Festive Gaming - What We Played Over The Christmas Period
By Chris Walkley, Jason M. Brown and David Plank
Here at IGUK, we’re all dedicated gamers. We genuinely enjoy playing board and card games as much as we can, which means that at Christmas – traditionally the one time of year that gamers and non-gamers alike sit around and play board games – we play with as many family members as we can grab and force to sit still for a few hours. Not interested in the usual games that are forced down our throats every year (you really would have to pay some of us in real money to play Monopoly again), what exactly do we find ourselves introducing our relatives to over the Christmas period? Here we’ll go through exactly what one or more of us found ourselves drunkenly introducing to our unsuspecting relatives, friends, or tragically played alone in the corner while everyone snored through the Queen’s speech.
First up – Chris Walkley’s list of games he played over the Christmas period:
Memoir '44
This simple yet excellent World War Two wargame saw a good deal of play with the recent expansions getting a good try out. Memoir is certainly developing into a fully fledged system, so fingers crossed for the Pacific Theatre to be covered next.
Lord of the Rings CCG
An excellent CCG which plays very well out of starter decks (for a change). Games of this were always close and exciting. I am quite new to this, but have already started to feel what could be another unhealthy urge to buy lots of cards...aarrgh!
Wars CCG
Decipher's sci-fi CCG based on their old Star Wars CCG rules is another good one for playing out of starter decks. It manages to feel like a CCG and a wargame at the same time, which is never a bad thing.
Battleground: Fantasy Warfare
In a word: genius. I can't rate this card based wargame highly enough. Human vs Human and Human vs Orc battles were played. For someone who no longer wants to spend the time and money collecting an army of miniatures, this is a godsend.
Im Auftrag des Königs
An Arthurian non-collectable card game from Germany. Players race to complete quests set by the king, gaining skill and prestige as they go. With only two players it is more of a simple race to get the points for victory first, but with three or four it becomes much more tactical. As far as I am aware this is not available in the UK, but for gamers looking for something similar, I would probably suggest checking out Camelot Legends.
Pictionary
Time spent with the family generally demands some kind of family or party games. But it could be much worse! Possibly one of the funniest games I have ever played, although the novelty does wear a little thin after having played it three times in one day. A total inability to draw makes things even more amusing...
Broadway
An old boardgame by TSR (yes, once upon a time they were not mainly an RPG publisher). Players buy shares in various Broadway plays and try to maximise their return and make sure their plays make the most money and win the big awards. A roll-and-move mechanic and repetitive game play unfortunately make this somewhat uninspired. Although it is supposed to be a bonus, the game actually forces the last player to make an extra lap of the board before the last phase can begin. Meanwhile, everyone else gets to twiddle their thumbs and starts to think that spending the afternoon playing Monopoly would actually be a good idea. Oh no!
Next - Jason M. Brown runs us through his list of games that he subjected his relatives to at Christmas:
Cluzzle
As it’s Christmas, it seems that party games are the norm. Booze flowing and people not generally used to complex sets of rules mean that the simpler the game, the better. Happily, Cluzzle is very simple indeed. Players create clay sculptures using words on their Cluzzle card, and everyone has to guess the other players’ words. Too easy and few points are received, too hard and none at all are dished out – this is a game that actually rewards vague sculpting, which means that you don’t get one smart aleck ruining it for everyone else. It is still also easy to play when slightly inebriated, which is a bonus for festive games.
Ticket to Ride: Europe
Feeling as it does like a full-fledged German game, Ticket to Ride: Europe is certainly a very satisfying game to play at Christmas. It’s easy enough to explain to non-gaming relatives (although the eyes do glaze over when stations are being taught!), quick enough to play so they don’t get bored, and it doesn’t feel like you’re selling your soul just to play a board game at Christmas. It’s usually enjoyed enough by everyone that they want to play again, which is good too. Chris: I played this with the family over Christmas as well. Just like Jason found, everyone enjoyed it, regardless of whether or not they like trains as such. An excellent example of an accessible alternative to more well known games.
