Friday Photos: Game Night

Haven’t shared any game night pics in a while. Here’s what we’ve been playing…

The first one’s an oldie from my childhood. My sweetie and I are going through our games to see which ones we want to keep. Hadn’t played Life in years, so we thought we’d give it a go.

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

Mine’s the car with the 2 hubbies and a daughter. Rosie’s is the one with 2 wives and a son. She didn’t want the kid (I guess she thought he’d mess with her girls’ honeymoon), but the game made her take him so the poor kid had to sit all the way in the back.

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

The 3-D version of Blokus is tough!

The rest of the games are from my uncle’s game club. Thanks for teaching us new games, T!

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

Coloretto is a great little card game. Easy to learn and the version we bought has a set of rules for two players.

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

Vikings is one I did not expect to like, but I just loved it. You can play it with two people (we are always on the lookout for new 2-player games), but sadly we can’t buy our own copy. It’s not available for purchase anymore.

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

Jaipur is another card game that allows for two-person play.

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

For Braggart, you make up a “story” with the cards in your hand, and it can be quite humorous to see what people come up with. Or what they are forced to play. Great for a group.

This was the best hand played all night:

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

“While wearing nothing more than my boots and a smile…I covered myself in oil to wrestle with…a party of drunken dwarves…and I am probably a better person for it.”

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

Acquire is another one I did not expect to like. It was fun predicting where the board was going and which companies would hit it big. Sometimes your plans worked out. Sometimes you got screwed. Sort of like real life. There were five women playing with one adorable young guy that looked half my age. He was sweet and patient as he taught all of us newbs how to play. I didn’t tell him I was already writing a story in my head about him meeting someone special during an all-nighter at the gaming club. I could see them sitting across from each other, some very sweet touches between them under the table as they tried to flirt with serious gaming still going on all around them.

For the Love of: Cooperative Games (no more time alone in jail for me)

Thanks to my fabulous and wickedly smart uncle (Hey T!) I learned how to play Pandemic a few months back. It was my first time playing a cooperative board game where players work together rather than compete against each other. We just got our own copy of Pandemic and have been playing the two player version. I have to say, I love cooperative games like this!

Maybe it’s the romantic in me that prefers the non-competitive nature of the game. I really hate seeing my sweetie get frustrated when I’m kicking her ass in a game. I mean, all we have to do is mention the game Clue and I can see her get all serious like she might actually be able to beat me this time, then her expression falls as she thinks, Nope. She ALWAYS wins that game.

(c) istockphotos, inkit 2011

Then there’s the other night when we decided to play Monopoly, something we haven’t played in years. I think I ended up in jail 42 times. My mood was pretty good the first 40 times, but I hit the 41st and it was no longer funny. It was just sad.

At least with Pandemic if we go down, we do it as a couple and have some laughs at ourselves at the same time.

Now if we could just figure out how to always get us a happy ending in Pandemic, all would be right with the world. (I do love my happy, all-is-right-with-the-world endings.)

What’s your favorite board game? I’m a game geek and would love to try out some new ones.