This Season's Games

Yes, I'm playing Warcraft again, but that's not what this post is about.

As Autumn started, my sons and daughter stopped playing Warcraft. I let my subscription lapse while I found other things to do. In particular, the family played other games. Between November birthdays and Christmas, we had lots of new games. The spouse and I had a great time buying presents at RIW.  The store owner knows us and more importantly, knows the kids we were buying for and made some excellent recommendations.

Here are some winners:

Sushi Go!  is an excellent, fun card game that takes little time. It's the family's favorite card game and we'll often grab it to occupy a few minutes, often while waiting for someone to get ready for something else. We've each experimented with different strategies and I've seen different ones succeed.

Roll For It!  is another quick fun game, this time using dice. It's easy to think of it as something like Yahtzee. It's fast and simple and we've enjoyed it. The family seems to prefer Sushi Go, but YMMV and when we want a quick game of something that's different, this has our recommendation.

As for the big games, I received Ticket To Ride: Europe. My sneaky Son-In-Law excels at being quiet and getting away with building incredible links without anyone noticing until too late! One difference this version has from other the other Ticket to Ride games is the Train Station. Few of us paid much attention to them, but last minute stations allowed me to surprisingly jump up into second place. That won't happen next time, sigh. My family learns from their mistakes.

A big winner is Tokaido. Some of us had experimented with it at a games convention last year and we bought it for Christmas. We've enjoyed it more than a couple times. It's very different and somehow doesn't bring out the competitive edge. Well, unless you're trying the two person rules. My son and I tried it with different starting characters and enjoyed frustrating the other. It really is a beautiful game and usually relaxing.

One final word about electronic games. We had the usual electronic games, but those are almost always played individually. In the past, we've had super Smash Bros Brawls and that won't stop, but one present this year was the Jackbox Party Pack. This is a new family favorite, especially Drawful. Oh my gosh we can crack each other up! This can be hilarious and lead to more family in-jokes that can cause disruptions days later.

Cheers.