Apples to Apples! And another Ticket to Ride ordered...

With £50 of Battlequestgames vouchers in hand from Christmas, we paid a visit to Andy to see any new games we could get. We spotted Apples to Apples which came highly recommended by Andy. To be honest the name of the game and the description on the back did not interest me! I know that a book shouldn't be judged by its cover, so I said I'd check it on 'Geek and come back. Reviews on Geek were very favourable too but again, we couldn't understand why. So we took a gamble and got the game. And we're glad we did!

The basic premise, at the start of the game someone is nominated the Judge. Everyone is dealt 7 red cards. Each card has an event, person, place etc on it. Then a green card is dealt to the table - it has a word on it, an adjective. For example, scary, impossible, maddening, polite etc. In a turn, the other players take a card from their hand that they think matches this green card best and place it face down in the centre of the table. These are mixed up by the judge who then turns them over one by one. The judge then chooses which they think is the best match and whoevers card that was gets a point - depending on the number of players depends on how many points you need you win.

The game is fantastically easy and simple to play, so all ages in our family can play - and it is extremely funny as some of the choices of words are extremely silly when matched. It is a game that can only be played and never described properly as the back of the box and I fail to do here - I don't think humour can ever be fully described, only experienced.

We also ordered Ticket to Ride: Marklin - a German map that uses model trains on the pictures of the cards.

Anitas and Roshnis first play of 7 Wonders

A few days after our first game of 7 Wonders, we got Roshni and Anita to have a game with us. Playing 5 players radically changes the length and excitement of the game - for the better in the most part. Obviously there needed some explanations and pointing out rules, but they picked it up fairly quickly due to the most part the game being based on symbols rather than text - this being I think the key to its greatness as a game. Now we had a situation in play that meant we all had a city to our sides, but also a player we couldn't reach to buy resources off - leading to a few friendly "ahgahga I wish you were over here!" moments.

Also it was during this game we realised in our first game we had made a critical gaming mistake - in my first post of this game I stated that everyone chooses a card simultaneously to build and then reveal one after the the other. In our first game, we were choosing a card one at a time and revealing it, therefore giving an advantage to the last player in the turn as they would know what resources, buildings etc the previous players had played. Oh well, each new game comes with mistakes when learning the rules. :)

The game play speeded up with the resolution of this rule and we very much enjoyed the game.

End of game - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon 

and the Statue of Zeus have been completed

Christmas brings lots of gaming!

With Christmas well and truly here and the days counting down, plus the kids off school and the office closed for the holidays, it's time to start breaking out the games. And firstly we played our latest addition, 7 Wonders. I'd heard some good things about this from Andy at Battlequest and it stood out on the 'Geek website - especially after it jumped to the number 1 spot for family games, which really piqued my interest. I read the reviews and tried to avoid the hype and decided to make the purchase. And I can say I'm glad I did; it's become our favourite game. It's accessible to all because the game relies on the mechanic of matching symbols - "I want to buy this card, it says I need symbols ABC, do I have those in my production list, if not, can I buy them from anyone else to my left or right?" Maya picked up on this very easily being only 7 and was easily able to keep up with myself and Kavita.

The game lasts 18 turns, one for each Age. The cards are dealt out so each player gets 7 each - a clever mechanic ensures there is only 21 cards in an age for 3 players, 28 for 4 players etc etc. Each player then chooses a card to build - be it a building or a resource (stone, bricks, ore etc). In the first Age most resources are free to build. Some buildings are free also and if built, they will allow you to build buildings in other Ages for free rather than having to pay a resource fee. A resource fee is a list of resources you must have or can buy from others to your immediate left and right before you can build that building. The advantage of building a structure is that if can give you victory points at the end of the game, cheaper purchases of materials from your neighbours, better defences from attack etc.

A turn is conducted by everyone choosing a card face down to build and revealing it one after the other. Once the turn is over, the remaining cards in your hand are passed clockwise or counter-clockwise, depending on which on what Age it is. This way your hand is always fresh and not one person can have a Winning Set of cards.

After each Age, there is also a round of Battles between the cities - war breaks out between neighbours - here Military(red) structure cards come into play; in a battle with your neighbour whoever has the most of Crossed Sword symbols wins - if they are equal it is a draw. If you win, you get a Current Age win token (1, 3, 5) and if you loose you get -1.

You can also build parts of your wonder - they are built in 3 stages, each requiring resources and a card from your hand to build - each part also gives an advantage, be it victory points, money, science points etc. The game ends after the last card of the third age (each age lasts 6 turns - a turn is where you use a card then hand on your cards to the next person - the final card is placed in the middle of the table with everyone elses last card.).

When the game ends, the players have to calculate their victory points - this is takes a while as there is a fair number of cards to calculate by games end and differing cards have different ways of getting a victory point.

In conclusion, this can be a quick game or a short game, depending on how well the rules are known, so the more plays you do, the quicker you will find the game. It is immensely enjoyable to play, it has strategy, trading, building, battle without too much heavy thinking on any part - very very enjoyable.

7 Wonders!

Also today I bought 7 Wonders...it looks great! More on it later.

Start of the Christmas play list!

Christmas holidays....so....

Snow...check
School holidays...check
Work holidays...check
Time for some games...check!

It's getting a bit hard to convince everyone to play a game these days, especially Kavita as a) shes a teenager b) she has loads of homework to do and c) it's probably no longer hip and cool to play games with the folks and the younger siblings but we don't care; I much prefer playing these games as a family than in 2's and 3's. Besides it's good to get a distraction from work once in a while that doesn't involve the television or my own personal vice, the Xbox.

Today we got out a selection of games and picked two to play - the new family favourite Niagara and Citadels which we haven't played in a while. Anita won Niagara with some tactical uses of the river flow to collect that all important pink gem right at the edge of the falls and again with Citadels, although Kavita got 8 locations as well in the same round, Anita had all 5 coloured districts and more gold value cards. In all a great little play and I hope we get to play tomorrow. I am hoping we'll get a game of Aquaretto in as we've had it ages but never played it!

Gaming in front of an open fire

An open fire as in cosy, coal and logs and not in the guns n bullets variety. Anyhow we decided to crack open a few games with our backs to the lovely glowing fire. Firstly it was all time family favourite Zooleretto. It was a hard fought game between myself, Roshni and Maya. This time we used the proper "Remove an animal depending on the number of players" - we removed Kangaroos and Flamingoes. This made the game go so much better as we didn't end up with a surplus of animals each at the end. There was still room to make plays for each others spare animals and even run out of animals before we'd completed Pens. The game felt much much better. Roshni won in the end.

Then came a couple of games of Mayas all time favourite, Diamant. This involved all accept Kavita as she was doing homework. Such an easy concept yet devilishly addictive - it requires a combination of luck and nerves to make sure you outwit your opponents yet come out with enough gems to make the effort worthwhile.

Maya won the first round, whilst Anita won the second.

More online gaming - joined Yucata

After a full get together with David during a lunch break last week, he's introduced me to another couple of online gaming websites - one to me that stood out was Yucata - a German game site that supports English. I joined it as it had quite a few games I've wanted to play - including Stone Age and Fearsome Floors :)