Eternal Masters–Sooo Much good stuff

“Really, they reprinted that!!” Eternal Masters (releasing 6/10/16) is the third set in the limited print run Masters series, this time bringing back some of the best cards from the eternal formats (cards from before 8th edition, special editions, and those that got banned because they were just too good.) Like there predecessors, these packs won’t come cheap, and will almost definitely go up and up in price over the next year, but we will do our best to allocate them for playing over just buying boxes.

Before you ask, no there are not duel lands or power nine in this set. Wizards has been good to their promise never to reprint those items on the so called Reserve list, but short of that, this set looks beyond amazing, with a shocking number of some of the best cards in all of Magic, from arguably the king of Planeswalkers, Jace the Mindsculpter, to Mana Vault, Sensei’s Divining Top, and even Force of Will, these packs are just, well, packed with goodness.

Boxes will pre-sell in VERY limited quantities for $349.99 ($339.99 for regulars). And we will do a number of special events. For the limited events, to make the more affordable, we will offer player the option of taking $10 off the event price if the opt to take any prize packs they win in regular packs rather then Eternal Masters packs. (Obviously, BEFORE they look at their deck pools). Events will include:

6/11 FNM-Drafts @ $40($50 with Eternal Masters Prize Packs)
6/12 Two Headed Giant at $50/60 per player
6/13 Sealed Tournament $70/80
Plus we will be doing a Tuesday Night League. $75 to Start, and $11 a week for a new pack (four weeks) or $110 for the whole event. Players report the weeks match results by the end of each Tuesday and get their new packs when they come in on or before Tuesdays.

Screen Free Week-May 2-8th

By Ben Calica / 2 Comments / Events

It’s back…Screen Free week 2016!! See what happens when the tv’s, ipads, phones, and computers go into storage for a week, and what’s left. Read more about this in The Case for Being Bored and the Case for Family Game Night

The Screen Free Week Challenge:

Get your family to go the week without (non-work) screen-time
get a FREE magic or Pokemon Pack (Max 2 per family)–Have a family game night and get 2!!

The Challenge: Get your family to go one full week screen free! (no videos, video games or computers except for work/homework, or phones except for, well, phone stuff-talking with each other.

The Prize: I will give away 100 free Pokemon or Magic Packs for parent-verified kids who make it through the whole week screen free. (or $5 off any game more then $20 for people who don’t play the collectible card games.) I will give double packs to any kids of families who have a family game night on one of those nights, particularly if the family are all good sports!.

I know this is hard, super hard. With the screens and devices, we’ve all gotten great at avoiding the feeling of being bored. But bored is very important. Bored is a gift that creates an itch to find something else to do.

…

Screen Free Week-May 2-8thRead More »

Shadows over Innistrad

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Magic, Misc

Everything old is, well nice and creepy again.;-) In Shadows Over Innistrad, we return to the glorious classic horror of Innistrad, a land where Vampires, Zombies and Horrors, try and hunt down humans, who grab their pitchforks and stand side by side with the Hero’s Spirits and Angels who fight on their side.

Spoilers Here...Wizards starts leaking cards about 4 weeks before the set comes out…it’s fun to get a sneak peek…

The first Innistrad, ironically enough, was also the first set that came out when I took over the store, so the attachment is beyond how great the set was. (And it was great…Innistrad was the first set in a long time that Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic, was brought back to have a hand in, and it shows. Beyond the utter commitment to the storyline-i.e. no elves popping up in Bella Lugosi land, the mechanics of the set had a fun and directness to them that carried over to many of the sets that followed.) So stop smiling…this is supposed to be horrible (or Horror-ible). Hey…the puns are in the right Spirit!…Oh, stop barking at me, I know my jokes suck. (Yeah…I have teenagers…I can pull out bad Dad-puns all day long. Bring your groans…they are the music of the children of the night to me….)

Each new set introduces a small number of new abilities and brinks back a few oldies. Here is a rundown on these new (and some old) mechanics pulled from the wizards of the coast website.

DOUBLE-FACED CARDS

It wouldn’t be Innistrad if horrible things weren’t transforming into other horrible things, so double-faced cards make their return. Each double-faced card has two card faces and no back. Whoa! For the most part, they haven’t changed, although we have made a few rules tweaks that may pop up. If you’re comfortable with double-faced cards, feel go to the Double-Faced Cards Rules Changes section.

