When I played this game, it took a pretty long time with only 4 people and there seemed to be a lot of waiting time between turns. A couple times, the round ended before I even got a chance to play and that was a little annoying. Overall this is a game you can use to pass the time or to bond with younger kids, but I don’t highly recommend it for when you are having new company over.

You put your pieces on the board one at a time, but not all pieces are the same size and lager pieces can ‘gobble’ smaller pieces by being places over them and covering them up. You can cover your pieces or the opponent’s pieces. You can also take a piece you have placed on the board and move it somewhere else.

On a scale from 1 to 10 my daughter gives this game 6. She likes that it is easy to learn, but she REALLY doen’t like it when someone else wins. You might rate it higher if you find you win more often than she does.

In this game, the goal is to get the most ‘good points’ before all the tasks are completed and the players have reached their end positions. Players get points by completing tasks given out on cards that are drawn during each player’s turn.

One good part of the game is the intrigue that comes with completing the tasks. Some players may get tired if you happen to play a round that takes a while and set up can be a little complicated.

On a scale from 1 to 10 my child gives this game a 8.

In this game (once you have it all set up) you go from class to class collecting various supplies. The first one to make it back to their starting spot with a complete collection wins. You move by rolling a die. It’s not just a regular die, though. Sometimes this helps you move staircases, sometimes you get to move people around.

On a scale from 1 to 10 my son gives it 9. Then I asked what he doesn’t like about it and he changed his answer to 10.

You know, cuz he’s playing alone and will have to bet against himself.  Seems like that’d be a bad thing.

This particular game is shockingly wonderful for the whole family.  I’ve gotten used to games that look like this being very complicated and heavy on strategy but it turns out you can’t judge a game by its box.  In this game there are 13 containers in which small beads are held.  Each container holds a different number of beads from 1-13 but the number is only written on the bottom of the container and is made visible until the end each round.

One person rolls the dice and then the players shake the containers trying to come as close to the rolled number as possible without going over.  Once each person has made their choice, everyone reveals the number on the bottom at the same time.  The person with the number closest to the rolled number goes first and pieces on the board are moved in much the same way as Parcheesi.

The game goes pretty quickly and even the very young can play.

You get together with you best bud or buds in front of whom you’ve been dying to flash some really stellar vocabulary and spelling skills. You pull out a few tiles and start throwing down words spelled according to the way they show up in the dictionary. None of this flim flam text spelling stuff. You have to actually include vowels. You track your score as you go along and the person who has the most at the end of the game wins.

Hint: Never play against your grandma if you want to win.

This game was a bit of fun, but I think I’ll like it better when I play it a second time. The rules can be somewhat intricate and anyone who hasn’t played it before should play with others who also haven’t played it so that the first time through can be thought of as a test game.

Anyway, everyone is on the same team and you are trying to win quests so you can earn enough white swords at the round table to beat back the dart forces. You move from quest to quest either individually or with help and play cards at each place on the board. The game goes pretty quickly but I got a little bored waiting for my turn when playing with four so it might be better to alter the number of players.

Since it’s all shapes and colors, this game is great for the young crowd.  But adults can add an element of strategy to it by blocking others or maximizing their points by putting down their tiles in smaller groups and hitting the same points from a line multiple times.

This game is for 2-4 players and takes about 30-40 minutes to play (unless someone thinks really hard about their moves).