Games and Puzzles

Here's a board game with a difference.  There's no board.  Instead the players create their own planet, by sticking desert, mountain, ice, water or forest tiles on a magnetic dodecahedron, an ingenious feature of the game.  You do this in a way that creates the most suitable habitats for animals.  So for example penguins would need a large area of ice next to water whereas an arctic wolf would need ice but not water.  Each game lasts about half an hour.

2-4 players

Age suitability: 8+

Here's an excellent review from Tom Vasel of the Dice Tower on Youtube:

and a video from the game designers:

Colt Express is a fun board game in which you are one of a group of bandits trying to rob a train.  The board itself is a 3D train that you assemble out of cardboard before you play the game the first time. 

Each round of the game has two stages.  In the first stage, the Schemin' Phase, the players try to plan how their character will move around the train in the second stage and what it will do as it moves. So players take it in turn to lay down an activity card.  You will decide, for example, whether it moves from carriage to carriage, climbs onto the roof, robs the passengers, shoots or punches another character or moves the sheriff.  After everyone has laid down there four cards, the second stage, the Stealin' Phase, begins.  The bandits are moved around the train in the way that the cards instruct.  Some bandits may pick up the money and gems, others may be unlucky and meet the sheriff.

The game lasts for 5 rounds which should take about 40 minutes.

2-6 players (better and more chaotic with 4+)

Age suitability: 10+

 

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Rummikub is a tile game and claims to be the UK's no.1 family stategy game.  The tiles are numbered 1 to 13 in four colours. Each player starts with fourteen tiles and tries to discard them in sets, three or more of the same number but in different colours, or runs, three or more consecutive numbers in the same colour. The first to clear his tiles is the winner.

Rummikub was invented in Romania 70 years ago by Ephraim Hertzano following the Romanian government's decision to ban card games.  It works on a similar principle to a central European card game called Vatikan, played with two packs of cards, with tiles substituting for cards.  Initially Mr Hertzano made every game himself, carefully cutting and painting each tile by hand in his little workshop.  Word spread about the game and it slowly began to be exported.  In 1977, it became one of the best-selling games in America.  In 1980 it won Game of the Year in Germany and other awards in Holland and Poland in subsequent years. It is now exported to more than 50 countries from a high-tech factory in Israel still run by the Hertzano family.

2 - 4 players.

Age suitability: 7 - Adult

Here is an excellent youtube video explaining how to play:

Outfoxed is an excellent cooperative deduction game.  Someone has stolen Mrs Plumpert's prize pie and you and the other players have to work out which fox is the guilty one. At each roll of dice, you get a chance of finding a clue or revealing a suspect.  If you are unlucky or you make a mistake, the fox moves three steps closer to getting away.

Children like this game because it's fun.  Parents like it because it also encourages the children's logic and memory skills.

Each game takes about twenty minutes.

Age suitability: 5 +

2-4 players

Here is an excellent review on Youtube from Tom Vasel of the Dice Tower:

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Introduce the delights of Scrabble to younger children.

For children starting to spell, one side of the board has pictures and clues for children to guess words that are already on the board (for example f--h paired with a picture of a fish).

On the other side of the board, older children can play a more conventional game of Scrabble, making up their own words but with bigger tiles and simpler scoring.

Contains : Double-sided board, 84 word tiles, 30 counters for scoring, and instructions.

2 - 4 players.

Age suitability: 6+

Here is a video from youtube with a very American voiceover:

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This is one of my son's favourite games, not least because he always beats me.

Always voted as being in the top ten family board games, Cluedo is a bit of a classic. Millionaire Samuel Black has been murdered.  One of his disfunctional guests did it so who was it, how did they do it and where?  As you move round the house and ask questions of your competitors, can you pice together the truth?  Was it Mrs Peacock, the Rev. Green or the new character, the mysterious Dr Orchid and what weapon did they use and where?

2-6 players

Age suitability: 8+

Here is an American video showing how to play (it's called Clue over there):