Pirates CSG
There are several sets available of this game now, each of which has ramped up the complexity and added more and more features – until now. The newest expansion, Pirates of the Barbary Coast, goes somewhat back to basics – leaving out Forts and some of the more difficult to remember or unnecessary keywords. They can still be used if desired, but it does mean that when sticking your little packs of Pirates into stockings (Christmas stockings that is – and yeah, I’m aware of how weird it sounded!), you can be sure that whoever you’ve given it to will be able to make their little ships and get playing reasonably fast. Most of the fun with this game comes from building the ships, which are very pretty indeed – the game can be pretty dull with two experienced players as there’s rarely any dilemma about which action to use, as well as the fact that it can devolve into an uninteresting race pretty quickly. However, add another player or two into the game and there’s suddenly a much more crowded and interesting ocean to play with, not to mention interesting options available as to who you should chase, attack or board.
Arkham Horror
Possibly the least festive game on the list, this superb game of tentacled beasties and regular trips to the Asylum to restore your fragile and frequently shattered sanity is fantastic to ward off evil relatives. Why? Well, for one it’ll be too complex for them, too dark for them, too scary for them and just too plain difficult for them. Plus you can play it alone, which gives you an excuse to shut yourself away and try to valiantly save the world from evil monsters from beyond who existed millions of years before we did. You’ll fail though. It’s incredibly tough for one person to beat the game alone – but at the same time very addictive to pick yourself up from the dust of the ruined Earth and just try, try again.
Finally, David Plank seems to have been subjected to one too many games by his kids – sounds like they’re going to make a fine pair of gamers:
Cranium Hullabaloo
Having small children, a lot of my time (as resident ‘games guy’) was taken up with making sure they were occupied, and this was brought out time and time again. Thankfully I was not alone in keeping the little ones amused, as the rules are simple enough that even Uncle Geoff could understand what was going on – most of the time!
Rumble in the Jungle
I hate ‘roll the dice and move the dobber’ games. But when the game comes with a nifty little marble track that makes nifty little things happen in nifty little ways, then it somehow all becomes all right! Despite the fact that the game takes far too long to play for what it is, the kids never seemed to tire of making the marble roll along the track and watching the giraffe, the monkey and elephant put the kibosh on all of our plans to be the first to the Golden Monkey (I feel a review coming on…!).
Mousetrap
(See a pattern forming yet?) Maybe my rose-tinted glasses are set on ‘nostalgia’, but I’m sure this was a lot better when I was a kid. Oh, sure, you now have three traps and not just one, and yes, one of the traps sends your mice flying across the room, and yes, it does have a toilet (which is really funny if you’re five!), but somehow it doesn’t push all the buttons it used to when I was five…
Lord of the Rings DVD Trivial Pursuit
I found out something really quite startling about Lord of the Rings while playing. I found out that I know only half as much about the movie as I thought I did! This is a massive step up from classic Trivial Pursuit, rules-wise, but a huge step backwards in actual gameplay, because you need to have players who have seen the movie exactly the same number of times, otherwise one person will win every time. It’s great to have multi-media questions, but it really sucks if most of your knowledge comes from the books, or the card games, or whatnot – as it’s all based on the movie trilogy!
Mall of Horror
Competing for least-festive game is this slaughter-fest of treachery and lies. My folks seemed a bit overwhelmed by the rules at the beginning, but soon managed to get the hang of ensuring they were not the ones to die. Of course, negotiations and double-dealings are much easier when your opponents are drunk!
Bohnanza
Thank heavens for my mates. They took me out for a games night, and we played some real games! Away from the mass-marketed kids games, and DVD Trivia games, there are some actual, honest-to-goodness fun games to play. I had almost forgotten what real gaming was all about…
So what, dear reader, did you enjoy ( or endure) over Christmas? Let us know in the comments section below!
