dancingthroughchaos

“I win, it’s skill. You win, it’s luck.” — Traditional proverb for players of games

I think I may have found the perfect antidote to the current maelstrom of TV sport as well as get your ahead of the Christmas rush – a mere five months away.  If you’re fed up with football, wearied by Wimbledon, tired of the Tour de France, irritated by ICC cricket or all round seriously sapped by all things sporty, then take a moment to investigate the contents of your games drawer.

Most families have one of these.  My current residence has two cupboards full of board games and baskets overflowing with card games.  Since my son and daughter-in-law are currently staying with us (yay – haven’t seen them since the wedding last August, except on a screen), we’ve returned to the family tradition of sitting down to a few rounds of whatever.

I LOVE family games and always have done.  My Dad was not a fan of the ‘goggle box’ and, growing up in the war years as well as being an asthmatic for whom sport was a challenge, he spent many happy hours playing games with his older brother.  Consequently we were introduced to a raft of board games from a young age.  Snakes and Ladders, Ludo and simple dice games are manageable for quite young children and learning to take turns as well as to both win and lose graciously is still good training for life.

This week I’ve played familiar games and become acquainted with some band new ones.  Here’s half a dozen to whet your appetite, revive your memory and maybe add to your early Christmas list for when the heatwaves have burnt themselves out and everyone’s moaning about rainy, dark evenings again. 

1) Moose, Match, Mayhem©

A new one for me.  Players are dealt a single card which they flip over at the same time.  Don’t touch them, because if one is an Avalanche card then everything is cleared off the table for the person who did (a clever rule to introduce a use before the mayhem).  At this point, the players have a nanosecond to chose whether to grab their own card or someone else’s.  

Everyone must collect trios of either squirrels, bears or moose.  Each comes in two colours and your set of three must consist of the same colour of the same animal.  Look out for Yetis too; two of those and incomplete sets  are wiped off the board.

This one gets a bit frantic (hence, ‘Mayhem’) with the inevitable lunging for someone else’s card to complete your own collection.  A coin is provided for a simple head/tales toss in case two of you simultaneously grab the same card; this (mostly) saves sliced hands, torn cards and frayed tempers.

2)  Bananagrams©

Hats off to my son who, despite historical dyslexia (now much improved) still agrees to play this with me sometimes.

This game comes in a pencil case full of scrabble-type tiles (but no blanks and no points attached).  Players take 21 each, and race to build a giant crossword out of their tiles once someone has proclaimed: ‘Split!  When a player has used up their tiles, they shout, ‘Peel!’ and everyone must take another letter to add to the alphabet soup in front of them.  When confronted with an overwhelming selection of consonants, usually prominently featuring J and Z, a player can ‘dump’ them.  For every single tile dumped, three more must be selected.  The first player to use all their letters with no more remaining in the central pile (depending how many players are playing) shouts, ‘Bananagrams!’  Play ends and the puzzle is checked for veracity.  No proper nouns, abbreviations or made up words allowed.  We often look out for the player who’s managed to produce the longest word (one of my daughters usually wins this accolade) and admire them appropriately.

3) Monopoly Deal©

Most of the family now refuse to play the original board game version of this, and I include myself in that.  While my sister and I had games that went on for days in school holidays, they usually ended in tears and, frankly, once all the properties are purchased it can become intensely tedious.  

We still play Monopoly Empire© which is a much better, slicker and faster board version of the game and which depends far more on buying companies than how much money you accumulate.  Here we’re playing a USA version of the card game which features properties such as Lexington, Pennsylvania and Fifth Avenues.  

In this iteration, players need to collect three full sets of properties.  Every turn requires players to pick up two cards from he pack to add to the seven in their hand.  They then have three optional opportunities to lay cards down and must never have more than seven cards remaining.  Money comes in the form of cards, so while you never pass ‘Go’, you can pickup money from the pile and keep it in your personal bank.  Rent cards are indicated by appropriate colours; if a player has insufficient funds they must surrender property.  ’Action’ cards give you the opportunity to swap properties or steal complete sets from someone.  A ‘Just Say No’ card allows you to block an action by another player.

This version can be over in ten minutes depending on the way the cards fall but means no one gets too tetchy or bored.

4). Sushi Go!©

Other new one for me.  Cards consist of various sushi items including Tempura, Sashimi, Maki rolls and Dumplings.  Puddings feature and should be kept for bonus points for or against you depending how many you have (as in life, more is better).  The number of cards each player is dealt depends on the number of participants.  For our three-person game, we had nine each.  Everyone picks out one to place face down on the table and them passes the entire hand on to the player on their left who does the same.  This continues until every player has nine cards in front of them.  No one knows what anyone else is collecting. The round is complete (three rounds per game) and the points added up.  Extra points are given for combinations of sushi eg x2 Tempura = 5 points; Dumplings can garner 1,3,6, 10 or 15 points depending on how may have been collected and a blob of Wasabi means your next Nigiri will gain triple points.

All those cards are collected and discarded.  The new round is dealt from the pack that is still unused.

Fortunately you don’t have to enjoy Sushi to enjoy the game!  Bit mad, but quite fun and, if you slow it down, children could easily have fun with this.

5) Phase 10© 

My favourite of the new games played, as the name suggests, in ten phases.  The cards look like Uno© cards and each round/phase requires players to collect different combinations of sets or runs of cards.  This is brilliant as, unlike Rummy-type games, there’s no time to get bored and, inevitably, someone goes out leaving others who have not completed their phase.  The winner and any player who has completed the task can go on to the next phase in the next round.  Those who failed to complete it must do so in the next round (or several if they get truly stuck) before they can move on to another phase.

Cards remaining in a players’ hand count against them (x5 for numbers 1-9; x10 for numbers 10-12; 25 for ‘Wild’ and ‘Skip’ cards).  The winner may not be the first person to

complete all ten phases although to be a contender you must have done so.  Points may tip the balance.

I love this new game!  Definitely worth purchasing.  The hardest phases are actually in the middle of the challenge which is where it’s easy to get stuck.  Because different players are often completing different phases they’re less likely to be competing for the same cards which keeps it interesting.

6) Poo Head

My son taught me this one and, in the military I’m fairly certain it’s called something else…  This is about getting rid of all your cards in your hand asap so you can use the ones laid out on the table (face-up three first, face-down ones blind).  Some ‘magic’ cards exist and players place their cards in ascending order starting with fours.  A 2 will reset the pack (ie: begin again from 4 upwards); a 3 acts as a repeat/invisible card meaning the next player must go from whatever is underneath it.

There are sooooo many games to be played with a simple pack of cards that your family probably has their own extensive repertoire.  Always a good basic in a collection of games. One of my own favourite is called Hand & Foot and requires five packs of cards.  It kept our family entertained for a full foggy day near Pilgrim’s Rest in Mpumalanga, South Africa one year and is the reason that, for me, Ladysmith Black Mambazo music will forever be associated with the game.

To be honest, if you’re looking for a super simple fame, its hard to go wrong with‘Snap!’ Or ‘Pairs’ depending on the deck of cards you have to hand.

Whatever you choose, it’s a great way of bonding with your loved ones and communicating in a way TV doesn’t allow for. Stick them on your Christmas list now to get ahead of that game, and if you can find an automatic shuffler somewhere, you won’t regret it.

Banter, jokes and general chat are good accompaniments; you’ll be glad you took the time to play and it will keep you out of the furnace outside as well as the TV sport inside. You’re welcome.