DELIRIUM

As advertised, Innistrad is a bleak world of horror and death, so a focus on the graveyard is to be expected. Delirium is a new ability word that highlights cards that get better if you have four or more card types represented in your graveyard. There are many different kinds of delirium abilities, including activated abilities such as the one found on Reaper of Flight Moonsilver.

The card types that could show up in your graveyard are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery, and tribal (a card type found on older cards). Don’t count supertypes like basic or legendary, and don’t count subtypes like Vampire or Equipment. The number of cards doesn’t matter, as long as you get four or more card types. An artifact creature, an instant, and a planeswalker will do the trick.

INVESTIGATE AND CLUES

Mysteries permeate Innistrad like strange references permeate my writing. Zoinks! To solve these mysteries, you’ll need to investigate and follow the Clues.

She looks friendly enough. I’m sure she’ll help! Investigate is a new keyword action found in Shadows over Innistrad. It’s pretty straightforward. To investigate, you put a Clue token onto the battlefield. A Clue is a new artifact type. Clues are colorless artifacts (what, you though they’d be blue?), and they each have the ability “{2}, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.”

MADNESS (A returning mechanic)

The next stop on our tour of brand new, never-before-seen Shadows over Innistrad abilities is madness, a returning ability you may have seen before. If you discard a card with madness, you exile it instead of putting it into your graveyard. This causes an ability to trigger. When that ability resolves, you can cast the spell for its madness cost. If you don’t cast the spell this way, it’s put into your graveyard. Well, all of that just sounds insane.

Note that the mandatory discard into exile is a small change from previous rules. Before, you could discard a card w
ith madness into your graveyard and skip the whole madness thing. This may be relevant with cards like Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy. That dude shows up a lot in this article for a card not in this set.

One cool thing about casting a spell using the madness ability is it doesn’t matter what its card types are. So if you manage to discard a creature card with madness during an opponent’s turn, you can cast that spell and maybe create a surprise blocker. The spell’s mana cost and converted mana cost don’t change. You’re just paying the madness cost instead.

SKULK

By now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that Innistrad is a bleak world of…Right, we’ve been over this. For some creatures, being all conspicuous isn’t the best plan. For those creatures, we present a new keyword: skulk. A creature with skulk can’t be blocked by any creature with greater power. Introducing Farbog Revenant.

Aww…it’s totes adorbs, in an inky kind of way. With skulk, you consider the power of potential blockers only as blocks are being declared. If Farbog Revenant gets legally blocked by a 1-power creature, raising the power of the blocker won’t undo the block. But if your opponent has amassed beefy defenses, skulk can be an effective way to sneak damage in.

Order Tickets Here….

px; padding:5px 0 5px; margin:2px; width:100%; text-align:left;” ><a class=”powered-by-eb” style=”color: #dddddd; text-decoration: none;” target=”_blank” href=”http://www.eventbrite.com/r/etckt”>Powered by Eventbrite</a></div></div>]

Oath of the Gatwatch Game Day Champions a bit on the young side. ;-)

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Magic, News

Oath of the Gatewatch Game Day Champions!

First off, congtrats to two members of the pre-teen crowd who womped on the those with drivers licences to show that intelligence, stamina, and poise can come at any age as they took the honers in the Magic Game Day tournaments. Max S. topped a field of 22

while Roy stood on a heap of 26 competitive magic players to take home the Oath of the Gatewatch Game Day playmats! regular events this weekend… (note the photobomb of Roy in the background of Saturday’s victory picture, clearly plotting his next day’s domination.)

All kidding aside, they were great matches, and in particular, there was a stellar amount of good sportsmanship throughout the day. (A lot of fun was had by all…those two things might be a bit connected, hmmm..)

https://twitter.com/d20alameda/status/698920595254222851

https://twitter.com/d20alameda/status/699055149763833856″

About the Pokemon BreakPoint Set…

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, Misc, Pokemon

The newest set of Pokemon, BreakPoint, releases in February. The second set in the Break set, it features both Mega Ex’s and the New Break cards that can be played on top of a Pokemon of the same name to add its abilities.

Release Date is Feb 3rd,
Prerelease, Jan 30th at 10am and 2 pm. $30 per player. Each player gets 6 packs, makes their best deck and plays for 3 rounds. After having a bit of fun, they turn in their borrowed energy and get two more booster packs and a special promo card. The 10am event is run by D20 so you CAN register in advance. The 1 pm event is run by the Pokemon League folks and is first come, first served and needs to be paid in cash.

