Original box art. I think these two became mildly famous…
Bought a copy of the Mastermind boardgame for a young member of the family today. It seemed to go down very well. Mastermind is a nice little deductive board game for two players that has been around since 1971, which was when I got my copy.
I forgot to take a picture of the board when we played this on Monday night
Venn Diagrams were invented in Hull. Sort of. If you don’t know what a Venn diagram is, then this game will teach you. If you don’t care what a Venn diagram is, then perhaps this is not for you. Things in Rings gives one person (the “knower”) knowledge of a particular word structure (perhaps “contains the letter R”), attribute (perhaps “heavier than a cat”) and context (perhaps “things you can find in my house”). The rest of the players have to discover by experimentation what the three things are. They do this by placing things from their hands (nicely drawn cards that they draw from their hands) into a Venn diagram made with three string loops. The “armchair” went in the middle (because it contains an r, is heavier than a cat, and you can find them at home). There’s also a category for “Nothing” which is where you’d put something like a museum - which doesn’t match any category.
If you place a thing right it stays there. If you place a thing wrong the “knower” puts it in the right place and you get another card. The knower takes a turn along with everyone else, and tries to pick things which will help the group work out what is going on. If everyone gets rid of all their cards everyone wins. If the knower runs out of cards before this happens, everyone loses.
Gameplay is not competitive - which some players might miss. However it is great fun and can lead to some very interesting discussions about the nature of stuff. You don’t have to guess exactly what the rules are. You just have to have a working knowledge that lets you get rid of your cards. It’s a great icebreaker and we rather enjoyed it.
Currently working on a dot counter for the scores….
Tacta is a nice little tactical card game for up to six players. We played it this evening. You place your cards so that they fit into matching areas on cards that have already been placed. The aim is to have as many of “your” spots showing as possible. The game is supposed to take 20 minutes (according to the box) but we managed to make it last a lot longer than that, which a plenty of tactical scheming and debate over whether or not a card was over the edge of the table….
You should play Star Wars Unlock. There are three games in the package and all are different and fun. The games last around an hour or so. It works best if you get a bunch of friends round and have a go together. You’ll need the game plus a phone or tablet for the program element which adds a lot to the atmosphere (authentic Star Wars music, plus appropriate classical pieces). Unlock do lots of other games, but the Star Wars themed ones are especially impressive and fit well into the Star Wars universe.
You can only play the games once, but then you pass the box on for someone else to have a go. That’s how we got to play with this one….
You can pick up Stop the Robots really cheap. And for the price I reckon it’s good value. The gameplay revolves around a little walkie talkie and a deck of cards with pictures of robots on them. Each robot has a characteristic look and configuration. Your job, as a crack, er, robot de-fuser manager, is to work out which robot your field agent is defusing and give her instructions to save the city from something horrible.
The prompts from the agent are well done, and all your responses are spoken into the handset. There are three puzzles on the back of each robot card and there are 36 cards. You get a count down timer too. Our team, including the 8 year old primary manager, has done a couple and really enjoyed them. The puzzles look like they get more advanced as you progress, we’re looking forward to having a go at the next bunch.
Up until recently I’ve not been a huge fan of co-operative games. I want something I can win on my own, grinding my opponents into the dust. Or something. Anyhoo, I’ve recently played a few cooperative games and I must admit I’m growing to like them.
BombBusters is a cooperative game and it is great fun. It reminds me a tiny bit of the infamous “The Mind” game in which players have to guess where other player’s number cards fit into a sequence.
In BombBusters you are your matching number markers with those of other players as you attempt to cut wires leading to a deadly bomb. You know the order of their numbers, but not what they are (although there are a range of clues you give each other). Cut the wrong wire (match a wrong number) and you lose a life. Cut a red wire or a yellow wire (which have fractional numbers on them) and you lose instantly.
It’s rather exciting, with no small amount of jeopardy as often you have just enough information to take a risk based on an educated guess. The game comes with a increasingly difficult scenarios to have a go at, with more dangerous wires and dummies you have to work around. There’s a genuine feeling of accomplishment when you all manage to find the last red wire and it is all beautifully presented. Good fun I reckon.
Red and Yellow were playing Blue and green
Blokus is a nice looking game with bright “tetris-like” pieces that players take it in turns to place on a grid. There is only one rule. Any piece you add to the grid must touch one or more pieces of that colour that you already put down - but only on corners. The winner is the player who gets the greatest number of pieces on the board before getting stuck. You start in the corners and then play inexorably moves towards the centre as folks try to carve out areas of their own. If you have two players each player controls two colours.
