Category: Medium games

Game takes about an hour

Sales in Camden!

Camden is a wonderful game, illustrated by John Kovalic, who might have also illustrated oh, I don’t know… Munchkin? *grins* You’re all business owners with a dream and 10 pounds. No, I don’t mean you’re extremely light. Camden is actually a market area in Britain. Thus I mean the British currency: pounds.Camden

First, chose your colour. I mean color. Or is it colour? Blasted American English against the original English. It’s messing up my spelling! First, there’s player A. Player A is the red token and specializes in clothes sales. Player B is my favourite, and is yellow and selling food. Player C is green, selling a large variety of antiques and random debris. Last is Player D, who is blue and sells comics and books.

Each turn, you will collect income based of the number of entrances to your shop, draw a tile, search for and initiate special effects, place the tile, and then if it meets your fancy, purchase another shop. The first person to reach 50 pounds wins.

Special effects vary, and they’re not always set off. If the letter on the tile matches your player letter, the sign around the letter kicks a special effect into order. The first special effect is basic: Fire. It burns down the largest shop and any shop sharing the tile with it. The second special effect is the Bobby. The police come and empty the largest shop. The final one is the least devastating: Holiday. Every player gets their income’s worth right then and there.

This is a wonderful, reasonably simple game. And has hit my favourites list. Or is it favorite? Or…

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Off To Tokaido!

Tokaido is a beautiful game about Japan. In Tokaido, you are a traveler. You are walking across the board, stopping for cash and enjoyment along the way. The happier you are, the more points you get at the end. So let’s start that vacation!Tokaido

On the board, there are 5 inns. You must stop at each inn. Movement is simple… the person in the back moves anywhere up to the next inn. When you reach an inn, you look at that round’s meal cards (number of players + 1) and chose one if you can afford it. The only rule about which one you pick is you can’t have already had one. Each character tile has a special power. My character’s power was I could draw the top card of the meal deck and get it for free. This is because my character was the orphan.

In between inns, there are many places you can visit. There are the hot springs, where you draw a card and receive points. There are also panorama spots, where you take a break to paint a part of one of 3 panoramas.  There’s the farm, where you get some money, or the encounter space, where you draw an encounter card. You can donate money to the temple. Last but not least, you can purchase some souvenirs! Draw the top 3 and pick whichever ones you can afford.

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Bank It!

If you really want that bike, save up money and Bank It! Bank It is a game where you are trying to get ten dollars in your bank account. First, however, you have to purchase something from each of the 4 stores (Pizza Palace, Barnes and Books, Toy Store, Sports Corner) and donate to a charity.Bank It

The most common spot on the board is one of the most important. It is the Bank It spot, and it is how you can get money consistently. Each Bank It card will have a different amount of money for you. Will you get $1.50 for chores… Or will you get $0.25 for Flower Power?

One of the worst encounters is with the Do You Have It space. This appears twice on the board.  Depending on which one you land on, you either break a window or buy a gift. Either way, you drop $0.50 on the ground.

There are many things to get. That Novel you’ve always wanted to read, that Stuffed Toy that’s oh so cute, that juice that looks so delicious, and that baseball bat you believe could withstand anything. Or maybe you want that printer, or that ooey gooey slice of extra cheese pizza, or that irresistible board game. Who knows? Find out for yourself in Bank It!

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Chateau Roquefort!

Salut! Château Roquefort is a wonderful game full of twists and turns where a bunch of competitive mice split into teams of 4 and race to get 4 pieces of cheese. There is, however, a catch. The rooftops they’re running on are shifting under them! They risk falling into a mouse trap!

Château Roquefort

The roof tiles are only uncovered when the mouse is on that tile, so these blissfully oblivious rodents with unusually small man-made brains* could be set up to fall in a hole! The rules with the cheeses are that each mouse team may only have 1 of each type of cheese. On your turn you may choose to push the blocks once as one of your 4 moves.

When you push blocks, you take the spare piece and push a row. This pushes all the blanks, mouse traps, and cheeses in that row. Otherwise you could use 4 moves to move and uncover roofs. Once you are done with your turn, if there are unoccupied, uncovered roofs they get recovered.

Château Roquefort is the rodent equivalent of the Hunger Games, but with official teams, not just a “You don’t kill me, I don’t kill you” scenario. Instead of finding weapons, you are searching for cheese, for the 1 with 4 cheeses rules them all!  (So long as they don’t cut their cheeses,)

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*I’m not sure whether they actually made brains in the mice, but wouldn’t it be cool? Besides, it’s a cute jumble of words, right?

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Would You Use Snake Oil?

Snake Oil Elixir is a game kind of like Apples To Apples, but with a few changes. For instance, instead of choosing a random adjective as the subject, you get to pick between 2 “customers”. The other players then chose 2 of their cards which they put together to make a product for you. They throw a sales pitch and you chose which you think would be better.Snake Oil

Choosing has a few options. You could be practical, but where’s the fun in that? I know people who vote for the most random, crazy thing possible. I personally go for the most wild, crazy, but distantly relative choice.

The person who wins the round gets the Customer card. The person to the left of the previous Customer gets to be the new Customer. The process repeats until everybody has been the Customer. Then the person with the most Customer Cards wins, unless there’s a tie, in which case you keep playing. In both games we played my mother won.

