Dabble

I was a little leery of playing this game (I think I only played it once before, about thirteen years ago, and it did not end well that time) but it turned out to be fun. It's kind of a cross between Boggle and Scrabble. (Why do so many of my favorite games involve words or spelling??) Everyone gets 20 random letter tiles, and the aim is to use them all to make 5 words that you place on a special display rack. You've got to have one two-letter word, one three-letter word, one four . . . you get the idea. 

We didn't play with all the details in the rules (counting points, etc). We just started with a trial run (not using a timer, which meant it ended up going on for too long), then three timed rounds (stopping a round at five minutes is a much better system)--and we each won one! Although before the end, we discovered that Finn had cheated when he won. (There are a few blank tiles that can be used as any letter, and we thought he had drawn one of these, when in reality he had just turned a lettered tile back-to-front so that it looked blank and fit with the word he wanted to make.) But really--not that I want to encourage my son to be a cheater--I think that made the game more memorable. And it was quite a (slyly) clever idea!

I would not mind Dabbling on a semi-regular basis.

SORRY!

It was a lovely day today: sunny, balmy, just a light breeze. I didn't get to spend much of it outdoors, but then we had the great idea of doing Game Night on the patio!

SORRY! is a game that I played as a kid, but that was a while ago; I had to refresh my memory on the rules. Plus, this version has Fire power and Ice freeze, which didn't exist in the 70s. At first glance, gameplay seemed too complicated; this game is quite similar to Trouble, just not as simple. But in the end, I'm pretty sure the extra complexity made it more fun. Everyone enjoyed this one! It's a bit cutthroat at times, but everyone was a good sport. 

Cranium Cadoo

This game is very similar to the original Cranium game (in terms of sculpting with clay, acting out words, drawing pictures, etc) but it's geared more towards kids (which is good for Finn--he really liked this game--but not as good for Sam, who thought it was too easy). It also can be played more quickly. Even though we missed our usual 5pm start time by quite a lot this evening, we still finished playing by 6pm. 

I don't think this game would be much fun to play in an all-adult group, but it's a great game for an adult or two to play with school-aged kids. It's definitely a keeper! I really love these Cranium games, and luckily Sam didn't hate this one like he hated the original version. 

Fact or Crap

Fact or Crap is a trivia card game that is very similar to the Science or Fiction segment on the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast. Only on the podcast. you're given three (or four) science news items or facts, one of which is fake, and you are challenged to sniff out the fake; in this card game, while each card does have three statements on it, you're just given one fact (or crap) for each turn. (Unless it's a Rush Hour card! In which case you're required to correctly guess for all three items on the card.)

The biggest difference between Fact or Crap and Sci or Fic is that this card game gives no explanations. In this card game, you may learn that kanshi is not the Korean version of haiku, but you would not learn that kanshi, a term which means "Han poetry," is actually a Japanese term for Chinese poetry written by Japanese poets, the earliest collection of which was compiled in the year 751. Or, you may learn that England's Stonehenge predates the Colosseum in Rome, but you would not learn that their difference in age is several thousand years. And you may learn that caterpillars have more muscles than humans, but you would not learn that caterpillars have approximately 3,400 more muscles than humans.

But! It's much easier to play many rounds of Fact or Crap. And you can google the explanations later!

Risk: Halo Wars

This is a looooong game. Like, way worse than Monopoly, even. I mean, just the setup takes forever--Game Night was practically over before we had all the pieces in position. (I'm sure the fact that we are Risk noobs did not help.) Plus, we never found a good (read: fast or efficient) system to count up the number of troops we could deploy at the beginning of each turn, which slowed down gameplay. We ended up leaving the board out on our kitchen table and continued play over four days. (Or was it five??)

Unfortunately, Finn loved this game. I have a feeling I will be forced to play it again in the future. 

Scattergories

Another old familiar favorite, if maybe not quite as old or as familiar or as favorite as Clue. I guess if you have been living under a rock since 1988, you might not know that this is a game with 16 lists of 12 categories each, and a 20-sided die with one letter of the alphabet on each side (mercifully excluding Q, U, V, X, Y and Z). You play by selecting a list (we typically start with List 1), rolling the die to determine what letter to focus on for that round, starting the timer (which has three settings: short, medium and long . . . I totally recommend the long setting!), and then trying to come up with an example for each of the 12 categories on the list before time runs out. This might be easy, except for the fact that your examples must all start with the letter that was rolled on the die. And you're better off if you can come up with original answers (because you only get a point if no one else writes the same thing down), although most of the time if you manage to fill in the blank with anything at all, it's a relief.

Finn found this game difficult, but he still managed to have fun. Actually the adults found it a bit difficult too. Sam said it was a little like being back in school. I'm not sure I ever managed to fill in all 12 blanks. But we all enjoyed it, played 6 rounds (and had more fun with G and W than with O, E L and J) and would definitely play again. My favorites are always the two-pointers (where your answer has two words that start with the correct letter) like Greta Gerwig (category: TV star), William Wallace (category: historical figure), or Where the Wild Things Are (my example for Book) or World War Z (Sam's book). And how did the 12-year-old come up with Water (something in the sky) when the adults came up blank??

Quelf

This was a fun game in a crazy, Cranium-style way. It incorporates elements from all kinds of other games: charades, Scattergories, and even childhood favorites like Name That Tune or Made You Laugh. We learned that avocados are toxic to parrots. Finn told a spooky story, I had to thumb-wrestle him, and Sam wrote a haiku. 

We had fun, and we laughed a lot (except when we were trying not to). I guess that makes this one a keeper too!

By the way, here's that haiku, for posterity's sake: 

My Armpits

Bald and fresh when young

Sour and hairy as I age

You are always mine