It’s a quick but highly tactical game. I’ve played it twice and won it twice so far. I’m running out of people to play it against. I might explain the rules to ChatGPT and see if it can rustle up an opponent for me.
Went to AireCon 2025 today. It was awesome. Good company, good food and a great atmosphere. I did my rounds of the second hand game shop and bought a bunch of super-cheap games.
Get Lucky is a kind of reverse Cluedo where you try to kill Dr Lucky and stop other players by making him lucky enough to survive their attempts. Good graphics and some lovely writing on the playing cards. Trophies is a nice little “ice-breaker” game, comes in a tin and has a real trophy in it. Moo’s Cafe is fun for youngsters (and young-old people) and comes with a wooden spoon. Bucket of Doom is not as good as I thought it would be. Never been a fan of “Cards Against Humanities” type games and this is a bit like one. And I bought “Dead and Breakfast” just for the name (although it looks fun too). Thanks to the organizers and the staff who made everything work so well. Great fun. Now counting down to AireCon 2026….
Spent some time today playing “Poetry for Neanderthals”. It’s a great little game which comes with an inflatable stick you can use to hit players with. The idea is simple enough. There are two teams. Team members take it in turns to describe the concept on a card using works of only one syllable. If anyone uses a multiple syllable word or otherwise messes up they get tapped on the head with the inflatable stick. Get as many words right as you can before the egg timer runs out. Then the next player from the opposing team gets to have a next, and probably wacked.
Once everyone has had a go cards are counted and the winners identified. Cards contain a simple word (for example milk) and also a two word phrase (for example chocolate milk). You get one point for the simple answer, three for the more complicated one and lose a point for every mistake and skipped card.
We won. Although the fact that we had one extra team member might have had something to do with it. As an icebreaker it is great fun. Strongly recommended.
Played Sonic Super Tams today. It’s a race game. First team to get all their characters around the race track and over the finish line wins. There are 8 Sonic characters in the race which are represented by beautifully made little figures. At the start of the game each player gets six move cards and a team of two characters to get to the finish line as fast as they can. Move cards apply to one particular team, so you frequently find yourself having to move your opponents pieces. The trick is to send them onto the spikes to slow them down, or get them stuck in front of a loop, while you and your teammate head off towards the double speed rings. When you’ve used up all your move cards they are dealt out again. There are also chance cards to be had which add even more variation.
With four players you play as two teams of four, which adds more fun as you try to help your teammate. Games last around half an hour, which is just the right length for a game like this. A great game with some nice strategy.
The people behind the Uno game have a neat line in making new, different versions of their core product. A while back I had a go at Uno Flip, which I thought was a nice twist on the game. Uno No Mercy is not a nice twist on the game. It is thoroughly nasty. You can do horrible things to your opponents. But, better yet, those horrible things can rebound with hilarious results. We played it today.
You normally win an Uno game by getting rid of all your cards. But in “No Mercy” this is close to impossible. Instead you have to resort to destroying your opponents by increasing their hand size to more than 25 cards, at which point they are kicked out. When you find that there are “pick up 10” cards, and that card pickups can be passed on and increased from player to player, you get an idea of the kind of mayhem that you can get. In the end I won, thanks to some very helpful advice from the other players. But I want to have another go. Great fun, but you might not finish smiling.
There have been several editions. I think we played the first one.
Of all the stupid things people can say, I reckon one of the most stupid is “Let’s split up and search the place”. Especially if you are in a decidedly dodgy location where even the rooms themselves have it in for you. But that’s exactly how “Betrayal at House on the Hill” starts off. You all get your personas and then head off into the hallways, rooms and basements, uncovering all kinds of stuff - must of it unpleasant. Then, suddenly one of your party is at the centre of an evil plot and all the other players must team up and do some thwarting. We just had to beat the devil at chess, but other tasks involve monster slaying and whatnot. There are around fifty of them to work through.
We had a go at the game tonight and much fun was had. We managed to win thanks to some inspired dice wielding right at the very last minute. It’s a great game and we are definitely going to play it again.
This is what the rabbit thought the boad looked like at the end. Note the cheating three-handed player on the bottom left.
