The Nights are getting Darker .. which means the Season of "Family Games" Approach'eth ... Winter is Coming!

Game, game and more game to come out of the cupboards. From the 'crowd pleasing' (see below, "Beat the Parents" - the grans and granddads can be quite smug at this one):

To those games that teach important 'life skills' - like learning to lie convincingly to friends and family (see below, "The Pretender"):

So important in fact it is usually played at least twice at Xams (see below, moving from dining room to kitchen table): 

Then there are the specialist "themed" games .. such as "Escape from the Dark Castle" (see below, collaborative play at its best - selfishness gets you killed): 

Edging along from tense encounter to tense encounter until the final "boss fight (see below, by this time the "party" of escapees are usually very battered and bruised - a good game rule though being "all out alive" or no win, except that is for the survivors of the "boss fight" - but eternal shame on those who try to hang back [they will miss dessert!]):  

Conversely if you want to learn "how to lose friends" then "Munchkins" is for you (see below, nervous clenched fists reveal all - mothers and fathers are turned on their sons and daughters): 

Then there is also "Pandemic: The Cure" which is the theme of the year for the whole world (see below, the ideal end game position - four deadly diseases cured - we could do with those 'good dice' just now):  

There are also tense "bad dice" moments too (see below, that is definitely not a "cure" roll - even by teh scientist):

All in all a very clever game or rather series of games (see below, nice game mechanics that always seem to mean a tight game that is touch and go until the last turn): 

Cometh the hour cometh the Scientist with pipette and test tube .. is there a cure for the forth disease on the final turn (see below, "arghh .. we're doomed!"):  

Family "bubble time" approaches, you have been warned!

It is the Season of Party Games: "Munchkins", "The Pretender" and 'Pandemic: The Cure'.

Unexpectedly or rather totally unplanned on my part, I notice it has been a canny while since I last bogged, as this December seems to have been a most hectic affair, but in a good sense. I seem to have dropped out of the blogging habit (partly because I find one of my kids constantly in front of the family computer) but on the plus side too I have been "doing" plenty of "stuff," just not getting to report it. It does also seem to be the party game season. Two separate instances of old friends bringing their families together with mine caused much hilarity through 'Pretenders' and 'Munchkins' (see below, 'Pretenders' is a family favourite as one player has to guess what the others are miming before it's their turn to mime, so are you faking it or just bad at miming?):

'Munchkins' is the deadliest of games, addictive and unforgiving - a D&D spoof as it is a race to get to 10th Level through a combination of kicking in doors, killing monsters, looting treasure, stealing treasure off other players or cursing other players and basically getting lucky at other players expense. "You are dead to me!" is a frequently used phrase in our games as backstabbing and mischievous double dealings are 'normal behaviour' (dystopian or what). The game really assumes its best form when the players "go dirty" in a bare knuckled free for all, running away and dying (getting busted back to Level 1 with no possessions) is all par for the course (see below, a pile of 'door cards' and a pile of 'treasure cards' and a foursome of players adventuring around them):

The third of the trio of games is my personal favourite genre, that of collaborative problem solving, "Pandemic: The Cure" which a remodelling of the original Pandemic game using smart (intelligent rule driven: dice and cards) playing pieces to reduce the 'required pre-game reading' and rule memorisation. Instead of small car manual it is reduced to eight A4 sheets of large print rules and diagrams. Good job by the designers as the play flowed smoothly (see below, the game is in progress, we are three players trying to find the cure for four diseases, you can sense the game mechanics are finely mathematically balanced between winning and losing):

With the exception to "Pretender" which is a classic pick up and play in 30 seconds, the other two "Munchkins" and "Pandemic" had to be first played with a dry-run round (or two) to get the feel for the rules and a sense of what the strategies were. In fact richness in the "Munchkins" cards and interactions were revealed with more and more play. Being nasty (for "Munchkins") was a characteristic of play that had to be learned (counter intuitive in many ways to be so overtly nasty and in your face). We were not getting the rules wrong (the sequence of play was very simple) but combinations of cards "worked". "Pandemic" is a little more frustrating because after playing it four times I "think" I have the rules now .. and the designers did a good job making it simple .. something about how the dynamics pull together. It makes me think I should make better of You Tube instructional videos and the like, games like Chain of Command fro the Two Fat Lardies unashamedly use it wisely. The classic statistic from the 1970's/80's Avalon Hill/SPI period was that 55% of games never got played - those that did, I wonder how many were really played correctly? Are we any better off now in getting games played?

Munchkins: D&D but not as you knew it ... Brilliant Family Fun

I am feeling really  happy that I finally "discovered how to play" this little classic board game. First, at the after-hours "Gamers Club" at work and then immediately when I brought it home and played it with the family. Certainly not a "cooperative game" but the fun is also in the 'sneaky thief' stab-in-back aspect to the game. It gets quite murderous in the "end game" phase as many tall-poppy fell making bloody scenes from "Game of Thrones" look like Kinder-garden Cop by comparison (see below, the iconic art work from Steve Jackson Games - note there are also many differently themed variants out there, such as Warhammer 40K):

Despite coming "a joint close second (just when I thought I was in with a chance a female warrior ran past me wearing 'slime armour' to ace it to Level 10)" in the friendly Work Game, I was roundly beaten by the superior wit and cunning intelligence of my eldest son in the no-holds barred "Home Tournament" game (see below, the game nearing its end phase - a two player duel for Alpha male dominance in which I duly lost, being a Dwarf Wizard with a "singing sword" was no match against a Munchkin multi-class [wizard-warrior], multi-race [Elf-Dwarf] tooled up killing machine with a sword in both hands and a scary bandanna, not to mention "the boots of butt-kicking"!): 

The Home Game: The final score card shows the hectic frenzied finale. To his credit it was a well earned victory with him overcoming many adversities as he was finally crowned House Munchkin Champion (see below, "First to Level 10 wins"): 

The game was so much rip-roaring fun (we made a lot of noise in retrospect, which included my son developing a Germanic accent for some unexplained reason), the wife even expressed more than a passing interest in playing; the eldest's Dungeons and Dragons school friends will soon be exposed to this D&D Lite event (the shouting from which I expect to be very loud and boisterous)!

Family Christmas Games Night will be fun this year!