Many games, much tea

We had a few friends (and a couple of friends-of-friends) come to visit for an afternoon over the weekend with the intention of playing either some games or some folk tunes as the mood took us, and in the event this turned into quite a serious games day, with tables on the go in two rooms. This was Miss B’s first experience of “grown-up” social gaming and I’m very pleased with how it all went.

I completely neglected to take any photos, so this post will go unadorned. It must be said, though, that my photographic skills fall somewhat short of professional standard to say the least (as you’ll know from previous posts), so you’re not missing out much.

Miss B kicked off with a couple of rounds of Ghost Party without the messing about with scoring, then on to a mildly simplified Enchanted forest. Next up was Giro Galoppo, which was a hoot for the rest of us, but a few turns in Miss B heard a game of Uno starting up in the other room and decided to switch her loyalties. Then she rejoined the crowd in the dining room for a round of Ave Caesar.

All in all this seemed to go really well. Aside from the switch from Giro Galoppo to Uno, Miss B maintained an admirable focus most of the time. Yeah, she slowed play down quite a lot at times, but everyone was very helpful and accommodating (so huge thanks to everyone for that) so she ended up telling me how much fun she had had.

And, of course, one of the key success metrics related to young children is whether or not things end in tears at any point. Well, I don’t think B won any games, but I don’t remember any tears at all until we reached bedtime. I hope we can do something like this again soon.

The Kid Should See This

A little off-topic, but I’ve recently discovered (via one of the other blogs I read, probably Geek Dad) a lovely geeky parenting blog: The Kid Should See This, which pretty much does what it says on the tin and is full of cool stuff that you just really want to show to the offspring.

By way of example, here’s a great little clip from the BBC showing how awesome goshawks are. Miss B said “Wow!” a lot after watching this. (Sorry, embedding doesn’t seem to work properly here, so you’ll just have to follow that link.)

Golden Thingummy Award 2011: the shortlist

Ooh, it’s been a bit of a long time since I last posted, so I figure it’s time to get back to it.  This time it’s something a bit different as Miss B and I have decided to give an award to our favourite game of those we have played.

So we dug out the twelve games that we have tested and reviewed so far and spread them out on the floor to provide a pleasingly varied selection.  We then decided on how we would judge the competition (or at least I decided, and Miss B agreed that it would be fine).

First, the full range would be reduced to a shortlist of four nominees: Miss B would choose two games and I would choose the other two.  Then we would play two of these games and decide which we thought was best (by which I mean Miss B would decide), followed by the other two, which would result in two finalists to be played off head-to-head in a winner-takes-all gamestravaganza.

After a bit of a discussion, Miss B made her selections: Ghost Party “because I like Hugo chasing all the people around to get into rooms” and Enchanted Forest because “I like finding fairy tales”.  Yup, two good choices there.

As for my choices, I considered my place here to choose a couple of games that I think we have had a lot of fun or value out of that I think might give B’s games a bit of a run in the playoffs.  So I chose Loot, which I enjoy playing even for just the two of us, and which has introduced some good card gaming principles to the mix, and Shave a Sheep which, though it wouldn’t be high up my personal chart, has provided a lot of fun and entertainment for all of us and I’m sure it will continue to do so.

Watch this space to find out which game gets the award.  We’re still looking for a good name for it, by the way.