The Benefits of Board Games

 I grew up in a family that played both board and card games. One of my grandmothers played bridge at a very high level, even (so family legend has it, anyway) playing for Scotland at times. She taught us to play Whist, and Hearts, and Rummy, and - eventually - Bridge. My other grandparents taught us to play Crazy Eights, another card game which, as I later learned, is the same idea as Uno. 

At home, my siblings and I would sometimes play Canasta, a card game that didn't necessarily require four players. We also played a lot of mah-jong, a bit of Scrabble, and various other games that we acquired, some better than others. Monopoly was popular with some of my siblings, although I found it a bit stressful. I have lots of memories of family board games on Christmas Day, or on holidays, or - as young adults - Sunday afternoons. 

I played board games with school and church friends too; I had quite a collection of two-player games. Mastermind was a favourite, as was Quandary. And I helped to run the Chess Club at my secondary school, although I was no expert at the game. But I couldn't remember a time when I didn't know the rules, or those of draughts (also known as checkers).  Then there were pencil-and-paper games for the car, or the back of class in a dull physics lesson...

It never occurred to me that there were people who didn't play games growing up, any more than it occurred to me that there were people who didn't like reading. And so, when our sons were born, we introduced them to games as early as possible, starting with Snakes and Ladders, Misfits and Pelmanism (Pairs), moving on to more interesting games as they got older. 

When we moved to Cyprus, we didn't take many games with us other than small packs of cards and travel games, so we were very pleased to discover that the Thrift Shop had quite a selection of games.  We learned, from colleagues, to play Rummikub and acquired a set of our own.  As the boys turned into teenagers, computer games became more interesting to them, but we still tried to play a family board game at least once a week. 

By the time we moved from our rental house to the one where we live now, we had sufficient different games to fill a biggish box - and since our cat Cleo insisted on sleeping in the packed game box, I even have a photo of it:

All too quickly the sad day came when both our sons had left home, and we were 'empty-nesters' for the first time. Amidst the adjustments, and the sadness that was sometimes overwhelming, I had the sudden awful thought: that we would no longer have the opportunity to play board games. Richard doesn't like games involving playing cards, and two-player Rummikub isn't all that interesting. He's not much of a fan of Scrabble, or other word games... and besides, we couldn't see ourselves sitting down to play a board game with just the two of us.

Within six months, we had made new friends; one couple who were happy to play Scrabble with us, and then other games, some of which they bought and brought back to Cyprus from their visits to their home country. And the family who were keen game-players, who introduced us properly to Settlers of Catan. 

Fourteen years later, we can't imagine life without playing games regularly. During lockdown, we played games over the internet; not ideal, but better than nothing. 

And now, at least for the time being, since we're allowed to have up to ten people (including us) in our house, we're back to our normal schedule of regular board games. Many years ago we established that every other Sunday afternoon our friends would come over for the afternoon and evening. The under-18s watch a film while the over-18s play a Catan game, usually Cities and Knights. There's something about Catan games that makes them eminently re-playable, and we're so familiar with them now that we carry on conversations while playing. 

Today we finished our game in under an hour, though it wasn't a creaming: we were all quite evenly matched right up to the end. So as the girls were still watching a DVD, we played a couple of rounds of Kingdominoes, a game one of our sons gave us for Christmas a couple of years ago, which advertised itself as the kind of game you play when you've finished something else and have half an hour or so available. It's a simple game that can be played by quite young children, but has some interesting strategies too, and each game is somewhat different. 

If you look carefully, you'll see Alex, our large white cat, asleep in the Settlers game box, where he had established himself an hour and a half earlier. Our cats are very keen on game box lids. 

We also established, about six years ago, that my friend and her daughters come over on Tuesday mornings. When they were little we read them books, and they coloured, and played with Lego. Now the youngest is ten, we play board games every week.  Sometimes Settlers, sometimes Probe, sometimes Mastermind, Probe, Rummikub... as well as regular games of Ligretto, a fast card game that I like very much, despite not being particularly good at it. 

