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.

We started by giving the children an opportunity to play Picaria Quad, a game we invented as a family on 18 November 2018. This variation on Picaria gives each player four counters and the winner is the first to make a square or rectangle. We started by asking the children to find all the squares and rectangles on the board. They did well, but needed a bit of help to see the ones that are set at an angle.

We then played a few 5 in a row games. I describe Pentago, Cavendish and Pente in the blog posting below, so will avoid repetition here. It is interesting to see the similarities in how adults and children approach these games. Whatever the age, some players will approach with caution, mull over their options, and learn from their mistakes. Some will also throw themselves straight in and ignore your strategic tips. Although so far only the children have spontaneously hummed the Imperial March leitmotif from the Star Wars theme while playing.

Today at our Board Games Club for Adults we played two games based on making squares, and three 5 in a row games.

We played Squares (Waddingtons, 1982). This is a three dimensional version of the game sometimes called Dots and Boxes which is played on paper. The grid is 4 x 5, giving a total of 20 squares. Initial set-up has all the blocks turned to red on one side, and white on the other side. The player who is looking at red has to make a white square, and vice versa. Players take it in turns to swivel one block. Whoever swivels the last block to make a square claims it with a peg of their colour. The player with the most pegs at the end is the winner.

We also played Territorie (Invicta, 1979). Invicta made Mastermind, Anna’s favourite game, and we think they invented this game to give another use to the coloured pegs. They were a plastics company after all! In Squares, a block is permanent once a square is made. In Territorie a player has two options: either add a new fence to the 8 x 8 grid, or swing an existing fence in any direction. When a player encloses a square with a fence on all four sides they claim it with their own colour peg. Again, the player with the most pegs at the end is the winner.

The 5 in a row games we played were: Pente, Pentago and Cavendish.

Pente (Parker, 1984) uses a 19×19 grid and the game is played on the intersections. If this makes you think of the game Go, you clearly know your board games. There are two ways to win: make a 5 in a row, in any direction; or capture five pairs of the other player’s beads. The method of capturing is “custodian capture”: you bracket two adjacent beads with one of your own at both ends. The strategy includes trying to make a 4 in a row which is open at both ends: the other player can block one end on their turn, leaving you free to complete the five at the other end.

Pentago (Peliko, 2005) has a board that twists. On their turn each player does two things: add one marble of their colour to the board, then twist one quadrant of the board through 90º. The game board is constantly changing, and the key is to set up the board so that you twist it to make a 5 in a row on your next move, hoping the other player cannot see what you are about to do.

We played Cavendish (Hiron Ltd, 1986) last week but it is such a good game we brought it back. The strategy is the same as Pente: make a 4 in a row which is open at both ends. It also has a capturing rule, but this one involves jumping over not bracketing two counters.

By request, we had a chess week. But not regular chess. We played Dice Chess! Pieces move and capture in the normal way, but a role of the die determines which piece is moved. 1 = pawn or king. 2 = pawn or king. 3 = queen. 4 = bishop. 5 = knight. 6 = rook. If a piece is missing or cannot legally move then the die is rolled again. A player wins by capturing the king. A player can check the king, but with the version we played the king is not obliged to move out of check (although it would be a gamble not to). You do not win by checkmate but by capturing the king. This variation is quicker than normal chess as there is less time spent agonising over which piece to move.

We also played a game I call Chess Four.

It is played on a 4×4 grid, with only one pawn, knight, bishop and rook each. The aim is to be the first to make a 4 in row. Pieces move and capture in the normal way, but a captured piece is given back to the player who lost in, who gets to reintroduce in when they choose. This is a good game for introducing children to how chess pieces move and capture.