More info about the set below…

http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg/xy-breakpoint/explore-and-watch/

http://www.pokellector.com/sets/BPT-BREAKPoint

Oath of The Gatewatch

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, Magic

Here comes the newest set for Magic…Oath of the Gatewatch…the second set of 2 in the Battle for Zendikar block. This set features a new set of mechanics that really favor playing with buddies (two-headed giants and such) as well as the first new land type in, well, ever. (Really just turning colorless mana into it’s own thing, but cool none the less)

[from the Wizards Site]

The battle to save the plane of Zendikar rages on.

Confronted with overwhelming odds, the Planeswalkers face a dire choice: Retreat away to safety and leave the world to oblivion, or stay at great personal risk and fight for Zendikar.

Will you stay and fight?

Prerelease the weekend of 1/16-1/17–4 events (Sat 10 and 5, Sunday at 10 and 2hg at 3…$30 pp…good for all levels of players.)

Buy Tickets for the prerelease here:
What’s in the Set?
Practice Drafting and Sealed here (great way to get to know the set.)
The New Mechanics…

http://magic.wizards.com/en/content/oath-gatewatch-home

http://magic.wizards.com/articles/archive/feature/oath-gatewatch-mechanics-2015-12-28

http://mtgmirror.com/#/

Buy Advance Tickets Here:

The Case for Family Game Night

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Features, Main Page

The case for Family Game Night.

I see a lot of families come into the store and see how they interact with each other.

“It’s his/her thing” There are a lot of kids dropped off with parents who through their hands up in the air about understanding the games the kids are playing, but are just happy their noses are out of screens.
“If only they knew…” There are kids who have no idea that their parents sill have 10-12 year-olds living inside that are a little surprised every time they look in the mirror and see adults looking back, who used to play when we were kids and are a lot cooler then they can see though offspring-tinted glasses.
“Alright..enough you two!” There are parents who have the weary look of having tried to get the kids playing with each other or them and had such a bad time with tantrums born of games being taken as some sort of form of personal attack.
“Game on!” And then there are parents who’ve somehow, by joyful force of will or family legacy, who have incorporated regular playing games together as a family into their lives.

There is something beyond special about these families. I’m truly not saying that as the dude who sells board games, but there is something about they way these families interact with each other. An ease of conversation, a gentle teasing that goes both ways, that creates a sense of longing and envy in me every time I see it. And it makes me determined to do whatever I can to try and help foster that in every family, including my own. I’m resolved this year to do eveything I can to help make a culture that says that in our community, in Alameda, that we pick one night a week to look at each other’s faces, rather then our screens, that we put down the lists and logistics for a couple of hours in exchange for interaction, connection and hopefully a bit of laughter. That we realize that time we spend on this is not bonus playtime, but the work of making ourselves and our kids, the people we want to be.

Of course I’m going to push games into this slot, because that’s what I do, but obviously the same connections can come from hiking, playing sports, or building a rocket together. Just get away from the screens and look each other in the eyes.

Here are a few hints/observations that I’ve seen for those who have been able to make this work:

Get regular. A lot of the resistance to getting off screens or spending time together goes away when that time is considered sacred. It will very likely be hard to get this going at first. Part of what I want to do is have the kids be the ones who are pushing for this and rewarded in the store for making happen.
Get out of your comfort zone. Let different members of the family pick the game each week and have everyone look at it as a way to find the most fun out of the game. Sometimes only finding the one game that everyone likes becomes almost impossible. Besides, if you only experience that smallest section of that intersection, then no one gets what they most like,and everyone else misses out on tasting something new.
Teasing ok, shaming not so much. A lot of hurt feeling get hidden under playful poking at each other…if you need to set some limits on this, do so a head of time.
If competition is a problem, go co-op. Fair play and good sportsmanship are super important, and can be incredibly draining and no fun to deal with as referees each time you play. There are a ton of great games where the game itself is the opponent, and each of you are working to beat it together. These games are great for this situation.
Advice on request only: One thing that can kill games for everybody if one of the players is the “You should do this” guy. People like to be smart for themselves, so instituting the “Can I give you a suggestion?” rule is a very good idea, particularly when you team it with “its ok to let other people make mistakes…its just a game”
Designate a “prepared guy/gal”. If you are going to be playing a new game, make sure somebody is assigned to be the person who checks out the game before everyone plays to be the rules jedi. Nothing bores players more then trying to puzzle out the rules of a new game together for 50 minutes before you play.
Share the mantra: Model for the kids the D20 Mantra
- Win with Grace
- Lose with Style
- Play for Joy
Share joy, not expectations. A lot of parents get frustrated when their kids would rather stick their heads in the screen then do the things the parents wish they could share. .
For the parents…lighten up. 😉 We get so locked into being parents that we forget what it is like to be kids. Be kids with your kids…show them what that’s like. And related to that, don’t turn up your nose at some of the games the kids like if they have adolescent humor or even violence. They are adolescent, and conflict as one of the things that makes games (and) entertainment fun is utterly normal. (Shakespeare’s characters knocked each other off with stunning regularity.) I’m not condoning hateful or truly offensive stuff, but just remember what it was like to be a kid, and also remember that while when we were kids, we tended to play in gender separated groups, that as familes, we need to cross a lot of things we might not normally like to find common ground.