A few years ago we also got into the routine of playing Cities and Knights with our adult friends one mid-week evening every week, and nearly three years ago we decided to play a non-Settlers game every Saturday evening. We had been given several excellent board games, but didn't seem to find the time to play them sufficiently to think about any kind of strategy. Our games cupboard was filling up, and there were some games which we played so rarely that we felt almost as if we had to learn them from scratch every time we played them. 

So we played, in turn, Agricola, Above and Below, Puerto Rico and Grand Austria Hotel, once a month each for a year, then in 2019 introduced a few others to the mix as we became familiar, at last, with these diverse games.  

I keep the games roughly organised, as seen in that photo, with the 'party' type games at the top right, and the ones we like playing the most, the strategy games with tangible pieces and boards, on the bottom right. At the top left are the two-player games, and at the bottom left are the others - the card-based games, variations on Carcassonne, Rummikub, Upwords and so on.

I learned recently that the ones I categorised as strategy games are known as Euro-style games, or German board games. Most of them originated in Germany, which apparently is an excellent country for creating coherent, interesting board games. 

Occasionally someone who hears that we play games regularly raises their eyebrows, or looks confused. 'We used to play Monopoly with the children...' they might mutter. Or 'I suppose the occasional game of chess whiles away the time.'  But there's so much more to it than just entertainment. For one thing, playing games is a great way to socialise, to build up and establish friendships. 

Of course, board games are important for young children, to help them understand the importance of taking turns, of being patient, of low-key competition in a friendly way, where it doesn't matter if one wins or loses. Some children are naturally gracious losers, others find it more difficult; but by playing a variety of games, where each child will succeed at times (even if, at first, subtly helped by the parent) they should gradually learn to accept that other people will sometimes win too, and that concentration and developing skills can help them improve. 

For older people like us, playing board games helps to keep our minds active. It also encourages us to exercise our strategic, tactical, logistical and diplomatic skills - the four different 'intelligences' connected with the four temperaments as identified by Keirsey. A board game is an excellent way to develop our least preferred intelligences, and to see their usage in a non-threatening environment. 

Since someone else has written a useful article, I'll link to this interesting page about the benefits of board games as it explains some of what I've mentioned, in a bit more depth.

Of course, computer games have some of these advantages too - and when they're social, played on Facebook with friends, just taking one or two turns each day, they're a nice way of staying in touch and another exercise of strategy, fast thinking or whatever is needed.  I play Lexulous - similar to Scrabble - online, and usually have about eight or nine games ongoing. I play one or maybe two moves per game per day - it's hardly time-consuming.  Another social game I play with three different people, at present, is Word Blitz; it's essentially a quick version of Boggle, with Scrabble-style scoring. 

But there's nothing to beat a group of friends or relatives around a board game, and we're very thankful that, so far, we're still allowed to do this in Cyprus. 

Life in Cyprus as lockdown eases

The heatwave I wrote about in my last post reached the hottest temperatures recorded in May, and lasted almost a week. So despite being allowed to exercise with a friend, I didn't go out much at all. Even at 6am - the earliest we could leave our premises, during the curfew - the temperatures reached 27 degrees and by 8am it was over 30.

So I was very thankful that we cleaned the air conditioners, and even more thankful for the new air conditioning units which were installed just over a week ago. They are quiet, and efficient, and the air feels fresher when we use them.

On Thursday May 21st, since the new coronavirus cases remained in single figures in Cyprus, phase two of the lockdown release started. The curfew was abolished, and we no longer had to send text messages for authorisation to leave the house. Restrictions on travel are gone, so we can visit other parts of the island if we wish.  Best of all, we can meet friends, outside or in houses, so long as there are no more than ten people (including children) at a time.

So although it was still too hot to walk first thing, my friend Sheila and her daughters came over on Thursday mid-morning to play some games in the air conditioning in my study.  And in the evening, when it wasn't quite so hot, we had a barbecue in our side garden.

