Category: Medium games

Ooga! Ooga Ooga! Sorry, that was caveman speak for “Look, it’s a dinosaur!” I realize, those timelines may or may not accurately line up, but it works out well enough in the kids’ game, Ooga! 

In Ooga, the players are members of a tribe, competing to be the first in hunting the correct dinosaurs for the menu. You are armed with spears (stick with a suction cup), and when the Tribal Chief throws the bones, you go where they lead you. Sometimes, that will be the forests, sometimes the deserts, and sometimes the spewing lava craters. Or, if you are really lucky, they will send you to the grove, where you get to spear… a coconut! Coconuts count as a wild card, standing in for any type of dinosaur.

When you successfully meet the menu criteria, you shout “Ooga!” and take the menu, replacing it. You also take the title of Tribal Chief, meaning you get to throw the bones. This is both good and bad, because while it does give you the time to survey the board before throwing, it also gives you less time to prepare the spear in your hand so that you can stab a dinosaur (Yeah, I know, poor dinos. They just wanted to be friends! Well, except for that T-Rex. He’s trying to eat the rest of them. And I will point out that you rarely see two T-Rexes on one card.)

Off with their heads! No, you don’t get to behead your opponents. Yes, you do get to compete over who can behead the most important people in France. Yes, there are a lot of puns. No, King Louie is only worth 5 points, not 12.

In my Social Studies class, we recently had a discussion about the French Revolution, so naturally, when my mother and I were trying to decide what game to play, I suggested Guillotine. Ironically, while I remembered the history behind the game, I didn’t actually remember the mechanics of the game itself. I have, of course, remedied that.

I would call this game straightforward, except the line of people awaiting beheading keeps shuffling… after all, nobody wants to be that one executioner who kills the Hero of the People (Yeah, that’s a card. He’s a -3 pointer, too.) You do, however, want to be the one to kill Marie Antoinette, King Louie, or even just that poor unlucky Cardinal who happened to be in France at the time (the religious figure, not the bird. I’m not even sure if a cardinal is large enough to behead properly in a guillotine. Perhaps a miniature guillotine?).

Anyways, the question becomes, if you don’t want to get stuck with the Martyr, how do you manage to kill somebody else? Well, there’s always the possibility that your designated Martyr Trips (Move any Noble back one space) and you end up with that Unpopular Judge instead, who, while not necessarily the best choice, is worth much more than that Martyr (It’s a matter of -1 point versus 2 points).

And, yet another Munchkin game has come out! Munchkin Shakespeare has, like all Munchkin games, its own twists and horrible puns.

As I said, they all come with their own twists. Munchkin Shakespeare has Dungeons, each with its own special rules. My personal favorite is “The Dungeon O’ Bad Scottish Accents”, where ye have ta say everythin’ in a bad accent, though’ it dun’t ha’ ta be Scottish.

Anyway, enough with my bad attempt at writing an accent, and onto the monsters! Possibly the most dangerous monster is the Level 20 Lady Macbeth, but one of my personal favorites is the Level 1 Spamlet.

Finally, there are the items. My starting hand included my favorite weapon, the Dialog, a 2-handed log with a plus 4 bonus. I also had the Toga, which was a plus 1 armor unless being back-stabbed, in which case it wasn’t worth anything (only for that instance). I don’t actually know the reference for this, but I assume it has something to do with Julius Caesar’s assassination.

We had a test in Social Studies on the 50 states earlier this week, so, to help me study, Mom pulled out a game called 10 Days in the USA.

In 10 Days in the USA, you are trying to draw cards for your trip that can be arranged in an actual trip format. You can walk across the border, drive through a state, or hop a plane to a state of the same color. Both the cars and the planes take up a day of travel each.

I appreciate the education that comes from this game. This education is greatly enhanced by the little blurb about one of the given state’s most notable attractions.

Ironically, the day after I played this with my mother, we did something similar in Social Studies. It was quite amusing.

Make sure to read up on the rules for Alaska and Hawaii, as I found those both a little confusing first time around.

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!

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!