Stationfall is a board game that plays out on a space station falling from orbit to the ground. On board are a totally motley crew, each with their own agenda. Some want everyone to survive. Some want everyone to perish. Some just want to have fun (or so it seems). When the game starts nobody knows which game players are assigned which game characters, and players can use their influence to move any of the characters and make them do things (for example release deadly killing machines from quarantine at a really annoying moment).
I think we are going to have to have another go at this because there was a lot of stuff to take in at the start. But we all did enough to agree that it is good back-stabbing fun.
Had a great game night yesterday. Played Heat and Hidden Leaders.
Heat is a racing game with a very nice card based moving system which forces you to take more risks as the game progresses. We only did a two lap race as we were learning how the game works. I’m sure I would have won if we had a longer race.
In Hidden Leaders you have hide whose side you are on while trying to tilt the game outcome in your favour. I very nearly won this one, but I was thwarted by some of Simon’s hidden players. A good game is one you want to play again so that you can try something different. This is a good game.
Ligretto is a fast moving card game. It is a bit like multi-player simultaneous patience. The aim is to get rid of your cards by placing them in matching stacks of the same colour. Thing is, everyone else is doing exactly the same thing at the same time. Quite often you are waiting for another player to put a number down so that you can unload a bunch of your cards. As is eeryone else. It can get rather frantic. But it is great fun.
That’s a human canonball I’ve not seen before…
Captain Flip is a fun little board game where you add crew members to a board that represents your ship and try and maximise the number of points. Each crew member confers a specific advantage and the trick is to get the most profitable mix. You crew turn up on random tiles that you pick out of a bag. If you don’t like the one you got, you can “flip” it to the one on the other side. This is a bit chancy, but adds a lot to the fun. And gives the game its name.
You’re not going to play this all evening (although the game comes with a bunch of different board designs so you probably could). However, we certainly had fun with it.
Bohanza is a bean trading game we played years ago. Tonight we had another go. It was kind of embarrassing. Last time I played it I carefully put all the cards in elastic bands. But a lot can happen to an elastic band over 10 years or so. Prior to dealing I had to scrape bits of elastic off the cards. Oh well. The game was great fun.
The artwork adds a lot to the game
Prey Another Day (which makes me think of James Bond film) lets up to five players try to eat each other over a series of hunts. For each hunt you pick an animal to send into the fray. You’re torn between power (the bear can hunt anything) and uniqueness (more than one of any animal in a hunt and all those animals are out of the round). So perhaps you might go for a “mid-table” lynx and hope that nobody else has made the same choice. Which is what four players did in our first game (it was hilarious).
As the game proceeds it gets more and more strategic and bluffy. Players start slapping down cards and making bear noises (at least some of us did). And maybe, just maybe you can take a lowly mouse to victory. Great fun and strongly reccommended.
I did take a picture when we got home though..
Here’s the thing about AireCon 2024 at Harrogate. I was having so much fun that I completely forgot to take any pictures. We arrived at opening time (a good move) and the first stop was the bring and buy sale where we bought a bunch of second-hand games. Which we then sat down and played. They have a whole bunch of tables and chairs just for this. We tried Dino Dump (OK) and Planes (a bit complicated - to us - but shows promise). Then we slipped out for a nice meal, came back and had a wander around the stands from game makers and sellers.
It’s rather nice to be able to sit down with the people who invented a game and play it. We bought a couple of games on this basis. Flip, Switch and Roll is a really nice dice and card game which stretches the maths muscles well and Danger Zone - the Game is based on Thunderbirds. We went back to the bring and buy to discover that lots of people had been buying, the place was pretty much stripped bare. If you plan to go (and you should) make sure you get there early.
Not sure why they make a big deal of “Open & Play”. We’ve been doing that with our games for years..
My Gold Mine is a nice little game. Particularly if you allow nice to mean “Setting up fellow players for a bit of dragon flambé”. The rules are simple enough. Each turn you have to decide whether to head for he exit or pick up some more gold and maybe move towards the dragon (a brave move).
The risk is that if you find yourself occupying the same position as the dragon you end up roasted and out of the round. Some of the moves let you mess with your fellow players, swapping places with them or dragging everyone towards the exit when you’re ahead in the game.
The game plays over three rounds and the tension racks up nicely as you head for the final that will decide the winner. It was great fun and comes strongly recommended. Even though I didn’t win..
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
