The Train Set Syndrome (Another Guide to Gaming with Kids)

You know what I mean, right? Dad buys son a train set for Christmas. Dad builds train set with son. Dad and son play with train set. Dad buys more track, cars, and scenery to expand train set. Dad spends small fortune to build replica of West Virginia that takes up most of the basement. Dad now has new hobby subscribing to train set magazines and going to train set conventions. Mom decides on future Christmas presents for son.

I'll be honest. Nostalgia was the catalyst in introducing my kids to hobby gaming. In junior high and high school I spent an inordinate number of late nights board gaming with friends. As this was before the influx of German hobby games to the United States, we played war games. Mostly it was Risk and the Milton Bradley GameMasters Series (Axis & Allies, Samurai Swords, Conquest of the Empire, and Fortress America). We also enjoyed some select titles of the old Avalon Hill and SPI hex and counter, strategy simulations. We even dabbled in painted miniatures. Oh, how the plastic and cardboard and tempers would fly!

Interview with Jesse Catron

This image was pilfered shamelessly from BoardGameGeek.com.

G.K. Chesterton once said that "a dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." In Jesse Catron's Salmon Run, currently on Kickstarter from Gryphon Games, players are living things--salmon, to be exact--swimming against the current in a race to the spawning pond. The game has already met its initial funding goal, and with over a month left to go, it is swimming toward its stretch goals. Jesse was kind enough to talk to me about the game and his experience designing it. He also gave me some strategies so I might be able to beat my wife! Check out the interview below.

Happyface

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend.  Hope you had some tasty food, spent some good time with family, and got some gaming in.  Maybe you got some good deals on Black Friday (hopefully you did not punch anyone to do so. That would be bad).  Hopefully you had a thanks to stop and take some time to, you know... be thankful.

As for me, I did have a great thanksgiving weekend.  Got some great food - my mom's homemade thanksgiving dinner, my mom-in-laws thanksgiving dinner leftovers - spent some good quality time with family (see above), and got some gaming in.

Nothing special or noteworthy as far as gameplay goes.  Nothing crazy happened.  I didn't pull out any brand new games or try something I'd never played before.

I did finally get a chance to teach my mom Dominion (it's hard to get 4-player games in with my family when usually there are anywhere between 5-15 people around).  Dominion was a game she was apprehensive to try, thinking it to be too complicated - but i'm happy to report, she liked it (it helped that, even though she didn't win first place, she beat my dad.  Incidentally, my wife killed us all.  She's really good at board games).  I also taught Ticket to Ride.

A very special moment happened later that day, though.  Just as we were leaving, my mom gave me a hug goodbye - and she thanked me for having a hobby that the whole family could enjoy.

Friday Question: What Is a Good Family Game?

@Futurewolfie is out camping with his family this week, and I've been holding down the fort here at iSlaytheDragon.com all alone. (This is part of the reason posting has been light--I hope to have a review up tomorrow.) @Futurewolfie's camping trip sparks this Friday's Friday question: what is a good game to play with the family? Or, to ask it another way, what game should @Futurewolfie be playing (have played) this week with his family? Check out my answer below, and provide your own answer in the comments!

@FarmerLenny answers:
I offered it to him, but he turned it down, so it's all his fault. Anyway, the game that has seen the most success with my family is Bohnanza. Bohnanza looks lame from the box ("Cartoony beans?! How can that be fun?"), but it's a great way to get the family involved in conversation. Bohnanza is a trading game that rewards shrewd deals, even when they seem to offer you no benefit. Because of the planting/harvesting mechanism in Bohnanza, it behooves you at times to offer uneven trades (or even donations) in order to keep your own bean fields in a good state. All around, Bohnanza is a great game with lots of interaction (though I'm not sure how younger kids would do with it--my game-playing family is all older at the moment). The Resistance could also be a good choice, though it could lead to long-lasting family discord. On second thought, maybe The Resistance would best be left at home...

The Longest Yard

I don't come from a big gaming family.  I didn't pick up boardgaming from my dad.  I don't learn new games from my mom or my sisters.  In fact, besides Settlers of Catan, my family has not tried any of the strategy games I have (with the exception of 1 sister, who has even sat through a game of Android with me).  They tend to assume that my games are a complicated mess that will take hours and hours to play.

Well, some of my games (I'm looking at you, Android) are a complicated mess that take hours and hours to play, but most of the games in my collection have about an hour playtime and are relatively simple.  There is some variation in there - Munchkin is pretty straightforward, the mechanics of Smallworld are simple but beefed up with all the special race abilities, and Cosmic Encounter is short but can get crazy fast with red-level alien powers.  Still, I think my family could actually handle a lot of the games I play, and even enjoy them.