Rummy (with a Harry Potter deck of cards)

Our options for board games that we own but haven't played yet are really dwindling by this point. But there are all kinds of games that can be played with a deck of cards! And we have a really cool Gryffindor deck that we've hardly ever used. So Sam decided we should settle on a card game instead of a board game for Game Night tonight. 

It took a little bit to decide, since we needed a game that three people can play and that doesn't have super-complicated rules (both to keep from overwhelming Finn, and because we don't have unlimited time to play), but we didn't want to go with one of the more childish games that we've played before, like Go Fish or Memory. I suggested Hearts or Spades, then remembered that Spades has to be played in pairs (not great for 3 people), and Sam thought Hearts sounded too elaborate. We finally settled on Rummy.

We got off to a bad start, since neither Sam nor I could remember the rules, and we were too impatient to thoroughly Google it, so after a too-brief online review we jumped in. But so many things seemed off. We were discarding before we were drawing, the discard pile wasn't face up . . . it was just all kinds of wrong. 

Halfway through, we paused to read the Wikipedia entry for Rummy and ended up with a clearer idea of how to play. We restarted the game and it went much more smoothly after that--and it was much more fun. 

A quick rundown of the rules: Deal 7 cards to each player. Take the top card from the remaining pile of cards ("stock") and lay it face up; this becomes the discard pile. When it's your turn, choose either the face-up card from the discard pile or the face-down one that's on the stock pile. (You can take multiple cards from the discard pile, but having extra cards not only makes it harder for you to win--it also gives your opponent more points when s/he wins.) At the end of your turn, you must leave one of your cards face-up on the discard pile. The aim is to make two melds (three or four of a kind, or three or four cards in one suit that are in sequence). Whoever makes two melds first wins, and you score points by counting up the value of the cards remaining in your opponents' hands. 

Verdict? We're obviously going to keep this deck of cards (the face card art is so cool! And cards are so versatile) and we'll probably play Rummy again at some point, if not on a regular basis.

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.

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!

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

Articulate!

We seem to have a plethora of describe-the-word guessing games. (Which is not surprising, since we all really enjoy them.) Next up, Articulate! In a way it's easier than Taboo (because there is only one word that is taboo, rather than a list of them) and easier than Funglish (because you're not selecting from a limited number of descriptors that you have to hunt for) but at times it's still surprisingly hard to get someone to guess one word. Hard, but fun! And part of the reason it was so much fun was because it's easier than Funglish or Taboo. Especially when playing with a youngster. He did a better job with this one rather than constantly getting stuck.

Verdict: it might seem silly to have so many similar games. But it also seems silly to get rid of a game that we had so much fun playing. 

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe game

This is a game that looks really great but kind of isn't. It was obviously created only to ride the movie's coattails and make more bank for Disney. 

Getting set up and reading the rules for the first time seems pretty complicated and drawn out, which would be fine if gameplay were worth the effort. But, unless you’re a big fan and you want to read all the details on all the cards and imagine yourself into the story, it turns out that this is just a simple game of luck, racing to the finish line, with no skill or knowledge involved. And if you’re playing with people who aren’t Narnia fans, they tend to skip over all the details on the cards, so in the end it's hardly better than Candyland. Except that in Candyland you can't intentionally sabotage your opponents, unless you cheat and stack the deck.

Verdict: I would probably get rid of this game except for two things: first, I love all things Narnia; second, apparently Finn had a blast playing this game and now wants to play it all the time. 

Cranium Whoonü

This game is a lot like Oh, Really (with ranked choices) but there are some differences: here, there is one Whoozit for each round, and all the other players give the Whoozit a certain number of word cards, aiming to select the words they think the Whoozit will like the most. The Whoozit ranks the cards they received, then turns the cards over one by one (starting with their least favorite) and the other players get points according to how much the Whoozit liked their cards. 

Playing with 3 people, we were supposed to each take four cards and give two to the Whoozit, who then had four cards to rank. We soon found it was more fun (and less of a chance of a tie score) to take six cards and give three each to the Whoozit, who then had six cards to rank.

Verdict: Oh, Really! is a better game, but we do like the tin that Whoonu comes in, and the game tokens. 

Funglish

This is another guessing game, with the twist being that you can only give clues using a limited number of words found on cardboard game tiles. You place the word tiles on a display board that designates the word as Definitely, Kind Of or Not. 

One downside of this game is setup time. Not like it takes hours, but it does take a moment to lay out all the word tiles; you can't just dump out the box and jump right into gameplay. Also, the game is a bit frustrating due to the selection of words (or the lack of the words you really want to use) and because of the difficulty in finding the specific word in the rows of tiles all over the table. However, that frustration is what makes it challenging, and the challenge is what makes it fun! But it was also more fun when we switched to a 5-minute timer instead of sticking with the 3-minute timer that comes with the game.

Verdict: I wouldn't want to play this game very often, but it's fun enough that I want to keep it. Though, come to think of it, if we did play more often maybe it would be less frustrating, since eventually we would learn which words are options, and we would probably get faster at finding them on the table.

Oh, Really!

We all love this game, and always have so much fun playing it. The concept is that when it's your turn, you get 6 cards, each with a word on it. Those words are random objects or concepts, and you have to rank them in terms of most to least importance *to you*. The other players know what's on the cards but can't see your ranking, and they each have to guess what order you'll put them in. The more matches between you and other players, the more points you get. 

Verdict: we really should play this game more often. 

Pictionary Jr

I think everyone knows the concept of Pictionary (you quickly sketch a picture and people try to guess what you're drawing); the Junior version just has easier things or concepts to choose from. I don't ever think about how difficult it is to quickly draw a recognizable object from memory, but a game like this makes it obvious.

Verdict: We all had a lot of fun with this one. It's a keeper.