December games

Man. Hard to believe 2025 is at an end. Well, let's finish up the board game challenge! 

Refresher:
Games we played in: January, February, March, July, August, September, October, and November. 

88. Take a Number. (avg score - 6.5)

Basically Take 5, with a few tweaks. 

89. Super Mario Card Game (avg score - 1.5) 

This is SO not fun. The Super Mario 'flavoring' doesn't add anything to it, and in fact, since the game itself is so un-enjoyable, having it bear the Mario decor kinda makes me dislike it even more. 

Anyway, the rules of this are that basically everyone is trying to have the highest level card for each round. Or, at the very least, not the lowest.  There are 'power ups' that can alter opponents levels (and maybe your own too, I don't really remember) but if you end up with the lowest level out of everyone in the round, you lose a life. Lose 3 lives, and it's game over. 

90. Tell  Tale Fairy Tale (avg score - 3) 

This barely qualifies as a game, imo. You have a collection of images that are from fairy tales, and you are supposed to put them in any order you want, and then create a story based on the images. 

91. Telestrations (avg score - 4 ) 

Basically "telephone". Each person starts out with a word or phrase. They draw that, and pass it to the next player, who has to figure out what they think that is. They write it down, and pass what they wrote down to the next player who has to draw their interpretation of THAT word or phrase. Which then gets passed to the next person, until you end up with your thing back, and you get to see where the mess up in communication ended up. There's no points to this - or at least we didn't play with any - it's just a silly game to pass the time and hopfeully laugh at unexpected hilarity. 

92. Ticket to Ride First Journey (avg score 5.5) - 

Collect trains, build tracks between cities, blah blah blah. It's fun, although since it's the 'family' edition, it skewers towards kids and feels a little childish. But, I don't know that the "grown up" version would be all taht different or exciting, really.

93. Tsuro (avg score 7.5) - 

Everyone has a marker at the edge of the board and a collection of tiles with curvy 'pathways' on it. Place a tile down in front of your marker, and then you have to follow the path. Keep your marker on the board, and don't collide into any other players, and be the last dude standing. Pretty fun., The board and the pieces are gorgeous.

94. Uno Dare (avg score 2 ) - 

It's Uno, but the 'twist' for this one is that some of the wild cards have 'dares' on them that you can choose to perform instead of drawing additional cards. Nobody in the family is into that sort of thing (I'd say I MOST am, and even I'm not THAT big a fan) so this is basically JUST Uno, but with a dumb twist that goes mostly ignored.

95. Uno Flip (avg score - 5.5) 

It's Uno, but the twist for this one is that wild cards "flip" the entire game to the reverse side of the cards, which make it the "dark side" where penalties are more severe. (It's like draw 3s instead of draw 2s, and the skip skips everyone. That sort of thing) It's an okay twist, but not really enjoyable enough to take the crown of best Uno.

96. Unspeakable Words (avg score - 5)

A word game with SUPER CUTE Cthulu dudes. You have letter cards instead of tiles. You have to make a word, which gives you points, then roll a die to be higher than the point total you scored, or you lose a dude. When you get down to just one left, you're going insane, and can put down any gobbedly-gook  for your word.  I like this game more than pretty much anyone else, and really, it's the cute little figurines that are doing most of the work there. (I do like the idea of allowing nonsense words, but only if you make some sort of definition for them, or use them in a sentence.)

97. Unearth (avg score - 6.5)

Fun little game where you roll dice to collect tokens and build monuments. Or...something. I dunno, it's hard to remember the exact rules of this now, but it was fun at the time we played.

98. Wavelength - (avg score 7.5)

You get a card with two options on it (they're generally opposites of one another. Or at least NEAR opposites) You spin the wheel so that the points will be somewhere on the board, then have to give a clue that the other players have to pinpoint the general vicinitiy of which option it leans towards. I'm not explaining it very well, but it's pretty fun. Certainly a unique game and can generate some good conversations.

99. We Didn't Playtest This At All (avg score - 2.5 )

"Mom, I want Fluxx."

"We have Fluxx at home."
Fluxx at home:

100. Wits and Wagers  (avg score - 3 )

A guessing trivia game. Trivia question is asked, people write down their guesses, then people put their wagers down on who they think got closest to the actual answer. If you don't like trivia games, you're going to pretty much hate this. (Silas does not like trivia games.)

101. Yahtzee (avg score - 6.5 )

It's Yahtzee, yo. You roll your dice, and try to get a good score. Fun, but, as Steph pointed out, it's a very "solitary" game in that you don't really have to interact with the other player(s). Still enjoyable.

102. Zeus on the Loose (avg score -  5.5)

Card game where you put down numbers on "Mt. Olympus" trying to be the first to get over 100, and also have the Zeus figure in front of you. You move him in front of you whenver you play a card that makes the total a multiple of 10, or if you play one of the many Gods or Goddesses cards that changes the amount to a specific thing, and/or instructs you to take Zeus.  This is a kids game to help teach math, so it's pretty simple, but, you konw, wasn't a bad game.

103. Zombie Dice (avg score - 5)

Roll the dice, try to get brains, without rolling shotguns. Set aside the brains you roll, and you can push your luck and keep trying, but if you roll 3 shotguns, you get NO points. First to bank 13 brains wins.

104. Zombies!!! (avg score - 4)

Well... This hasn't aged supremely well. It was fun to play with the kids when they were little, but, it's not a supremely well made game. The materials are cheapish, and it's a lot of dice rolling and luck. The theming of a zombie attack does most of the heavy lifting, and, I'm just not as into zombies as I once was, so a lot of the shine of that has worn off. I think the idea of having the city build out in various directions is kind of cool, but, having the tiles be paper thin, and the bullet and heart tokens so dang small really do hurt this game. The last game we have is Zombies DeadTime Stories, which is, I think, basically an expansion pack for this, so we will have to see if that improves upon it any (so we didn't actually play that, because, it is basically just Zombies!!! again, with slight variations, and we didn't feel like playing this again.).

So, that's all the games we own. We're going to cull them quite a bit, and that'll mean we have room made for getting new ones. Hooray!