Gaming Lately

If you're new around here, you may not know that my husband, Scotty, and I love board games (but chances are, you are NOT new around here, and you have figured this out. Well done, super sleuth!)

We have game nights with our best friends about three times a month. Between both families, we have a wide selection of games to choose from, and we go through phases of playing this or that until one of us gets mad and flips the board (then we have to put that game in time out for a while).

(Okay, no one has ever actually flipped the board, but there have been threats and name calling, mostly in jest, but with underlying tones of "all seriousness.")

Here are some of the games we have been playing lately:

Power Grid

Can I be honest? I hate this game, but I can't stop playing it.

We first played this game when I was pregnant with Zoe. Then we left it on the shelf for a couple of years (I was the reason the game got put in "time out") and brought it back out about two months ago.

This game is so complex! There are so many rules, and some of the rules aren't in the rule book, so every time we play we miss some important rule, and something doesn't work out, so we have to go back through every rules and try and figure out where we went wrong. A few weeks ago, we finally found one of the rules on the phase cards. Why it's not in the rule book - I have no idea! But our goal is to play a complete, non-botched game of Power Grid (which we finally did - as far as we know - on Saturday).

Overall, I don't like how long the game takes (the last round we played took 2.5 hours), and I'm not really a fan of the way the game is won. So why do I keep playing? Because I must master this!!!

Other games I kind of hate but will still play:
Scotland Yard
Small World

Coup

This is a really easy card/role playing game. Each player has two secret identities. You can take certain actions based on your identities, and you can LIE! So the entire game is about trying to figure out who is lying. You can challenge each other, and the last person with an identity remaining wins. Each game is about 10 minutes, so this is a nice recovery from something like Risk or Power Grid wherein you invest hours of your life.

Other "role playing" games we like:
Werewolves of Millers Hollow (with The Village expansion)
The Resistance

7 Wonders

I bought this game for Scotty for Christmas last year. This game is unique in that everybody takes their turns at the same time, so it's a nice break from traditional games.

In this game, each player has his/her own unique board, and points are acquired as those boards develop throughout the game.

The problem with this game is that I can't win it.

Yes, that is a very huge problem.

Other games we play with individual player boards:
Agricola
Alhambra

Qwirkle

This is one of our common "end of game night" games. This is the one we often play when the babies are starting to get fussy, and we're trying to squeeze in ONE LAST GAME before they completely snap.

Qwirkle is a little bit like Dominoes meets Uno (or some other color matching / tile matching love child). It's much less complex than the strategy board games we play and takes a lot less set-up.

Other "end of game night" selections we play:
Bohnanza
Skip-Bo
Golf