I like this game because you stretch the boundaries of reality to make the most ridiculous, odd and amusing inventions to please our customers. Of course, its nothing I can’t handle as I effectively do that every time I write fiction. Some things we came up with included Fairy Pickles and Pearl Musket. One thing to note is the more people, the better the game play is.

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Please the Kodama!

I played a brand-new Kickstarter called Kodama today. In Kodama, you are attempting to please the Kodama, or tree spirits. You are helping grow a tree with the specific aspects that each Kodama in your hand wants. There are special point values for each of the cards.In this game there are 3 seasons, in each of which you will please a Kodama.Kodama

I liked this game because it was about pleasing tree spirits, so it covered two of my favorite subjects: the pleasing part reminds me of having pets and the tree spirits link this game with nature. This game has you growing a tree for the specific Kodama who want to hang out in the tree. The different things they want include caterpillars, fireflies, flowers, clouds, stars, and mushrooms.

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Checkmate!

This post is for all those chess fans out there. I first learned chess in a simple way: I found an old chess board in the game closet and my dad taught me how to play. This newfound interest in the strategic board game led to my enrollment in the after school chess club, where I learned even more, like forks and pins.Chess

I learned the point values of the pieces (when you play at home the points don’t matter, you win or you don’t) and received several chess key chains to add to my wonderful collection. I also learned en-passant at a gaming party some of our friends hosted.

The picture is actually from one of the times my dad and I played chess together and the board itself is of sentimental value. You see, my father actually made that board for a school project. There’s the wooden box and board, which he didn’t actually finish putting the wood finish on, and the pieces are homemade out of acrylic resin.

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Let’s train at Medieval Academy!

In Medieval Academy, you are attempting to become the best knight of all. Here’s how: First, one person deals five cards to everyone. Then you pick up the hand you were dealt and chose a card, then pass them either clockwise or counterclockwise, depending on what turn you’re on. This repeats until all the cards are taken. At the beginning of each round, the card exchange will repeat. Then play begins.Medieval Academy

Unlike the card exchange, play always moves clockwise. You will play a card and move your chosen token that many spaces, on whichever board the card indicates. Some boards score every turn, others score on the third and sixth rounds, and the other two score only on the sixth round. All but these last two also reset at the end of round three.

Then there’s scoring. On the Gallantry board, it gives you the ability to move your piece on any other board. Two of the boards are for Jousting and just give third place one point, second place two points, and so on. The last board that scores every turn is tricky. This board is the Education board. First place gets nothing, second place gets a negative one, and third place gets a negative three. What’s scary is that this is the mild version of the last board to score.

On rounds three and six, you score in “Service to the King” not by your place in relation to others, but by where on the board you are. If you are past the six, then you get six points unless you hit the twelve, and then you get twelve points. The last two that score only on the last round are the Dragon and Charity. The Dragon board gives first place seventeen points, second place gets ten points, and third place gets a measly four points. The Charity board gives third place a negative ten, second place gets a negative five, and first place gets nothing.

Then you count your points. The person with the most points wins!

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Off to a new Dimension!

There is a wonderful logic game known as Dimension. You’ve got length, you’ve got width, and you’ve certainly got height, but open up to a new Dimension, where everything is round. That’s right, this game is about balancing balls. But that’s not the best part. You’re structure of spherical shapes must fit the random criteria of the draw pile, or you will lose victory points.Dimension

Each player has 15 balls, 3 of each color. Each turn one person will flip over 6 goal cards, a.k.a. the random criteria, and then the timer. Some examples of goals are: black cannot be on bottom or green must touch white. You have until the timer runs out to build as large of a structure as possible while still fitting as much of the criteria as you can. In some cases there are goals that will contradict each other no matter what, like one goal saying that green must touch green and another saying that green cannot touch green. In this case, you just choose which one you don’t want to do.

At the end of each turn you score. You get one point for each ball you use, and you lose two points for each goal you miss. If you use all five colors, and complete all the tasks, you get a bonus token. These are important for end game scoring. If you don’t have any, you lose 6 points, so I recommend getting as many as possible. Will your structures be a round wreck or a celebrated cylindrical construction? It’s your choice!

I would recommend this for anyone who enjoys logic and building.

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I think you’ve got the Concept

Concept is a game sort of like Charades, but instead of acting you place tokens on categories to help the other people guess your topic. If you don’t like Charades, you’re probably not going to like Concept.

Concept - games and money marked

In Concept, you draw a card and chose one of the nine phrases or things on the card to attempt to communicate without words. You set aside the card and place the Main Idea piece on what you think is the most important aspect of your chosen topic. Then you place little cubes on the other aspects. If your team successfully guesses it, you get light bulbs as victory points.

As an example, let’s say my word was whiskey. The Main Idea would be liquid, and some of my other aspects would be brown and old/adult because only adults can drink it. If my word were ninja, I might put the Main Idea on job, and aspects on death, black and star. In the photo, the Main Idea is marking the games spot and a token is marking money.  This topic turned out to be Monopoly.

I would recommend this game for anyone who enjoys cooperative or party games.

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As a comparison opinion to my rating of this game, click here.

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