Well, my brother Tony (the man who indoctrinated me into gaming as a wee little child) was in town this weekend.  His two sons, Alex (age 9) and Ben (age 5), were also with him, and are similarly doomed to a life of blissful gaming geekdom.  Tony and I used to have to wait until the boys were asleep or otherwise occupied to steal away a few moments for gaming, but now we just have to find games that we can play with the young fellers, which is not too hard at all.  So, here's my report of all the games we played!

I didn't know exactly what the boys would want to play or how much time Tony and I would have to play alone, so I took along an armful of games (Warrior Knights, Arkadia, Hansa, To Court the King, Diamant, Hive, Ticket to Ride, and the TtR 1910 expansion).  Plus, Gwen and I hadn't given Ben his birthday present yet, so I took that along as well (which was a game, of course).  When I got to my Mom and Dad's house (where Tony and the boys were staying), Ben tore into the present like a monkey on a cupcake*, finding that I had given him Gulo Gulo.  At first this didn't excite him too much, but later on it did pretty well.

While Tony read the rules for Gulo Gulo, I started off by playing a couple of games of Marvel Heroes Zingo with Ben and Alex.  Zingo is a simple little bingo variant using ThinkFun's little slider do-jobby to spit out two tiles that you have to grab as quick as you can to fill in spots on your card.  It uses only pictures, so even kids that can't read can play it pretty well.  Instead of just playing to get three in a row, the boys usually play to completely fill a card, which works well.

 Now, my brother has been a huge Dr. Who fanatic forever, and Ben is already beginning to follow in his footsteps.  In fact, he had a Dr. Who themed birthday party, in which he had (what I would assume is) the only 5-year-old birthday cake shaped like a Dalek ever!  (I'll try to get Tony to send me the picture so I can post it here, cause it was absolutely awesome!)  So anyway, what this also means is that Tony has resurrected the Doctor Who CCG from the grave it so richly deserved to try and play it with the boys.  You see, this game is the only game that I have ever given a rating of "1" to over at BGG.  It is boring, stupid, and completely misses the wonderful Dr. Who feel and theme that could have really been awesome.  Despite all that, Tony brought it back with slightly tweaked rules and some custom cards (see below)... and Ben and Alex just love it!  So that was the next game on our agenda... woo.  hoo.

As it went, however, I found that playing the game with a 5-year old was apparently what the game designers were going for, because it was right on Ben's level and we had a good time.  Well, I was having a good time until he used a glitter gun to kill all the robots (not just Cybermen, but all robots... including my Yeti!) in the present.  Anyhow, through a little "creative scorekeeping"  (somthing else that Tony taught me), Ben kicked my butt and now rules the timestream with an iron (yet soewhat sticky) fist!

After that, Tony taught us all how to play Gulo Gulo.  We played two games, both of which Ben won with absolutely no cheating or us going "easy" on him.  I really like this game, mainly because it is so well balanced between all ages.  You see, in order to move ahead on the "yard" tiles, you have to pluck wooden eggs out of the nest without triggering the "egg alarm".  The fact that kids have smaller fingers gives them a powerful advantage that is at least equal to the improved manual dexterity that older people have.  So unlike other "children's games" that rely on blind luck to give kids a chance to win, kids can do well at Gulo Gulo because they are actually better at the skill than whoever they are playing with.  

Next, we pulled out Ticket to Ride, which Tony and I played with Alex.  Now, Alex is a bit of a shark when it comes to TtR, having played countless times in person and online.  We played the "mega" game from the 1910 expansion, including all the ticket cards and both special reward cards.  I was doing pretty well early, but Tony and I kept getting in each other's way, so I got screwed up in connecting to three of my destinations.  Alex, meanwhile, built several long-distance routes and then got lucky drawing extra ticket cards in the last couple of rounds, winning the game in impressive style.

After that, we pulled out another game that Tony had picked up years and years ago, called Cardmaster: Adventure Design Deck, which was designed by (of all people) Richard Borg.  It's really just a stripped-down, DM-less Dungeons & Dragons combat game with a pretty neat modular board.  You draw new rooms from one deck, monsters, from another, and treausures from a third.  Basically, you can keep exploring and fighting monters until you either all die or accomplish whatever goal you have for the dungeon crawl.  This time, we were going until we all had two treasures, mainly so the game wouldn't take forever.  Tony and I were warriors, Alex was a wizard, and Ben was... Captain Atom (which was another of Tony's personal game additions).  It is a fun and simple little game, and we had a lot of fun.   

Next, I pulled out Diamant and taught Tony and Alex to play.  We played a couple of games, and Gwen actually got there to join us for the second.  Sure, the game is about 25% strategy (roughly knowing the odds) and 75% luck, but it's a heck of a lot of fun, and Alex really liked it a lot.  After being a little too conservative in the first game, Alex basically decided to be the last person to pull out every other round after that.  And since that's probably the best way to play, he won two games later in the evening.

We then all went out for a big family dinner, and when we got back played another game of Gulo Gulo (which Alex won this time).  Then,  Alex and I played Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, which was only the second time I'd played it.  I focused a lot on building the mosaics (so I could create a safe haven and get rid of some corruption), and ended up winning by a pretty large margin.  Overall, though, and as pretty as the game is, I just don't care for it too much.  I feel like I'm always shuffling through my cards too much, trying to figure out what I can build and what else I need to get to build it, and then I'm always bumping up against the 10-card limit and having to take corruption to discard cards.  I don't know, maybe I just need to play it more to get more comfortable with the different combinations needed to build stuff, but right now it's just not flating my boat.

Tony and Ben were playing with some of the new Star Wars Pocketmodel constructible strategy game figures.  We then played one last game of Diamant and the boys had to go off to bed.  

Once they were (mostly) secure in bed, Tony and I had a little time for some "adult" gaming.  I have never managed to get Hansa to the table, but had heard that it was pretty short while still having a good sense of strategy and depth, so I pulled it out and taught him how to play.  The first game was very balanced, and Tony ended up winning by 6 points (2 extra on trade goods and 4 extra for having an extra monopoly city).  We played again, and Tony managed to win by a pretty good margin.  I like the game and will keep trying to play it in the future (particularly with more people to see what that's like), but my first impression is that it's a little dry and maybe a touch boring.  We'll see, however...

Finally, we finished up the evening with a game of Hive, which is probably my favorite 2-player abstract game right now.  Tony had played before (though not with the cool new bakelite tiles), so I just refreshed him on the rules and got into it.  We had a really good, intense game, which lasted longer than pretty much any other game of Hive I've ever played.  We were both being pretty aggressive early until he realized that I was ahead, so he then switched to a more defensive strategy, trying to prevent me from getting my last few needed pieces into position for the win.  That drug things out for a while, but I finally managed to pin a few of his pieces and get my last grasshopper into the spot I needed to claim victory.

Overall, I had a fantastic day of gaming.  Yeah, Tony and I would have liked to try out a 2-player game of Warrior Knights, but I gotta say that I really like playing games with my two nephews as well.  Every game we played worked out very well, and I'd recommend any of them (okay, except maybe the Doctor Who CCG, which I doubt you could find anyway) to anyone.        

 

*Everybody Loves Raymond reference