Category: Multi-player

Games for 3 or more people

Harry Potter Trivia!

For all of the Potterheads like me out there, it turns out there is now a Harry Potter Trivia game! I found it at Hot Topic when I was spending some gift cards I got for my birthday.Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit

The questions were in six categories, each assigned to a different color: The Dark Arts: Purple; Hogwarts: Blue; Magical Spells & Potions: Pink; Magical Objects: Orange; Magical People: Yellow; and Animals & Magical Creatures: Green. Questions in a category could range from “What creature did Hagrid introduce to the class during his first lesson?” to “What type of dragon does Cedric Diggory face in the first task of the Triwizard Tournament?”.

For my first game, I played with Mom, but then she had to go make dinner. Luckily, one of the perks of this game is that you can play it by yourself, too. Be forewarned: some of the questions are very hard.

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Exploding Kittens

I know, I know, a little morbid, right? I thought so too, having heard of Exploding Kittens from a friend. It wasn’t until I played it (hesitantly) with another friend, though, that I realized it was quite fun!Exploding Kittens

I enjoy the simplicity of the game mechanics. For the most part, the cards explain everything! I played with the Imploding Kittens expansion pack, which was also very easy to understand. You can defuse an Exploding Kitten if you have a Defuse card. You cannot, however, defuse an Imploding Kitten. It’s an automatic game over card for whoever draws it.

The only cards that didn’t explain themselves were the ones like the Catermelon and the Rainbow-Spewing Cat. These cards are special, because if you have two of them, you can play them and steal a card from anybody.

I also liked the Cone of Shame. If you forgot who’s turn it was, you had to wear the Cone of Shame until someone else forgot or the game ended. The particular set we were playing with had a really cute box, too. Whenever you opened the top, it meowed at you!

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You need a Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is a train game, and the particular one I bring you today is in North America. You get tickets, showing you what route to make, then attempt to match train cards of the same color* and build tracks.

Ticket to RideI think this game is a good geography lesson. You get to see where the cities are in the grand scheme of things. It’s also a good lesson in building off of what you have, since you only have a limited amount of train tracks. Thus you reuse tracks a lot. I did get lucky, my three initial tickets were New York to Atlanta, New York to Dallas, and New York to Los Angeles.

At the end of the game I also unintentionally got New York to Seattle. I had 2 train cars left, which would signal the end of the game, but we each got one last turn. I had a track from New York to Los Angeles, and, because of other tickets, I also had a track from Las Vegas to Seattle. Not because I realized I could get the ticket, but because I wanted to have one large train line.

* For those who are color-blind, each color of train card also has a symbol and a different style of train car.

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Royal Toad

Royal Toad is a card game by SimplyFun. In it, the whole deck is dealt out to the players. You are, throughout the game, removing any duplicate characters you have in your hand. You get these when you draw a card from the person next to you. You win by being the last person with any cards, and that card has to be the Royal Toad.

I like how simple the game is. It has smooth, simple mechanics, but at the same time you can choose exactly which card you want to take. Thus makes it a strategy game as well as chance.Royal Toad

You cannot play this well with two people. If you do, you will always know who has the Toad, making it less fun.

Its really fun to try and figure out who has the toad. It’s kind of a bluffing game, since you’re trying not to give away the fact that you have the toad.

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World War 5

Yep, that’s right. We’re skipping 3 and 4 (we know 3 is the Giant Cockroaches from Chrononauts – same creators) and heading straight into World War 5, at which point the 6 main continents have all been divided into 3 equal parts. Each continent is a nation-state in the war, and you are trying to wipe out the other nations. You wipe them out by a) actually destroying all of their pieces or b) leaving their continent uninhabited by any of their pieces. You can’t fight a war if you don’t even have a base anymore!World War 5

This is one of the Pyramid Arcade games. Thus all of the pieces used in the game are pyramids. Each continent is a different color. I suggest strategically picking your continent, instead of picking by color. We played one game where my cousin picked Africa for the red, and my other cousin and I picked South America and Australia. That wasn’t smart for any of us because any two of us could have teamed up on the other one, but luckily for me my cousin on South America agreed to let me win if we took out her brother together.

I really appreciate that they have connectors attaching the Americas to Asia and Australia, because I know there are games where you have to go West across Africa and Europe to get to the Americas when you could logically just go East.

