Games
We recently discovered J&J Cards, a game store in Waterloo that has really good prices for lots of great games. They carry a lot of German style board games which are really fun. Here are some of the games we've played recently that they carry.
During the summer Greg brought Crayon Rails - British Rails, which was a really fun game in which you build railroads by drawing with crayons on a plastic board, and carry goods around to different cities. We bought a similar copy called Empire Builder which uses a map of North America. We borrowed a copy of Settlers for a while, which is really fun, and I'm sure everyone in Waterloo has at the very least heard about it. We were also recently introduced to a card game called Bang. Which is another really fun game. I think it's quite similar to Mafia (if Mafia is what I think it is), but it brings a little more structure to the game. Each player has a role and a character. The character gives each person a different twist on the rules. Each person gets a turn at playing some cards based on a few simple rules until the sheriff is dead or the last one alive. The final game we bought just recently with a birthday gift certificate - Carcassonne. It's somewhat similar to settlers, but you build your board as you go. The game ends when all the board pieces have been played and you tally up your scores to see who won. There's some interesting strategy to get yourself the most points. We've only played with two people so far, but I think it would be more difficult with more players.
The Crayon Rails game is quite long, a couple hours, but all the rest are pretty short, about 30 min. It makes you want to play over and over again to try different strategies. There is quite a bit more strategy in these games than the old board games I use to play as a child.
During the summer Greg brought Crayon Rails - British Rails, which was a really fun game in which you build railroads by drawing with crayons on a plastic board, and carry goods around to different cities. We bought a similar copy called Empire Builder which uses a map of North America. We borrowed a copy of Settlers for a while, which is really fun, and I'm sure everyone in Waterloo has at the very least heard about it. We were also recently introduced to a card game called Bang. Which is another really fun game. I think it's quite similar to Mafia (if Mafia is what I think it is), but it brings a little more structure to the game. Each player has a role and a character. The character gives each person a different twist on the rules. Each person gets a turn at playing some cards based on a few simple rules until the sheriff is dead or the last one alive. The final game we bought just recently with a birthday gift certificate - Carcassonne. It's somewhat similar to settlers, but you build your board as you go. The game ends when all the board pieces have been played and you tally up your scores to see who won. There's some interesting strategy to get yourself the most points. We've only played with two people so far, but I think it would be more difficult with more players.
The Crayon Rails game is quite long, a couple hours, but all the rest are pretty short, about 30 min. It makes you want to play over and over again to try different strategies. There is quite a bit more strategy in these games than the old board games I use to play as a child.