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!