I didn't leave the premises at all on Thursday, but on Friday we did some grocery shopping, feeling a little strange not sending a text message. I don't know what would have happened if we had sent one anyway.  And in the evening we went to our friends' house for a meal, as we normally do. Thankfully it was significantly cooler then, and on Saturday morning cool enough for me to walk first thing. We went to the aqueduct, for a change. The foliage along the Salt Lake trail was already starting to look very brown:

Later I cleaned the house, as I usually do on Saturdays - although the previous week it had been so hot I did almost nothing - and in the evening Sheila came over for a non-Catan board game.  Agricola was the one on the top of the pile, which we had not played for about three months with the lockdown.

With the statistics for Cyprus being so good, the government decided to allow churches to begin meeting again that weekend, so long as the official protocols were observed. So they required hand sanitiser on the way in, no more than one person per 8 square metres of space indoors, no hugging or shaking hands.  Doors and windows must be open, and general physical distancing is expected. External loudspeakers can enable people to sit or stand outside if there isn't room inside, or if they prefer to stay in the sunshine and fresh air.

This was mainly for the benefit of the Greek Orthodox church, of course. But St Helena's folk were keen to meet again rather than having online services, so Richard set up a speaker for the courtyard, and the clergy arranged the seating to allow for physical distancing in the building. 

It was a bit strange, but good to be there. Some people decided to continue isolating at home so Richard recorded the service on a webcam and it went out later. A few people sat outside, where - thankfully - the temperatures were much milder than the week before.

In the afternoon our friends came over, so I made extra bread and a cake, and we played a game while the children watched a film. Life is beginning to feel much more normal... even if a rather different normality than the one we took for granted until two months ago.

Yesterday, Cyprus reported no new cases of Covid-19.  That's only the second time this has happened since the first cases started appearing in the country, although figures have been low in the past week. It's particularly encouraging six days after the release of the lockdown, when it might have been expected that there would be an increase. Cyprus continues extensive testing of all contacts of known cases as well as frontline people in the community, and teachers and children returning to school.

But we don't know what the future holds. Airlines are still banned until June 9th, other than a few specific chartered repatriation flights.  In June, visitors will be allowed from a small number of countries deemed 'safe'; even then, they will have to have certificates saying that they are virus-free, and there will be extensive measures in place to ensure no transmission of virus if at all possible. It doesn't sound appealing, but some airlines are offering inexpensive flights in the hope of tempting people to a holiday in the sun.

Still, the tourism industry is going to suffer, even if there are tourists from these few countries. The majority of Cyprus's usual visitors are from the UK and Russia, and neither of those countries are anywhere near 'safe' from the point of view of Covid-19. Indeed, several of the new cases in Cyprus in the past couple of weeks have been detected from people repatriating from the UK.

So unless something changes, we will be here in Cyprus all summer. 

Flamingoes by the Salt Lake... and a few older board games

After a fairly dry and mild end to last year, and indeed beginning of January, the weather turned colder about ten days ago. We had some torrential rain - when it decides to rain here, it doesn't usually drizzle gently. It pours... I don't know if it's helped the reservoirs, which once again are much lower than they ought to be, but it's certainly helped the ground and the wild flowers locally.

On Tuesday morning, I grabbed my camera as I set off to walk with my friend Sheila; it had stopped raining so I knew it would be muddy, and hoped we might see a few flamingoes on the Salt Lake. The sun was shining and there were puddles every few metres, which we mostly managed to avoid:

Some years, the Salt Lake is quite full by this time of year, but even after a couple of days of extensive rain, there's still a lot of 'beach' showing:

We quickly saw flamingoes, although in this picture they just look like pink dots:

Here they are a little closer - there are thousands of them!

As we neared the Airport Road, we walked down onto the sandy area near the lake, and saw these baby flamingoes, still white rather than pink.  If you look carefully, you'll see a long row of pink ones in the background too:

We managed to get closer than I've ever been before without disturbing the birds:

However, although they didn't display any alarm, they did start walking away. And as we were trying to get closer still, as stealthily as possible, we were startled by a shout to keep away by someone with a large camera, perhaps a journalist or other professional, who was trying to photograph them from the road.

As we returned, we saw odd markings on the sand - evidently flamingo footprints!

