,

So as Heather and I continue to work on getting a weekly board game group going we have come up with the group name and we wanted to get everyone's opinion.

We have decided to call the group BGAME. Board Game Addicts Memorable Entertainment.

What do you think?

I realize this is probably the least important aspect of getting a group up and running but it has been fun.

I am thinking that we will hold the group every Friday night starting at 7pm at our church builiding. There will not be any overhead and lots of space to have tables and open areas. We could even divide up into seperate rooms if we wanted.

There may be some Fridays that the church building will be in use, but for the most part it should be free and clear.

I was also able to get added to the meetup group Chicago Game Lovers as an assistant orginizer so that I can add the gaming group to their calender.

I am thinking about starting a website up to post video reviews and information on the gaming group. I'm not sure if I can afford to do this right now but I have noticed that a lot of other gaming groups seem to utilize websites.

I'm not sure if I have everything covered that I should yet, but I would love feedback from all of you and any reccomondations that you can provide.

Thanks!

For more about board games feel free to visit my BGG homepage at  http://boardgamegeek.com/user/spikemike01

Outdoor Games?

I am going to deviate a little from my usual board game post to talk a about outdoor games.

I don't know about you, but my wife and I have never really been exposed to outdoor games.

With it being summer and the weather nice enough to be outside we were finally given the oppotunity to learn some.

Living in Las Vegas for most of my life has not been condusive to outdoor gaming.

If you are outside in Vegas you are usually driving somewhere or getting into the pool.

I feel that outdoor games are more popular in regions of the country that are usually cooler than 100 degress out, although I could be wrong?

So,

My wife and I were taught how to play Ladder Ball and Corn Hole or Bean Bag Toss.

Both, being quite similar in their scoring and play method.

For those who do not know, both games utilize throwing as the main mechanic. Eye-Hand coordination is important.

Each team is given the oppotunity to throw either a bean bag or a rope, with balls connected to the end, depending on whether you are playing Corn Hole or Ladder Ball. You gain points depending on how the object lands. Your team wants to reach 21 points first without going over. If you go over you lose points equal to the amount over 21. For example, if your team has 19 points and you score 3, you would then have a score of 18.

Although having good eye-hand coordination is important in these games I found them to be entertaining and simple. I feel that they are great party/picnic type games.

Great for when you have family over that have children who are not condusive to board gaming.

I found both of these to be enjoyable and thus spurred my interest in posting about them. My main interest is in knowing form you,

What other outdoor games are their that my wife an I have not been introduced to?

What Do You Like to Read?

My wife laughs at me sometimes.

Well, she laughs at me for many reasons, but she laughs at me sometimes about my nightime reading.

I love to read.

Some of my favorite authors are Brandon Mull, Terry Brooks, David Mccullough, Christopher Paolini, and many, many others. As you can see I love to read science fiction, non-fiction, and youth novels.

So far not really a reason to be laughed at.

So...my dirty little secret.... I love to read through board game rule books at night when I am going to bed.

I do not think that this is weird. I'm guessing that a lot of gamers do this when going to bed?

I love reading rulebooks. I find it fun and interesting. Plus, I'm a slow learner and it helps me to read through a rulebook a couple of times before the first gameplay.

My wife does not agree with me.

She is fine with reading through a rulebook and learning gameplay but she does not find it a fun and joyful thing to do.

For me, it is interesting to learn of game mechanics and play. I love to find out what makes this game different from the last. I know that this can be found out by playing the game, but I do not get to play games every night so I read rulebooks :)

What are some of your favorite genres, autors, and things to read? 

Bringing Friends into the Fold?

Michael here...

I love to play board games. I am lucky to have a wife that also enjoys playing. Im not sure if she is quite as passionate as I am but nonetheless, she is willing to try any game :)

Throughout my gaming experiences I have tried to learn what draws new gamers further into the board gaming world. Depending on the games that they have alreay played, and what they say they like, I might start them out with a party game like Time's Up or Dixit. Sometimes I will go straight to a board game like Ticket To Ride or Stone Age. These games have simple mechanics and usually draw people in.

I find that sometimes I get stuck having to force my friends to play other games. At this point I usually try games like Dominion or Smallworld. Each being fun and, I think, easy to learn. Friends will either like these games or will want to go back to what they are more comfortable with.

Today I made the mistake of introducing some "Newby" friends to Munchkin and it did not go over very well. :(


We were not through the first round before I had mutiple "I don't want to play" and "I don't get it" statements.

Then the "I don't want to curse you, that's mean". LOL!

To say the least we made it one round before I stopped the game due to the lack of enthusiasm. This set of friends have played; Dominion, Pitchcar, Stone Age, and Time's Up. I do not think that they were fully prepared for the backstabbing nature of Munchkin nor the crazy nuance of the game.

Sometimes I find it difficult to know what is the best way to get friends into the gaming fold. Is there one? Are there those that no matter what I do they will not go beyond Ticket to Ride or Time's Up?

How do I help my friends understand that there is a whole world of fun games out there?

The funny thing is that they say they love games. I really believe they love party games, but I would not say they are board game lovers.

To say the least I really do appreciate the times that they have played different games with us. I just want more! Lol!

Please... advice from fellow gamers.