Author: Cassandra

Livin’ That Redneck Life

Let me start by noting that I usually ignore the recommended age for games, but the 13+ suggestion for this game – and by extension this post – is reasonable. The humor is a bit off-color, and if your preteens start asking about – or already understand – the Moonshine Chart results, it’s not my fault.

That all said… Redneck Life! Because somebody looked at the Game of Life and decided this version needed to happen. For any of you who aren’t familiar with Life, the basic premise is that you roll, move, resolve the text of the space you land on, and you’re trying to have as much money as possible by the end of the game. Or, in Redneck Life, the most teeth left. In this variation, you start the game with no money, but you also don’t need to have money to purchase things; you may instead choose to take red Check ‘N Scrams, worth $100 of debt each. At the end, every $100 you have can be put into buying new teeth to replace the ones you’ve lost, while every $100 of remaining debt is another tooth gone.

Like in Life, there are a few Stop spaces you’ll land on no matter what you rolled. At the first Stop, you’ll roll for the school grade you completed (and its corresponding career, i.e. if you dropped out after 7th grade you’re a taxidermist) and buy a rig, which will have to fit however many young’ens you accrue, or else you’ll have to buy another. I’ve found it’s cheaper to buy high capacity vehicles to begin with, since you can’t sell them back to the Rig Rodeo if your family outgrows the car. At the other Stops, you will inevitably get married and buy a house, get divorced, and marry again. You’ll have at least one red-headed step kid named “Darryl,” and you could just as easily have six, in which case we like to spell them all differently, just for giggles. There was one game I finished with eleven young’ens total, so like I said, get a big car!

There are many other entertaining features, like the Tobacco and Moonshine Charts, Go Redneckin’ cards, and the hilarious names that abound (my favorites being “Denise” and “DeNephew”), but I’ll let you discover them for yourselves, if you’re so inclined. It’s good for a laugh! Just, as I said, not entirely child appropriate. Rest assured that we had no idea my grandma owned this game until all of her grandkids were old enough to play.

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Slush’s Adventure

I’ve decided to discontinue my other website, Curious Critters’ Coadventure. If you’re been following this blog long enough, you may recall the linked announcement about a “travel agency for toys!” which we started up… a few short months before COVID lockdown. Unfortunate timing, and ultimately I’ve decided that energy is better spent on other projects. I won’t be dropping the Instagram and Facebook accounts, though, so those may feature more of our own plush moving forward! I liked setting them up for the photos; it was an entertaining challenge.

Speaking of our plush, I made a personalized photobook for a pup named Slush, and it’s about three years overdue to be shared. Enjoy!

Slush’s Adventure by Curious Critters’ Coadventure

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Don’t Forget To Walk The Dogs!

All 63 of them! Why are you responsible for so many dogs? I have no idea, you’d have to ask the SimplyFun folks who came up with Walk The Dogs!

The game starts with all 63 dogs lined up nose-to-tail in the center of the playing area. That’s a lot of plastic pups, so the line will probably curve a few times, but the important part is that there’s a clear front and back of the line. Once the game has started, players will also have their own lines in front of them, which should also have an obvious direction.

Players start with two cards and draw one, then play one each turn. Most of the cards are Dog cards, which indicate a number of dogs and a side of the line – front, back, or one dog from each. When you play these, you take the indicated number of pups from the appropriate section and add them to your own line, front or back, in any combination. Once your pups are placed, their order is almost always unchangeable, though there are three Leash cards that let you claim a dog from an opponent’s line instead of the general stock. In the end, the goal is to have as many of the same breed in a row as possible!

If anyone gets five matching dogs in a row, they automatically win. Otherwise, the game continues until all the dogs from the middle are taken, and chains score exponentially – one poodle in a row is one point, two make four points, and so forth. The player with the most points wins!

There are also a couple special cards that are played immediately when drawn and replaced. The first is the Bone, which is a three-point bonus awarded to whomever has the least dogs when the card is drawn. Fewer dogs, but happy dogs! The other card is the Dog Catcher, which causes everyone to lose their longest exposed group of same-type pups. (If the front and the back each have chains of equal amount, they get to choose which goes.) All discarded pups go back in the Doggie Bag, never to be seen again. At least, not this game!