We finished the walk, then sat and chatted for a few minutes on our garden swing, as we usually do. Then Sheila departed as two of her daughters had to get to their piano lessons, and I sorted out our breakfasts. Around ten o'clock Sheila's daughter K arrived with some knitting which had gone slightly wrong; so I helped her un-knit a few stitches and set her on the right path.

Shortly afterwards Sheila arrived with her two youngest daughters, after their piano lessons, and they decided to spend a couple of hours building and playing imaginary games with Lego.  K started reading one of my Chalet School books... so I suggested Sheila and I play some of my older two-person board games, which I recently brought up from our guest flat. I had planned to teach them to her daughters but they were all otherwise occupied.

We started with Quandary, a game which apparently originated in the early 1970s. I remember playing this regularly with a close school friend when she was at our house in my mid-teens.  It's a simple game to learn, but quite complex to think ahead. We played three rounds, all of them fairly quick:

I then opened Octago, a game which I don't ever remember playing.  Apparently it came out in the mid 1980s, so either it belonged to one of my sons, or - more likely - we bought it at the Thrift Shop when we moved to Cyprus. It's a game a bit like draughts/checkers, with the variation that pieces can turn rather than (or in addition to) moving.

It was quite a good game, though neither of us really worked out any strategies. I won in the end, but it took me a lot longer than it should have done to capture the final piece.

I then got out Kensington, a game which apparently didn't come out until 1979. I had thought it was earlier than that. It's very efficiently packed, in what appears to be a record sleeve (for those who remember records...).  I don't remember being particularly good at it - and, indeed, after initial frustrations as neither of us were getting anywhere, Sheila won rather resoundingly...

We were interested to note that Octogo claims to be for ages six and older, Kensington for ages seven to 107, and Quandary for ages ten plus.  We thought that Quandary was probably the easiest of the games to understand, and the one most likely to be enjoyed by Sheila's daughters at some point.  I would have rated it 7+.  Octogo, we thought, was a bit more complex and easier to make mistakes; probably fine for a game-playing child of seven, but I'd have rated it as 8+.  As for Kensington, it's quite a long game and difficult to get anywhere.  I wouldn't really recommend that for anyone under the age of ten. 

A fortnight in January in Cyprus

I decided I would write a blog post each Saturday this year. I managed it once.  I'm not sure what happened last Saturday, but evidently I didn't write anything. I haven't taken many photos this month, either. Rather a contrast to last Summer, when the family were staying and I took several photos on almost every day.  One of the things I've been doing is creating our 2017 photobook on the Photobox site, a few pages at a time. I've reached the end of June, which has almost as many pages as the first five months put together.

Nearly two weeks ago, we had our friend Jacob and his employee Mike back for a few days to do some more repair work on the house. They painted balcony railings, and the spiral staircase we have outside our house, and they 'spritzed' some of the back wall. They made a cover for one of our water tanks, which was - for some strange reason - missing its cover, and they worked with Richard to encase all our external wires in trunking. One of the cables had almost perished in the sun; it should have been encased a long time ago.

We've continued playing board games regularly with our friends, and on Tuesday this week revived an old habit - we played Settlers-by-Facetime with our son Tim, who now lives in the UK.  It took a while to get everything set up and working as we hadn't done this for some years; I think the setup took as long as the game. But it worked well, and was great to have a three-player game, and chat, even if he's two thousand miles away.

On Thursday, we woke to grey skies. Sheila and I went for our walk, although the trail was somewhat muddy and there were a few spots of rain. Within about half an hour of getting home, it started to pour.  Thankfully I had brought in the laundry I did the previous day. In Cyprus, when it does rain, it can be torrential.  There were high winds and hours of rain; the sun came out briefly a couple of times, but mostly the sky was grey. We had a few drips of water through the roof, but mostly it was fine. We had to use our electric water heater to get hot water for showers, as there was no solar heating at all. And it was cold. It had been a mild winter so far, but the house felt very chilly.