Here at IGUK, we’re all dedicated gamers. We genuinely enjoy playing board and card games as much as we can, which means that at Christmas – traditionally the one time of year that gamers and non-gamers alike sit around and play board games – we play with as many family members as we can grab and force to sit still for a few hours. Not interested in the usual games that are forced down our throats every year (you really would have to pay some of us in real money to play Monopoly again), what exactly do we find ourselves introducing our relatives to over the Christmas period? Here we’ll go through exactly what one or more of us found ourselves drunkenly introducing to our unsuspecting relatives, friends, or tragically played alone in the corner while everyone snored through the Queen’s speech.
First up – Chris Walkley’s list of games he played over the Christmas period:
Memoir '44
This simple yet excellent World War Two wargame saw a good deal of play with the recent expansions getting a good try out. Memoir is certainly developing into a fully fledged system, so fingers crossed for the Pacific Theatre to be covered next.
Lord of the Rings CCG
An excellent CCG which plays very well out of starter decks (for a change). Games of this were always close and exciting. I am quite new to this, but have already started to feel what could be another unhealthy urge to buy lots of cards...aarrgh!
Wars CCG
Decipher's sci-fi CCG based on their old Star Wars CCG rules is another good one for playing out of starter decks. It manages to feel like a CCG and a wargame at the same time, which is never a bad thing.
Battleground: Fantasy Warfare
In a word: genius. I can't rate this card based wargame highly enough. Human vs Human and Human vs Orc battles were played. For someone who no longer wants to spend the time and money collecting an army of miniatures, this is a godsend.
Im Auftrag des Königs
An Arthurian non-collectable card game from Germany. Players race to complete quests set by the king, gaining skill and prestige as they go. With only two players it is more of a simple race to get the points for victory first, but with three or four it becomes much more tactical. As far as I am aware this is not available in the UK, but for gamers looking for something similar, I would probably suggest checking out Camelot Legends.
Pictionary
Time spent with the family generally demands some kind of family or party games. But it could be much worse! Possibly one of the funniest games I have ever played, although the novelty does wear a little thin after having played it three times in one day. A total inability to draw makes things even more amusing...
Broadway
An old boardgame by TSR (yes, once upon a time they were not mainly an RPG publisher). Players buy shares in various Broadway plays and try to maximise their return and make sure their plays make the most money and win the big awards. A roll-and-move mechanic and repetitive game play unfortunately make this somewhat uninspired. Although it is supposed to be a bonus, the game actually forces the last player to make an extra lap of the board before the last phase can begin. Meanwhile, everyone else gets to twiddle their thumbs and starts to think that spending the afternoon playing Monopoly would actually be a good idea. Oh no!
Next - Jason M. Brown runs us through his list of games that he subjected his relatives to at Christmas:
Cluzzle
As it’s Christmas, it seems that party games are the norm. Booze flowing and people not generally used to complex sets of rules mean that the simpler the game, the better. Happily, Cluzzle is very simple indeed. Players create clay sculptures using words on their Cluzzle card, and everyone has to guess the other players’ words. Too easy and few points are received, too hard and none at all are dished out – this is a game that actually rewards vague sculpting, which means that you don’t get one smart aleck ruining it for everyone else. It is still also easy to play when slightly inebriated, which is a bonus for festive games.
Ticket to Ride: Europe
Feeling as it does like a full-fledged German game, Ticket to Ride: Europe is certainly a very satisfying game to play at Christmas. It’s easy enough to explain to non-gaming relatives (although the eyes do glaze over when stations are being taught!), quick enough to play so they don’t get bored, and it doesn’t feel like you’re selling your soul just to play a board game at Christmas. It’s usually enjoyed enough by everyone that they want to play again, which is good too. Chris: I played this with the family over Christmas as well. Just like Jason found, everyone enjoyed it, regardless of whether or not they like trains as such. An excellent example of an accessible alternative to more well known games.
