Dry Spell

Due to the demands and needs of both my children and the utility companies we have had a gaming dry spell in this house.
It makes me sad because in some ways the games help keep me sane.  But i'm keeping my head above water with what games i can manage.

The latest in this house has been 'Rory's Story Cubes'
Miss (now) 5 got it for her birthday and she LOVES it!
The box says 8+ but my 5 year old loves it.

The premise is simple.
Roll the dice, tell a story involving the elements that the dice rolled for you.
They all have picture son them so it's language independent and so it's simply a  matter of sit back and watch their imagination get a work out.

There are a couple of game play variants written on the box, this one which is most suitable, the other which i believe will have to wait till shes older would be to roll the dice and tell a story including one dice and then the next person includes another and together you build one story.

I"m not sure it warrants and age down conversion, the variant we're using is clearly listed on the box and works well with my younger than 8 year old.  However i will not that my 3.5 year old doesn't get it.
The stories are a little wandering and usually involve a toy she has nearby as the main character but it's still a success and she still loves it.
Great for working the imagination
encouraging imagination
also from a 'therapy' point of view, recurring themes in a child's mind come to be obvious.  For instance lately miss 5 was allowed to watch 'The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, she loved it, and in both stories she told during this game her fairy, and later a fish both died and came back from the dead.

At $15 i think this particular game has immeasurable value for a number of reasons, there are three versions and there are expansions to the original as well, i imagine all would work all together.

Again i don't usually do reviews but this was well worth putting out there.

May Kickstarters

Ok so here's a few that look kind of interesting, i'm only showing ones that if i had the money i might back myself


Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia
I like dystopian themes, i find they make my own life feel a little bit better, how twisted is that?  This sure looks interesting.  An unknown creator but everyone needs a chance to get going right?  And it is a staff pick!


Alien Frontiers 4th Edition

A new edition of an already existing popular game.  I've not played it myself but I've heard good things about it.  not long to go on this one though so if you're interested get in quickly.


A Study in Emerald - a board game by Martin Wallace, Based on a Neil Gaiman short story.
I would so love to put money on this because everything I've seen of Neil Gaiman's i love and I've heard great things about Martin Wallace's other game Steam.
Only a short time left on this one too so hurry!


Anodized aluminum Settlers of Catan game pieces.
For those who LOVE Settlers of Catan and want to pimp it out.


The Ministry Initiative - Steampunk Role-Playing & Fiction
I don't do a lot of rp ones but steam punk is  suck a fun setting this might interest someone.


Character Cards - Instant NPC Just Add Water
This is awesome, i love this idea, it's another role play kind of thing but still it's worth mentioning.
I"m sorry this one ispractically finished (there's like 5 minutes left if that)...but it puts it out there for you to know a thing like this exists

OK they're the ones that jumped out at me on the first...3? Pages of kickstarter, there's lots there i didn't mention well worth looking at.

King of Tokyo - review and variation

King of Tokyo

I don't usually review games, here are plenty of other reviewers out there, my ADA's are what i focus on in this blog and this is perhaps in some ways that, but it turned out to be more of a review than a pure Age Down Adaptation so i had to name it a such.

A previous entry of mine (link) suggested that one of the games that ruined games for everyone was snakes and ladders with it's brainless roll and move mechanic. I personally remember enjoying the game when I was much younger, but it didn't last and when I became merely younger it was in fact dull and repetitive. The article also suggested that instead of snakes and ladders we ought to be playing 'King of Tokyo'.

I have in fact played this game thanks to my lovely gaming group. And to be honest I wasn't a fan of it to begin with.

It's fun enough, and simple enough, the Yahtzee dice rolling mechanic was easy and enjoyable, and the theme was fun although I’m not a fan of those dodgy Japanese monster movies they always seemed a tap ludicrous to me.

So what was it I didn't like?

Two aspect of it really stood out to me, both effecting the enjoyment for me and the other in my opinion making it a hard game to introduce to small children.

I'll start be saying I have a general issue with the concept of 'competition is good' in sport and such it's ok but I think the concept is applied to too much in out world and our leisure activities don't need as much of it as there seems to be. So I'll start be mentioning the elimination factor of this game. Each player has a tracker to track both life and points. Points being how you win the game (first to 20), life being the thing that when it gets down to 0 you're out of the game and relegated to watching others have fun. Adults might have no issue with this concept but kids would in fact find it very difficult I think. This means that while I can play snakes and ladders with my 4 year old, this game is perhaps not the sort of thing I can play with her.

I suppose many people could suggest that a kid needs t learn these things, to which I ask why must any child learn about exclusion? Particularly form their own family unit.

Ok parenting issues aside my second issue actually effected my own enjoyment. There's an entire ganging up and victimisation feeling to some of this game. I'm the first to admit that I like euro games, I like playing my own game and ok sometimes that may inconvenience another player but I'm not actively going out of my way to limit, damage or effect the other players game. And yes, I can and sometimes fairly often do win games this way.

It does mean I struggle with more competitive games, I play an awful lot of Game of Thrones living card game and I struggle with people interfering with my game, but I'm managing it. King of Tokyo sees people deliberately targeting the other player, trying to kill them, eliminate them and remove them from the game, forcing them to not be able to play any more. I find that to be not enjoyable, I don't like targeting others and I don't like being targeted.

These are my own issues, others enjoy these things incredibly.

With this in mind my darling husband has given it some thought, he quite enjoyed the game but agreed with me that playing with young children would be an issue due to the elimination factor. With some thought he came up with something to house rule in that could very well work.

Instead of elimination when life is dropped to 0, that player could drop their points by half, and bring their life backup to max and continue on playing. There's penalty for 'dying' and to counter the advantage of being on max life when others likely will not be, but they are still in the game and with a bit of calculated risk taking could possible still win.

All in all would I buy this for my family? With this variation in mind, yeah I just might one day. It is in it's own way a fun little, quick game. And I need to work on my issues for myself , not just deny these experiences to my family because I have an issue or two.

I'd probably wait till I found it cheap though.

I'll leave off now with a couple of videos

one being the dice tower review of the game the second being the Table Top episode where they play the game.

Enjoy!