What I’m going to do to get this started is create a pledge card for the store. Anyone who pledges (and really means it) to do a family game night at least twice a month, I’ll give them a special in-store goodies (or discount) tbd. If this rings true with you and seems worth it, I’d like to ask for help in trying to make this something bigger then just the store in the community. My goal would be to have Alameda take some pride in being a community that has committed to this, and let’s see what kind of results it has on our lives. If you want to help and have ideas, email me back and we’ll set up a time to get together and figure it out. The best things I’ve ever done, have been done by cool people around me.

Have a great week and go play. 😉

D20 GamesMagic Countdown to 2016 Septathlon

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, Magic

To ring in the new year, we are doing a different magic event for every day starting the day after x-mas.

The events are.

Chaos Two-Headed Giant -Sat 12/26 @4-$17.50 pp
Standard -Sunday, 12/27 @ 11 am $5 pp
To the Left Drafts–Draft for another player– Monday, 12/28 @ 12 and 6 $15pp
Sealed-Mystery Box-Prerelease kits- Tuesday 12/29 @12 and 6
Zombie Commander, Weds 12/30 4 pm and 6 pm (2 hours each) $5 pp
Modern Tournament: Thursday 12/31 10-3pm $10 pp.
Super FNM Draft Friday 1/1 ….FNM with Lots of extra FNM Promos. Lottery for extra promos based on tickets earned by participating in every Septathlon event!

Bonus Raffle entry Tix for number of events you attend for the Friday FNM Goodie raffle. Raffle items will include promo cards, playmats, Modern Masters Packs, a From the Vaults and more stuff. The more people that come to events, the more we’ll stuff in the give away…

#of Events	Bonus Tix
2	1
3	4
4	8
5	15
6	25
7	40

D20 Holiday Gift Guide-Trading Card Games (Pokemon/Magic)

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Magic, Sale & Deals

D20 Holiday Gift Guide-Trading Card Games

This guide is our best, most honest recommendations for gifts for the holidays; based on interest, experience level/age (and budget).

Parents cheat sheet:

TCG or CCG (Trading Card Games/Collectible Card Games)

Magic and Pokémon, are what are known as collectible card games. (Think collecting baseball cards, where you could actually play those better cards in a game.) The games are in their simplest form like the old card game War, where players put down two cards and the higher one wins. Each player has a starting amount of life, and they play cards used to attack, defense and respond to try and get the other player to zero (or in the case of Pokémon, to get 6 of the other players Pokémon to get to sleep). What is interesting about the game is that the cards themselves add and modify the rules of the game, creating an evolving set of game play. (That’s why the kids get excited about the new set of cards as they come out, each set adds new possibilities that they can puzzle out.)

From the parent’s point of view, the aspects of the games that are good are encouraging reading, math, and logic skills. BTW…ignore the age recommendations on the boxes…Magic is listed as 13+ …whoever set those levels clearly had no clue about the reality of kids. Pokémon is the usual game that starts kids playing, and it is very common for them to just enjoy collecting the cards without having a clue how to play it. Don’t worry…very normal. We do a Pokémon League on Saturdays where the kids get points for playing and actually get double points for helping the younger/new players figure it out. It’s good to eventually get them to learn how to play the game, because that is when they will start reading the card for real and to start working on the math that is part of playing the game.