While Walk The Dogs is theoretically designed for elementary schoolers, and accordingly easy to learn, the lines’ static nature makes it challenging and fun for strategists of any age.

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Odd Angles and Human Summoning

I was baffled to find Diane like this, not because she doesn’t nap on the couch or cuddle with June, but because she’s not usually sloping off the couch in the process. But I guess she was comfortable??? She wasn’t in any rush to readjust, anyway.

Diane (black and white cat), faceplanting in June's cheek (tortoiseshell cat) while her rear half follows the slope of the couch. Looks like it takes some upper body strength to not just slip right off. The light-colored blanket they're on is very fluffy.
Still Diane and June, but Diane has shifted so that her upper half runs parallel with June. Her rear end is still falling off the couch. The blanket is still fluffy.

All our cats like the triangular catnip toys with jingle bells in them, but Arwen especially likes to bring them to the kitchen door and howl until I come congratulate her on catching the vicious triangle. Some nights more frequently than others!

At the top of the photo, the very bottom of a white door with wood trim. Most of the shot is a brown rug with three triangular toys on it; one green, one blue, and one pale yellow. There's a little fraying fluff where the blue and green ones have been chewed many, many times.
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Hey, That’s My Fish!

Which is something my cats might say when the others are trying to steal their lunch, but it’s also the name of a game about penguins! In Hey, That’s My Fish! players compete to collect the most fish while the ice floes shift beneath them.

The board is made up of 1-, 2-, and 3-fish hexagonal tiles, arranged in rows. Players have colonies of 2-4 penguins each, depending on how many people are playing, and take turns placing them on 1-fish tiles until everyone’s penguins are on the board. Then, the game begins! On your turn, pick one of your penguins to move. It can move as far as you want, so long as the movement is in a straight line and the tiles between are vacant. Once you’ve moved your penguin, you remove the tile it started on from the board and add it to your score pile!

The idea is, generally, to land on as many high-value tiles as possible. However, a penguin can’t move through a space where there are no tiles, and once none of a player’s penguins can move, they retire from the game, taking their penguins and the tiles they’re on off the board. So it’s also about not getting stranded in small corners. Or, alternatively, stranding yourself in a nice large chunk of the board, which nobody else can get to, and which you can feast on to your heart’s content. That’s how green won the game pictured above! The game doesn’t end until no one can move, so you don’t have to worry about getting as many valuable tiles as possible before the other players are out; you can have them all.

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Quick, Cover it Up!

Cover Up is, in essence, Connect Four with depth. There are three rings in each well, with corresponding sized tokens. Each player has five of the smallest tokens, four medium, and three large. Here’s how it works:

You can never place a smaller token over something larger than it. The smallest tokens can only go in the smallest well, so if there’s a medium there already, you’d need to place a large. Tokens must always be played on top – no slipping something under a piece that’s already there. The first token of the game can’t be placed in the center, but after that, anywhere is fair game.

The goal is, of course, to be the first player with four of your tokens in a row, be it vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. To that end, you’ll likely be blocking your opponent’s rows and covering their tokens with yours. Just be careful – once you place a small or medium token, it can’t be moved again. Large disks, on the other hand, you can pick up and relocate. The trick here is remembering if your opponent had anything under it! If lifting your large disk creates a row of four for your opponent, they win immediately. I know I’ve lost that way before!

Cover Up is a pretty simple game, but, like MixUp, it adds a bit of flavor to the even simpler Connect Four.

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Stay Warm!

Folks with cold winters, stay warm. It’s been extremely cold here these past few days (I’m talking ‘two layers of gloves, three jackets’ kind of cold) and it’s important to stay safe out there, especially if you’re going to be outside for extended periods of time.

That said, happy holidays everyone! May this last week of 2022 bring only happy plot twists and benevolent mischief. See you next year!

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