Once you get the hang of it, World War 5 is a great game to play whenever you have a little bit of time. It generally takes about a half hour to play, but that half hour is jam-packed with invasion, invading the invaders that are in your nation, invading your opponent’s nation while they invade yours, making obscure plans, making alliances, stabbing your allies in the back (I have a very Munchkin strategy for this game), and chasing enemy pyramids around in circles because you didn’t block off their escape route.

Or, in simpler terms, its a half hour of sheer amusement.

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Max

Max is a cooperative kids board game where you are trying to get the little critters (Chipmunk, Mouse and Bird) to the tree before Max (the cat) catches up to them. It was one of my first games and my first cooperative board game.Max

I like the aspect of choice. A lot of kids’ games, you just pick up the card and hope it goes in your favor. In Max, you get to choose which critter to move on a given turn.

I think, if you put your mind to it, it’s pretty hard to lose. I wouldn’t know, because recently my goal has been to make the cat win. Meanwhile the other player (my cousin) has been trying to get the animals to the tree. Thus, it can also be a competitive game. In the picture above, my cousin had successfully gotten the chipmunk to safety when I rolled double black, so Max ate the other two.

I think the treats and trails are cute. There are four cat treats, so if Max gets too close to the critters for your comfort, you can call him back to his starting point. There are also trails, one for each critter. When they land on their trail, they take the trail to wherever it ends. They’re effectively shortcuts. Unfortunately, Max, if he lands on it, will also take the trails.

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Zoodoku

Zooduku is the alternative game in Sudoku Challenge. It is pretty much Sudoku with animals… and a couple new rules.Sudoku Challenge

I love that people have made an animal version of Sudoku. I think it’s adorable. What’s funny is that this isn’t the first Zoodoku I’ve played. I used to play Zoodoku with stickers on little cards. So what makes this unique?

Simple: it has a point system. It takes a lot of creativity to take a solo game like Sudoku and turn it into a multi-player competitive game with points.

I do find it strange that Zoodoku is 6 boxes of 6, not 9 boxes of 9 like Sudoku. It certainly simplifies things, though. I have been told that it is meant for younger children, and that is why it is smaller.

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Let’s visit Forbidden Island?

Why is it forbidden? Because it holds four treasures, each controlling a different element. What’s to stop me from stealing them? Um… the island sinks itself in the presence of an intruder. Great, huh? No wonder we’re the first to brave Forbidden Island. And the last.Forbidden Island

This is another game from the creator of Pandemic. You can see it in the characters and the Water Rises cards. Like Pandemic, it is a cooperative game.

When my cousin and I played we made it out without much real effort. It could, perhaps, be more challenging.

That said, we played the Novice level. There are options to make it harder and more interesting.

The characters are interesting. I played the Diver, who could move through I flooded or missing space for 1 action. My cousin played the Engineer, who could Shore Up (unflood) 2 adjacent tiles instead of 1 per action.

 

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Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu

Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, is exactly what it sounds like. It’s Pandemic. With Cthulhu. And we are all going to the asylum for it.Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu

There isn’t much for me to explain about this game. If you have played Pandemic, you know the basics of this high-stakes, crazy-tough cooperative game.

Pandemic can be a long game. It is very hard to win. The characters in Pandemic: Reign of Terror are very similar to the ones in the original, though, so if you are familiar with the original it is easy to swap over mentally. I played the Reign of Terror version of the medic, who could eradicate all of the disease cubes on a specific space. This is important because every turn you draw cards determining where you add more disease, or, in this case, cultists. When three disease cubes are on a space, and another is placed there, an outbreak happens and it spreads to the adjacent spaces. This spill can, if under proper circumstances, have a ripple effect.

In both versions you are trying to rid the board of the given enemy.

The special cards are a nice addition to the original. You draw relics and can use them against the cultists.

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Devil Cat

Or, you know, Simon’s Cat. Simon’s Cat (the game) is based off of Simon’s Cat (the hilarious videos). These critters seem to have it out for poor Simon. The game is actually a lot like Crazy Eights. You are matching numbers or colors, but instead of drawing when you can’t play a card, you take the “mess”, which is the pile of cards in the center. At the end of each round, when all the cards run out, whoever has the most messes gets a Simon card. Whoever has three Simon cards first loses.Simon's Cat

I love the Simon’s cat pictures and general mechanics. The whole idea is that Simon gets blamed for the messes made by all of the critters.

You don’t have to know the Simon’s Cat storyline to play this either. It can be played just as well without the context, though dialogue is quite amusing with the full context. (“Kitten!” “Yes, it’s a kitten.” “No, as in, its name is Kitten.” “Oh.”)

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