It is also good for creating opportunities to learn fair play, though that benefits a lot from our help. Some of the rarest cards can end up being valuable ($100 or more), so talk to your kids about keeping them safe at school, as well as being both careful and fair in their trading with others. Keeping their cards in sleeves (usually between $3.5-$5 a pack) and in a deck box with their name on it ($3-5) will both keep the value of the cards intact and make it less likely for their cards to get mixed up with other kids by accident.

Players (kids and others) love opening up the packs, with that anticipation of finding some treasure within. The individual packs are very fun as stocking suffers or small gifts, but have the possibility of being a disappointing choice as a primary gift, since they are only “good” if they happen to have good cards in them. See the list below for better choices.

The recommendations below are from our staff (and me) and are our best, most honest advice.

Pokémon (age 6-up)

	Item Name			Cost			Description/comment
Just Collecting for function
Good		Mini Binders, Pokeballs, and tins			$13-35 each				These have a number of booster packs and either a full art cool card, little Album or toy figure that matches the cool card. These are great for little kids…lot of “oh, ahh” per inch and there is at least one great card in each. This is full of great stuff and really big, so it will open well for max under the tree happy factor.
Better		Tins and “Boxes”(Collections)			$25.99–49.99				All of these have an Ex, Gx, V, etc (the cards they are looking to get in the packs) as well as a bunch of packs to open. Great “Yay” factor for kits
Better			Elite Trainer Kits		$19.99-24.99				These latest tin’s contain Ex (really good) versions of some of the best cards as well as a number of booster packs.
Better			Ultropro Premium Side loading binders		$24-49				These binders load the cards from the sides instead of the tops. Because of that, the cards don’t fall out and it is much harder for other light fingers to take things out without being noticed
Best			Full art Single cards or Ex-Cards or a box of boosters		$15-50 for the singles, $110 for the booster box (36 boosters)				If you know the cool card they are looking for, we can usually help. Otherwise, get them a gift certificate so they can come in and really trick out their decks. Or get them a full box of boosters. While no one really knows what is in each booster, generally each box has a few of the prized full art cards and they WILL be happy. Let us know if you want these since we don’t always have a lot in stock.
Stocking Stuffers
			Single Packs.			$ 4-$8.99 each		More fun for new players or kid collectors then advanced players. The more advanced the player the more they will be happy if the pack has good stuff and otherwise it’s a scratcher. Good for stocking stuffers. There are Pokemon special packs up
			Card Protectors (Sleeves)			$3.50-$5		Price is based on style and maker. Keep cards protected and from getting mixed up with other players-They come in units of 50 which is dumb since the decks are 60. (We try and keep extra sleeves to make up for this…)
			Pokémon Binders			$11.99-28.99		Either smaller 4 card per page or larger 9 card per page binders, always a good choice, particularly for younger players.
			Deck boxes			$3-7		Available with lots of colors and styles, pick their favorite

Magic The Gathering

Good	Binders	$17-40	Place to put the cards players want to trade.
Better	Commander Decks	$35-89	Most popular way to play magic these days. 100 card decks all set and ready to player.
Best	Fat-Pack/bundles	$40-89	Special box with 8-10 booster-packs, land, life counting die, and most fun for the kids, a full color booklet that shows all the cards in the set as well as having the backstory for the series and some special hints and combinations.
Good	Gift Certificates	$20-100
	From the Vaults Sets	$49.99-169	Special Limited sets of foil version of classic cards. These are limited edition sets. We currently have From the Vault Angels (69.99 on sale), Annihilation ($49.99) and a few From the Vault 20 ($159)
	Booster Boxes	$120-$259	Booster box of 36 packs of any of the sets of boosters we have in stock.
Stocking Stuffers/Small Gift ideas
	Single Packs.	$ 4-29.99 each	Always fun to open, from $3.99 Magic Packs up to $29.99 that we usually try and discurage the kids from buying with their own money, but make GREAT stocking stuffers.
	Card Protectors (Sleeves)	$3.50-$10	Price is based on style and maker. Keep cards protected and from getting mixed up with other players
	Deck boxes	$3-6	Available with lots of colors and styles, pick their favorite
	Box of Mini-dice	$15-20	These mini-dice are loved by experienced player to use for counters on the cards
	Play-mats	$16-20	Providing a great surface to play on, these mats come in a number of great designs.

The “Stay Home and Play on Black Friday Sale”

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Misc

Enough...Thanksgiving is for being with people, not shopping.... — Enough…Thanksgiving is for being with people, not shopping….

