It was our final Adult Board Games Club before Christmas, so we played two old favourites: Dominoes and Draughts. People found it relaxing to play Block Dominoes, as it was something they could remember from their past, as opposed to the many unfamiliar games we have bombarded them with since September! In one game I emptied the entire boneyard. Good job we weren’t adding up the pips. We discussed some of the strategies, such as getting rid of doubles early and watching why people are digging in the boneyard and trying to memorise what tiles they lack.

We then had a marathon game of Draughts, interspersed with delicious stollen and mince pies brought in by one of our members as a surprise. Lots of kings were made, but we ran out of time before we could decide on the best strategy for ending the game.

We are looking forward to playing lots more game in 2019, and will welcome any new members who want to join us.

It was our last session of the term, so we asked the children to request their favourite games from this term. We played Mastermind, Ghost Blitz and Frog Rush. I brought in one new game: Foxy (MB, 1977). There is a 6 x 6 board, with 32 shallow holes (the corners do not have holes). There are 11 purple wooden discs, which are randomly distributed across the board. Each player has a tube which they fill with 11 wooden discs (one player has blue, the other yellow) and position on opposite corners. (I am always blue by the way, even when playing a child). Players take it in turns to move their tube in any direction, over any number of spaces, but they cannot turn direction mid-move. As the tube moves over an empty hole a disc drops down. The first player to empty their tube is the winner. A good strategy is to try and block the other player’s tube with your own tube, limiting their options on their next turn.

At the end of the session we explained to the children that in the new year we introducing a new after school club: Bletchley Juniors Codebreaking Club. We had a brief chat about the role of Bletchley Park in the Second World War. We do hope the children return for this new club, as we have enjoyed their company and we can see how much enjoyment they get from playing games and exercising their minds.

 

We played a few different 5 in a row games this week at our Board Games Club for Adults. We have played Pente, Pentago, Cavendish and Cambio before, so brought them back: some people played them for the first time; others played them as a recap and enjoyed reflecting on the similarities and differences between the games.

We played Swish (ThinkFun, 2011), a game of visual perception, for the first time with the adults. There are 60 transparent cards; each card has some combination of balls and hoops on it, in different positions, with these shapes being in four colours. A Swish is two or more cards that can be laid on top of one another in a way that every ball fits in a hoop of the same colour. Flipping and rotating are allowed. To start the game, 16 cards are laid out in a 4×4 grid. Players simultaneously try to create a Swish, keeping the cards used, with new cards laid to fill in the gaps in the grid. The player with the most cards when the deck runs out is the winner. Some people enjoyed this game more than others did. We reflected on how different games use different parts of the brain, and appeal to some people more than others. Anna said she wanted to attached probes to people’s brains to see the different parts firing up. Strangely no-one volunteered for this assignment.

We played Ghost Blitz (Zoch, 2010) today for the first time. This is a great game of visual perception. Dobble is a good game for spotting the same object on two cards. Ghost Blitz takes this a step further by asking you to find the object which is not on the card. It requires a process of elimination at speed to find the right object. I wrote in an earlier posting about Space Faces being my favourite game. Ghost Blitz is not far behind, because it stretches the brain in different directions, making it great fun.

There are five wooden items: a white ghost, a green bottle, a grey mouse, a blue book and a red chair. There is a deck of cards, each card showing two items, with one or both items in the wrong colour. A card is turned, then players either shout out or grab the “correct” item. If one item is the correct colour, players need to grab that correctly coloured item. If both items are the wrong colour, then players look for the item and colour not on the card e.g. if the card shows a green ghost and a red mouse, the answer is the item which is not the ghost, not the mouse, not green and not red: it must be the blue book. The player with the most cards when the deck runs out is the winner.

After some demonstrations of how to eliminate the items, the children picked up the concept quickly, and enjoyed a fast-paced game until we had a winner. Sadly the mouse lost an ear at one point. I was able to push it back in. I must remember to get the superglue out.

We also played Swish (ThinkFun, 2011), another game of visual perception. There are 60 transparent cards; each card has some combination of balls and hoops on it, in different positions, with these shapes being in four colours. A Swish is two or more cards that can be laid on top of one another in a way that every ball fits in a hoop of the same colour. Flipping and rotating are allowed. To start the game, 16 cards are laid out in a 4×4 grid. Players simultaneously try to create a Swish, keeping the cards used, with new cards laid to fill in the gaps in the grid. The player with the most cards when the deck runs out is the winner. It took the children a little while to grasp the concept, but by the end of the game they were eagerly making Swishes.

At our Board Games Club for Adults, we played a new game – Zenix – as well as some we have played before (Pente, Quoridor and Bridg-It).

Zenix (Gigamic, 2000) has nice, chunky, hexagonal wooden pieces in three different colours. It can be played by 2 or 3 players. Players try to build the longest connected chain of their pieces. There is a wooden base; players take it in turns to lay their pieces, eventually forming a pyramid. In the 3 player version, each player has 12 pieces of one colour. In the 2 player version, each player has 12 pieces of one colour, plus 6 neutral pieces to use as blockers. As with many games we play, you need to do two things: make your chain, and also block the other player’s chain. We found Zenix easy to explain and start playing, with a good level of challenge for players who are evenly matched.