New games

We are having a bit of a game week here. For Easter, it worked out that we were able to give family gifts of some new games, and we have been enjoying figuring them out. Since they all seem to be winners, I thought I'd tell you about them.

The first is Azul. I admit to buying this one because I just liked the way it looked. Normally, I go to board game sites and read reviews, but I took a chance and picked this up because it was pretty. I've learned the hard way that this is not always the best way to choose a game, but this time it worked out. D. and I figured it out on Easter afternoon. It wasn't too difficult to learn and was a fairly quick game. The goal is to be the first to lay your decorative tiles in a five in a row pattern. It seems simple enough at first, but as you begin to play you quickly realize there is a bit more strategy to it than it seemed. We liked it. Plus, the tiles are fun to play with and they look nice.

The second game is a stand alone version of Ticket to Ride called Rails & Sails. This is not an expansion pack game, meaning you need a previous version's pieces to play it, but is a game all in itself. I love that we don't have to go digging through other games to play it, but the price point is a little steep as a result. (A very good friend had given us some gift certificates which I had made use of as well as a buy one get one half off deal.) We are big Ticket to Ride fans here, and do have at least one expansion pack to the regular game. Up until now, the original is still the one that comes out the most. This one is just as good. I love the world map and the addition of ships. It plays just like the original Ticket to Ride except that you are now building both ship and rail lines. I realized a little took late that one must be careful with those trains because there is a chance you can run out of them before the game is done. Even better, everyone in the family can now play, so I anticipate seeing this out a lot.

The last is an expansion pack to Settlers of Catan, Explorers and Pirates edition. We are also long time fans of Settlers, with J. and I having first played it with friends over 25 years ago in the German (and only) edition with little cheat sheets of what the German words meant. I thought it would be fun to add some variety, so decided we would try this. We realized that first we needed to teach the younger group how to play the basic game, and now they love it. It's a good thing that years ago I bought the set that allows five to six players to play at a time. So now we are working our way through learning this new version. There are four different introductory scenarios that you play to learn to play the entire game. We are catching on and figuring it out. It's a little bit different strategy-wise from the regular settlers game, so it takes a bit of getting used to. D. and I agree that discovering the new land is one of the best aspects of this new version. Right now, though, only four people can play because it didn't occur to me to get the expansion pack for the expansion pack.

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with expansion packs. I love that you can add to a game without having to buy a whole new set. That's great. But it is all so dang fiddly! Trying to keep track of what pieces go with what version is not simple, especially if you want to be able to continue to play the original game. It was bad enough that I was keeping track of the four player pieces and 5-6 player pieces. Now we need to keep track of those plus which pieces of the original game are needed for the expansion game. In some ways, it would just be easier to have all the pieces you need for each game in each box.

I love games and I love playing games with my children, especially now since most of them are old enough to play genuinely interesting games. I watch the younger ones play, and I can't imagine a better way for teaching a whole host of skills... patience as you wait your turn, advance planning, negotiation (especially if you need some bricks and have to convince a sibling to trade you some for your wool), memory, delayed gratification, handling disappointment, being a good loser, and being a good winner. You must also learn to focus your attention because if you are not paying attention to what your opponent is doing, you might not notice that your railroad track was taken. If you don't pay attention to what number was rolled, you might miss collecting your resources.

It's been a great way to spend the week. Dinner might have been a little late each night, but we've had a lot of fun together.

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