Ok folks…I’ve had it. I’m taking a small (and probably spectacularly pointless) stand against the whole idea of getting all all of our families/friends together and actually off work, and then ripping them out of bed (or from going to bed in some cases) to go wait in lines for the chance to get smushed, stressed and utterly exhausted all for a chance to save some money on presents for the very people who we just missed a chance to lounge around with in a comfy robe and furry slippers.

During this week Nov. 21 to 29th

Take off an extra 5% from what you are buying (with the exception of sale items) (Always)
Get to buy a Modern Masters pack for 1/2 price ($6) for every purchase over $40 (OR)
Get a Free Modern Masters 2015 pack for every purchase over $75 (OR)
Get a Free Pokemon Pack for every purchase over $40 (OR)
Get to pull a Free Mini board game (value between $7-15) for every purchase over $60)

Updated Sale item list:

Item	Regular Price	Sale Price
BOG Fat packs	$39.99	25% off
Khan’s Event decks		25% off
Pokemon Collections Mega Charizard, Mega Rayquaza, Primal Groudon, Primal Kyogre, Pyroar, Yevetal, Xerneas Collections		25% off
Magic Gift Boxes Battle for Zendikar—$24.99 PLUS Bonus Free pack Khans-19.99 Plus Bonus free Pack.	$25.99-21.99	Bonus Free Booster Pack ($3.99 value)
From the Vault Angels	$89.99	$59.99 (first 10 sold)

Obviously, I a big believer in playing some table top games together as a way of having fun where we even get to look up from screens and actually LOL. (LOL–yes I’m aware of the irony.) So here is our solution. We’re going to have our holiday sale the weekend before Thanksgiving. We are a local shop, and we do want/need your business so we can afford to keep providing a nice place for people to come and play together so we appreciate when you buy stuff from us very much. Our idea is to let you pick up gifts for the holidays and while you are here, hopefully pick up something really fun to play over Thanksgiving as well, since having fun with people you love is about the best gift there is. And I want to keep the game playing to the games and do our best to make it pleasant to shop with us.

We’ve hand picked a number of great games, and as usual have a great selection of goodies for Magic and Pokemon players. We’ll be posting our yearly staff gift recommendation list in the next week. And we’ll be doing a bunch of game reviews to help out.

Recommendations for great Holiday games (this will be updated regularly)

Codenames; Sort of a multi-match team password where the “spymaster” tries to give a clue that will get their team to match the words from a big spread of cards that belong to their team without picking words that belong to the other team. Very hot game.
New York 1901: Think Blockus meets Ticket to Ride. Pick cards that let you build your collection of skyscrapers on the still flat map of NYC while you still have the space.
Coup Rebellion CS4: This follow on to the very popular ultimate bluffing game Coup can be played in about 20 minutes per round and works for 3-6 players…super, super fun.
Dead of Winter: We finally have this impossible to get in zombie tour to force in stock…Everyone who has bought it loves it, so if you are into the living the zombie (or zombie free) life, get a few folks together for this one.
Cover Your Assets: Great game that works equally well for kids and grandparents,and can get ’em to actually play together.
High speed fun with no brain required, Loonacy.

Loonacy: Perfect for post Turkey brains…not a lot of high level thinking, but a fast paced game with a bunch of goofy laughing. Now with a cool Mad Men style retro version.
Roll For It: A fast paced dice rolling game with simple rules that is fun for all ages…
Qwirkle: Think scrabble meets Bejeweled (shapes and colors instead of words). Grat Family Game
Evolution: This brand new games ia perfect in the spirit of getting stuffed. This 2-6 person game has each player creating their own customized species to vie to see who prospers and who gets eaten. Big thumbs up on this one for 10 (smart 8) and up.
King of Tokyo Fans!!!: The classic king of the hill monster game hops over the pond with the new King of New York version of the game. This 2-6 player game is all about light hearted battling of giant monsters to see who can take the biggest bite out of the Big Apple
And for those who like their fun Dark and Delicious…two Strong recommendations:
- Gloom: the Edward Gory/Lemony Snicket game where you lead your dark family to the worst possible life before knocking them off in some poetically tragic way,while your opponents try and give them (gasp) a good day. 😉
- Betrayal at the House on the Hill, 3-6 players fingernail biting exploration of the wonderfully creepy house. flips in the middle of the game by turning one of the players into the Betrayer who gets secret instructions setting him/her against the rest of the players who have their own secret instructions how they try and survive the night. This game is easy to get into and virtually impossible not to hvae fun with.