Pirates CSG
There are several sets available of this game now, each of which has ramped up the complexity and added more and more features – until now. The newest expansion, Pirates of the Barbary Coast, goes somewhat back to basics – leaving out Forts and some of the more difficult to remember or unnecessary keywords. They can still be used if desired, but it does mean that when sticking your little packs of Pirates into stockings (Christmas stockings that is – and yeah, I’m aware of how weird it sounded!), you can be sure that whoever you’ve given it to will be able to make their little ships and get playing reasonably fast. Most of the fun with this game comes from building the ships, which are very pretty indeed – the game can be pretty dull with two experienced players as there’s rarely any dilemma about which action to use, as well as the fact that it can devolve into an uninteresting race pretty quickly. However, add another player or two into the game and there’s suddenly a much more crowded and interesting ocean to play with, not to mention interesting options available as to who you should chase, attack or board.
Arkham Horror
Possibly the least festive game on the list, this superb game of tentacled beasties and regular trips to the Asylum to restore your fragile and frequently shattered sanity is fantastic to ward off evil relatives. Why? Well, for one it’ll be too complex for them, too dark for them, too scary for them and just too plain difficult for them. Plus you can play it alone, which gives you an excuse to shut yourself away and try to valiantly save the world from evil monsters from beyond who existed millions of years before we did. You’ll fail though. It’s incredibly tough for one person to beat the game alone – but at the same time very addictive to pick yourself up from the dust of the ruined Earth and just try, try again.
Finally, David Plank seems to have been subjected to one too many games by his kids – sounds like they’re going to make a fine pair of gamers:
Cranium Hullabaloo
Having small children, a lot of my time (as resident ‘games guy’) was taken up with making sure they were occupied, and this was brought out time and time again. Thankfully I was not alone in keeping the little ones amused, as the rules are simple enough that even Uncle Geoff could understand what was going on – most of the time!
Rumble in the Jungle
I hate ‘roll the dice and move the dobber’ games. But when the game comes with a nifty little marble track that makes nifty little things happen in nifty little ways, then it somehow all becomes all right! Despite the fact that the game takes far too long to play for what it is, the kids never seemed to tire of making the marble roll along the track and watching the giraffe, the monkey and elephant put the kibosh on all of our plans to be the first to the Golden Monkey (I feel a review coming on…!).
Mousetrap
(See a pattern forming yet?) Maybe my rose-tinted glasses are set on ‘nostalgia’, but I’m sure this was a lot better when I was a kid. Oh, sure, you now have three traps and not just one, and yes, one of the traps sends your mice flying across the room, and yes, it does have a toilet (which is really funny if you’re five!), but somehow it doesn’t push all the buttons it used to when I was five…
Lord of the Rings DVD Trivial Pursuit
I found out something really quite startling about Lord of the Rings while playing. I found out that I know only half as much about the movie as I thought I did! This is a massive step up from classic Trivial Pursuit, rules-wise, but a huge step backwards in actual gameplay, because you need to have players who have seen the movie exactly the same number of times, otherwise one person will win every time. It’s great to have multi-media questions, but it really sucks if most of your knowledge comes from the books, or the card games, or whatnot – as it’s all based on the movie trilogy!
Mall of Horror
Competing for least-festive game is this slaughter-fest of treachery and lies. My folks seemed a bit overwhelmed by the rules at the beginning, but soon managed to get the hang of ensuring they were not the ones to die. Of course, negotiations and double-dealings are much easier when your opponents are drunk!
Bohnanza
Thank heavens for my mates. They took me out for a games night, and we played some real games! Away from the mass-marketed kids games, and DVD Trivia games, there are some actual, honest-to-goodness fun games to play. I had almost forgotten what real gaming was all about…
So what, dear reader, did you enjoy ( or endure) over Christmas? Let us know in the comments section below!
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