Board Games

[Dredd]

Ok you technophiles, step away from your consoles for 5 minutes and remember the good old days of playing a game on the dining room table with the whole family ?

Well I've recently taken a hankering after them.

The Boy is 7 next month and he likes to play board games, but they've been of the shitty kiddy or cartoon/film/tv sho tie in, and have mostly been crap, but he's intelligent enough to be able to play a board game that's more advanced than Hungry Hungry Hippos, Guess Who or Pop Up Pirate.

I like games that aren't the same each time you play them.

So with that in mind, did some research and bought a couple of games in the last week that has improved the family way and has even got me choosing them over the xbox some nights.

Forumites with kids with a bit of smartness about them, take note.

Labyrinth is a board game where the pieces constantly shift with each players move. Each player is dealt a hand of cards with 'treasures" on them. Each treasure can be found on a tile on the Labyrinth game board. You have to navigate the paths on these tiles to the treasure, to move on to the next card etc etc then get back to your starting position to win. The twist being that as each player HAS to move at least one column of tiles on the board one square along at the start of their turn, what was an unobstructed path to your next treasure, now has a few walls in your way.

I play it with my 4 and 6 year old and they are fucking nuts over it. I recommend it to anyone.

The second is Carcassone, a tile laying game that you can also play on the XBOX, as it was an early XBLA release.

The physical tile laying version is much better though, and my smartass 6 year old loves it to bits. It's deeply satisfying as you build your own game map per tile (there are 72 tiles to pick from in the basic game), and it's hugely strategic if you were to play against adults.

The tiles themselves can have road sections, green fields, castle walls, castle courtyards or churches on them and usually a combination of 2. As you lay the tiles, you have to place them in accordance with what is already on the table, and so, tile by tile, you build your game map. No two maps are ever the same

You have 7 wooden followers or "Meeple" and as each tile is laid on the table, you can, should you wish to, place them on a road, castle, field or church. These can be claimed back one the road/castle/church is completed so that you may use them again. There are different points values for each during the game and after play has finished.

As complicated as it sounds, it's fantastically easy to pick up and play, but as with the best games of their type, will take years to master just how savvy and sneaky you can be.

So there you go, those are the board games I'm playing right now, and if you have kids and want to stimulate their minds a bit more, you'll not do any better than with these.

Anyone else got any suggestions ?

I'm even thinking of getting RISK next....where will it stop.

[gothic-chocobo]

The Fluxx series of card games is very good, we play them at juggling conventions some times, and it always goes on for a good while, and is always good fun.

Don't know if maybe too many rule changes for younger kids... but you never know, they'll probably kick your ass at it Dredd!

[Dredd]

I've been looking at a card game called Infiltration which is getting universal praise, but I think it's a bit advanced for the wee man.

A cousin of mine plays Talisman with his girlfriends family, and he said at first you feel a bit of a prick, the game and it's intricacies ooh win you over.

So there's 2 card games forthe future. I'll check out Fluxx too.

And it looks like you and I are the only ones with imagination, eh goth ?

[dave 4373]

Risk is an awesome game Dredd I used to spend hour's playing that. I would love to play board games with the kids but my Daughter prefers doing arty stuff and my Son would rather play with Lego.

[DARKESTLION]

imagination my ****....i used to dm...just paper & pen.....

havent played a board game since.....the ps2......but that Taillsman..if it is the fantasy one...that is a fun game.......

now spacehulk...that was a good game.....Risk as Dave said is fab...what about chess...draughts & backgammon...classics

[Dredd]

The Boy loves a game of draughts, and I was thinking about Chess too - I've never played it so we could learn it together. Fancied getting Othello for us to play too, that might go down well, but I think my next purchase is either gonna be RISK or one of the expansions to Carcassone.

I've never played RISK before (Napoleon on the box always seemed to put me off), but I've heard only good things. Glad to hear it seems as awesome as I think it might be Dave.

How old are your chilblains Dave ? Carcassone is quite creative in the way that you create your own landscape. There's your excuse for getting your daughter involved and instead of using the in game "meeples", get your wee guy to use lego figures.

How's about THAT for playing them at their own game.

Lion, Talisman is a fantasy card game. I checked it out after being told about it, and it's currently in its 4th revision (should you go out and buy it right now) Looked quite good but a bit complicated at the moment. Deffo when he's older.

[dave 4373]

The only thing I would say about Risk Dredd is that it can be quite complicated to begin with, I have played against adults who couldn't get thier heads around it.

Thats a good idea with the other game as well i may have a look at that. And to answer your question my daughter is 7 and my little lad is 6 in two weeks.

[Dredd]

Get them into Carcassone Dave, they'll love it.

Download the trial on the arcade, see for yourself, though the board game itself is a far more experience.

I think the RISK one I was looking at had 3 sets of instructions : ones for amateurs, seasoned Risk players and a 2 player head to head. There was also a nice wooden boxset one based on the 1959 edition I quite fancied, as it looks a lot better and simpler.

[gothic-chocobo]

(21 Jul 2012 10:05 AM)DARKESTLION Wrote:  imagination my ****....i used to dm...just paper & pen.....

Same with me, though I didn't DM, but I probably could have if I had wanted to.

But I've got most of the 3.5 Edition rule books 40 Hard backs (average £20 each) and 14 paper backs (Average £14 each) I've got a couple of folders with character sheets drawn up for Starting characters and mid level characters, I would love to find a group to play with, but I would rather meet up and play it, I think quite a few people play over the net with the Official D&D software but I don't like 4e, Far too dumb'd down and too much like a video game, when you are restricted to what you can and can't do, I read the core rule book and it was shite compared to 3.5, all the characters could do all the things, where as before it was a case of you WAS a rouge or you WAS a fighter, now its you are a fighter but you can have healing surges and you can be sneaky if you want to or cast magic.

3.5 is lots of fun and you don't have to learn the rules, just a few of the basics and the rest you can reference from the book if you want.

my favorite bit is character building, I use it to create character for my stories (though I haven't written anything for a long time!)

I very much recommend D&D (I can send you PDFs for all of the 3.5 books if you are interested) but you need a good session for it, and if you are DM [Dungeon Master] you need to prep a bit for it, make sure you know where the story is going and getting all the encounters ready.

and it gets pricey if you decide to buy lots of the books.

Oh, need epic dice as well.



Or you could use this Dice roller

[DARKESTLION]

d12 d6 d10 d4 dagger/tooth/claw damage d8 longsword d20 used for saving throws etc & more....those were the days....