Back to our regular Friday spot from now on! Today we played games requiring quick eyes (and quick hands).

First up was Space Faces (Spear’s, 1970s/1980s), Debbie’s favourite game from childhood. In a bizarre oversight, the gospel Board Game Geek have neglected to create a page for Space Faces. Here is an image instead:

There are 120 different aliens to find. Each alien has a unique colour combination for its face, eyes, nose and mouth. There are five colours (yellow, red, green, purple and blue) but a shaker is used to have only four colours in play at a time. After a good shake (possible design flaw – the shaker is rather ear-piercing) the first player to find the alien wins a counter. The first to five counters is the winner. The children found the aliens with yellow faces were easiest to find, as there is more contrast with the other colours. Some of the younger children decided this was a “hard game to play”. I think they found it hard to retain four pieces of information at the same time, while also knowing they were in a race against other children. I must work on some strategies to help them.

Next up was Dobble (Asmodee, 2009), a pattern recognition game. There are 55 round cards, with eight symbols per card. Any two cards have only one symbol in common. Players race to find the symbol shown on two cards. There are various mini-games which can be played. I urge you to read the leaflet explaining how Dobble was invented as it touches on some interesting maths, as well as showing the persistence required to turn an idea into a game people can buy.

We then brought back a favourite from last year, Rubik’s Race (Rubik’s, 1982). Each player has a 5×5 grid, with one tile missing. The 24 tiles consist of four tiles each of six colours (white, yellow. orange, red, green, blue i.e. the same as a Rubik’s Cube). A scrambler is shaken which reveals a 3×3 pattern. Players race to make the 3×3 centre of their grid match this 3×3 pattern. The space made by the missing tile is used to move the other tiles into the correct position. There was a developmental ‘gap’ between the Year 5 children who moved the missing tile around with fluency and speed, and the Year 3 children who took a little longer to understand how to play. There was good resilience shown by all the children.

Today we held our second session for paying customers in Newport.

We played two variations on Draughts. First up was Losing Draughts, quite a subversive game where you win by being the first person to lose all your pieces. This game requires a rule: if you can capture a piece, you must capture it. This is still a game of strategy, as you need to push your piece right in front of your opponent’s piece, thereby forcing them to capture you (and hopefully then go on to capture a second of your pieces in the same go). The second variation was Double-Back Draughts. This returns to the normal rules of Draughts, but with a different objective: the winner is the first player to make a king and return it to their own baseline. More than one king can be made, but you just need to return one to your baseline. We enjoyed showing people that a well-known game like Draughts can have interesting variations.

Then we moved on to King’s Court (Golden, 1989), subtitled ‘The Original Game of Supercheckers’. Checkers of course is the American name for Draughts. The central area (a 4×4 square) is the Centre Court. Players must keep at least one piece in the Centre Court at all times, and failure to do so means losing the game. In a variation on Draughts, players can jump over their own pieces (which stay on the board). If you jump over the other player’s piece you capture it. Multiple captures are allowed, and players can turn corners and change direction in the same move.

Today we welcomed a special guest, Jack from Age UK. We hope that Jack will be able to spread the word about how enjoyable these games are. Debbie showed Jack some games from last week – Picaria and Acquisitions – plus a little treasure from Korea – Four Field Kono – which has a unique capturing rule.

Next week: Mancala, a redistribution game from Africa.