Games Played

My nephews always want me to play with them (or tell my made-up-on-the-spot Snowflake stories). We started off with me teaching two of them how to play several games from the Book of Classic Board Games:

• Go: This book contains the 9x9 version, which was a bit above their heads.
• Solitaire: I think they understood the game, though they have a long way to go to get good at it.
• Fox and Geese: They had played this once or twice. They thought that the geese could jump the foxes, which I believe to be incorrect. On the other hand, I remembered that the foxes were not forced to jump, which they thought to be incorrect (and they were right).
• Halma: Called Hoppers in this book, this game is Chinese Checkers on a square board from corner to corner.

Later I saw one of the other nephews playing Magic with my brother. I then played against my brother. We both created decks from random picks of his cards. I lost three games in a row, even the final game where he drew only two lands for the first half of the game. I believe I was a decent player once upon a time; this belief comforts me in many times of trouble and hopelessness. Unfortunately, none of those times are whilst playing Magic.

I brought three games to play in the afternoon, figuring we would get to play one of them. Oddly, the one that attracted them was Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix (over Age of Empires III and Steam). We played a full six player game, which was a first for me. We played with a number of rules adjustments, some better and some worse.

Players could acquire multiple cars. This made bidding to be very very vicious, which was all to the good. On the other hand, those players who acquired no cars were still required to play cards, which was boring, king-making, and rather silly.

We also played that the white movement on your cards could be used for your own car, or for another car even if that car could not move. I'm not sure whether this change was ultimately bad or good; it meant that players who acquired multiple white movement cards had an advantage, so it was probably for the bad.

The game was pretty close, and the kids loved it so much that they asked to borrow the game to play again.

On Sukkot I brought my standby card filler No Thanks  to the family at which I ate lunch. I played this with the host and his teenage daughters, and they asked to play multiple times. A definite hit.

Thursday is Games Day at the Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club, which I am planning on attending.