This weekend, I got a chance to play some games with my two girls (ages 8 and 10). I’ve mentioned these games before, but each of them deserves another shout out because they are so great. These are games that my entire family enjoys and that we have played together many times and enjoyed them every time.
Dominion is a deck-building game from Rio Grande. Basically, you buy cards to build your hand, some of which are action cards that allow you to do things, treasure cards that allow you to buy things, and victory cards that do nothing but clutter up your hand until the end, in which only they will bring you victory. There is a lot of strategy involved, but both of my girls love it. They are lucky that their daddy lacks any real strategic sense, so they can beat him. The flavour of the game is medieval – with things like villages, chamberlains, and moats – but this flavour really means nothing. A moat protects you from attack cards (very moat-like) but also allows you to draw to extra cards (not seeing the moatiness there) and a village lets you draw and extra card and take two extra actions.
Camel Up is a game in which five camels race around a track and the players bet on which one will win each leg (or round) of the game and then on which one will win the entire race. There are some actions players can take to attempt to influence the race as well. It’s a little more complex than it sounds, but is generally a lot of fun and you can run a game in about 30 minutes once its set up.
Finally, in King of New York, the players are monsters trying to stomp New York. This is the follow-on to King of Tokyo, and is very tongue in cheek, with great powers for the monsters, and lots of building stompings and puny human attacks. There are lots of fiddly bits in the game, but it’s pretty easy to learn and lots of fun to play. The girls really dig the silliness that is inherent to it.
You can find out more about Dominion here.
You can find out more about Camel Up here.
You can find out more about King of New York here.