We will often spend a Thursday evening (our family night) playing games, card games and board games... some of these games are harder (keeping in mind we have 3 boys aged - 9, 10 and 13) and longer to play that we have time or energy for. Because of that, I have found some ways to make the game fun, concise and still fulfilling in it's purpose. That said, here are a couple of our top games:
Catan Family Edition
This is a very fun game! Especially if you don't know the full version. LOL! It's a reasonable game in length of play (about an hour or so), and it's only really been this year that the youngest is able to play by himself. It is a 4 player game and requires a bit of reading.
Basically, the object is to collect 10 victory points by building the most cities, the longest road and collecting some development cards. The rules are simple - and the keys for building roads and cities are all on a card that each player gets - so no memorizing or guessing needed.
Our next favorite is a train board game.
Ticket to Ride
We love this game! (Oh, did I say that already....)
As I said we have 3 boys and this game allows all 5 of us to play at once. Each player chooses a train color and play starts with the person who has travelled the furthest. Each player gets 3 destination cards and has to keep 2 of them to complete as their routes. To complete a route, say from Chicago and Pittsburgh then you would need to collect orange cards to get enough to lay all your trains from those two points. This is difficult to explain if you have not played... but it's not too hard and the game has some good strategy involved - and hopefully you don't get blocked by someone who is headed to a destination near or the same as yours. This game runs 1 - 2 hours too.
As fun as this game is the difficult part of the game is calculating the score. Each connection is a score, each completed destination is a score, and so on. Thankfully, I found an app to help calculate the score! Yay!!
Train Counter app
This is a great app for scoring - this is not so great for scoring while you play... but rather at the end of the game. (As we like too... ) It's super easy to use. You just tap the train on the app that corresponds with the segment you are counting and viola!! Calculations done for you. Love it! Plus it makes cute piano sounds as you tap the trains. My kids love it.
Well, that is all I have time for today.
I'll be back to add more later! Till then - make a family memory today.
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