2025 Games - February

 (January games here)

February game time!

9. Blokus - (avg score 5) - You build your little empire of stained glass squares, spreading out, trying to expand, and also block your opponent(s) from being able to place any more of their tiles. Pretty simple, really (too simple when playing with just two people, so we played a second time with each of us being two colors, which was slightly better).  It's ...fine, but it really does feel like a game that should be a phone app. (And I'm sure that it IS. But you know what I mean. Or you don't.)

10. Boggle - (avg score 6.75) - we've had this forever. Shake the box of letter die (SO LOUD!!), then stare at a 4x4 grid making words from the letters. Then compare your list to your opponents, crossing off any that you both discovered. We played to 99 points, and Steph ended up winning 108 to 97.

11. Bounce Off - (avg score 4.5) essentially, beer pong without the beer. Or cups. It's just bouncing ping pong balls into a plastic grid, attempting to have them land in there to make patterns on the card in front of you. First to do that three times wins.  (I won, but it's nothing to really brag about, it's like 99.5% luck)

12. Break the Safe - (avg score 3.5) - a cooperative game for kids that we have had for decades at this point. I played it with the kids when they were still very young. (There's a page on the instructions booklet where you can keep track of your score, and how much time remained on the 30 minute timer. There were playthroughs back in 2003. Crazy.) Anyway, this mostly gets points for nostalgia, and the fact that it's a kinda cool 'setting' or 'story' or whatever you want to call it, for a game. You play as a group of theives attempting to break into a safe. You have to make your way into various rooms which have booby traps which are defeated with various tools (cards that each player has) There are also a guard and a guard dog roaming the halls that you have to attempt to avoid. 

The goal is to find all 4 key tiles and get them back to the safe room before time runs out. There are also 2 secret passage tiles in the mix, one 'blank' tile, and one tile that 'stuns' you (causing anyone in that room when it's revealed to lose their next turn). Amazingly, our luck was so bad that we revealed ALL of those before finding a single key tile. By the time we managed to get a second key, the time was up. So, we lost. Womp womp.

This really is designed for kids, and is a decent introduction to cooperative games, but, our family has outgrown it. (It also does have flaws- like having to count and move the guard/dog tokens first, and keep track of their movement AND yours is something that caused ME to get confused...maybe young children are more able to handle mutlitasking, but it does seem like it could be an issue.) Anyway. DOubt we're going to keep this, but if we do, it's PURELY for the nostalgia factor, and we probably won't ever actually replay it.

 

13. Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Board Game - (avg score 6) -  Ahh, Buffy.  It's been a LONG time since we've played this - I think the last Buffy Bowl we did was 10-ish years ago? - but, it mostly came back pretty quickly as we played thru the Master storyline. ("Rollin' for the Master"). This game has a LOT of luck elements to it (games which rely heavily on  dice often do, of course) but that's fine. This is mostly a way to have fanfiction-y stories featuring Buffy characters and scenarios, which, being (largely lapsed) fans of the series goes a LONG way toward making the game enjoyable. (This go around, Xander got killed by The Master, Buffy took out Darla and Druscilla, and Willow was the one who ended up killing the Master ....with dynamite. LOL.) I sort of felt bad for the Master at the end as he was just an old old man who got beat up by a bunch of teenage punks. But, whatever. 

The game has a handful of flaws that stood out (some poorly worded cards, the fact that if you attack someone, it pretty much leaves you open to being attacked back right away, and of course, the aforementioned luck factor) but, just like the show, I'm mostly willing to overlook them and have myself a good time. 

14. Camel Up - (avg score 8) - Such a well made game!! It takes a little bit of getting into, but once you do, it's quite easy to understand, and has a great mix of strategy and luck. This is supposed to have 3 (or more) players, and none of the kids were really wanting to partake in game night, so Steph and I each played as two players, which, actually worked out quite well. 

the next game on the list is actually Cards Against Humanity Family Edition, but we need 4 players for that, and getting that to happen is amazingly difficult, so we skipped it temporarily. Hopefully we'll get it checked off the list at some point. Anyway, Steph and I next played...

15. Castle Panic - (avg score 7.5) - a cooperative game that we've managed to win a few times. You've got your castle set up in the middle of the board, and orcs, trolls and goblins are approaching from the outside, moving in. You defend it by drawing cards with archers, swordsmen and knights, who attack the creatures when they're in the right color/space on the board.  It's incredibly simple, but somehow manages to be a good deal of fun. Steph and I survived with 3 castles still remaining (out of 6) so, not too bad. There does seem to come a point near the end where the ending (whichever way it's gonna go) becomes obvious, and at that point it does turn into just drawing the cards to  get to the endpoint, but it's still overall a fun game.