Yesterday Richard did the annual UK tax returns. It's not a task he relishes, though I do the bookkeeping through the year so it isn't too hard to get the figures we need to enter. He was quite frustrated by the whole process, as the UK government website seemed to be extremely slow. However, he finished eventually, and in celebration I made his fifteenth cake (out of sixty) for his 60th birthday year. It was a simple microwave chocolate mug cake with Bournville chocolate squares pushed into it; a little dry, but the melted chocolate helped:

It filled the large mug we bought for this purpose, and made two good sized portions:

In the afternoon, the entire Internet seemed to slow down. I don't usually notice when it's a bit slower than usual, but I was trying to print the statements from our two bank accounts and credit card, and I couldn't get some of them to load at all. No problem with the Cyprus bank, but the UK one, which is usually very quick, was unbelievably slow.  

Richard, meanwhile, was trying to download some videos for work, which he had to edit. He was already somewhat frustrated as the work computer had broken down twice in the past couple of weeks. The first time he took it to Nicosia and they cleaned something; the second time, they took it to the Apple dealer, who said it had a hardware fault and they would replace it free of charge... which is fine, but meant Richard was without his main editing computer for several days. So he hooked up his laptop to the system, which wasn't entirely satisfactory... and then the Internet appeared to grind to a halt.

He phoned our Internet provider, and they said that two major cables that connect Cyprus with the rest of the world had been cut.  This news article confirms it. The authorities don't seem to know why... but by this morning, thankfully, it seemed to be much better.  

Grand Austria Hotel

Once again our younger son did some research, and bought us yet another board game for Christmas. We're always wondering if a game will emerge that begins to rival Settlers of Catan in re-playability; we begin to doubt if that will ever happen, but having finally opened and started to play 'Grand Austria Hotel', it's one that we can see ourselves enjoying regularly, even if not a couple of times per week.

Having said that, we've played it three times so far, learning more each time. The setup phase took longest the first time, with several pages describing the different boards and cards. It all seemed very complicated. But the basic idea is straightforward. Each player is the owner of a hotel, which attracts four kinds of guest. Blue nobles, yellow artists, red politicians and green tourists have different requirements, and one of the main aims of the game is to fill as many rooms as possible.

Guests, printed on attractive cards, come at first to the cafe (three spaces at the bottom of the individual playing boards) with orders that must be filled. There are four sets of different coloured blocks: black for coffee, red for wine, white for ice cream and brown for chocolate. (In the instructions, white and brown are cakes and strudel, or possibly the other way around; we couldn't remember which was which, so we changed the names).

Once the order is filled, the guest can be moved to a room in the appropriate colour... but only if there is a room already prepared.

The most significant part of each turn is based on the roll of dice at the start of the round. For three players, twelve dice are rolled, and then arranged on 'action' spaces accordingly.  Ones and Twos allow for a player to acquire extra food and drink supplies, Threes allow for room preparation, Fours for the taking of extra money or victory points, Fives for the appointment of new staff, and Sixes are a kind of wild card.

It took us a while to work out how to play the staff - another full set of attractive cards, each with different skills - and we still have to keep referring to the instruction guide to discover what some of them offer. They range from single-use staff, who might provide a few supplies for the cafe, through to those who allow extra actions or money with certain numbers, ongoing through the game.

That's how the table looked towards the end of round three of our first game. It looks complex, but the setup is surprisingly quick. At the bottom of the picture is the action card for the dice. Above that is the main game board, with guests who can be selected, a scoring track around the outside, and the added complication of an 'emperor track' which gives bonuses or penalties after every few rounds.

The hotel boards are the three at the top of the picture, three each, with staff cards laid out (though we also put the ones in our hands on the table for the first run-through). We didn't get any further than round three; it took about three hours to get that far.

Here's a photo from a different perspective; the cards sticking out of the bottom of the hotel boards are guests who are still in the cafe awaiting their orders.

When we calculated the scores at the end, I had won, but none of us had any idea how. We were not playing strategically, and only understanding a little of how it worked as we played. None of us used the emperor track at all.  I think we all had between about ten and thirty points.

The second time we played, it was just the two of us and we got to the end in about three hours.  We used staff more effectively (and correctly) and I made sure to gain emperor points whenever I could. We both found ourselves running out of money (kronen) and realised we had made a mistake about bonuses from filling blocks of rooms. We had given ourselves victory points for all of them, whereas we should have gained either kronen or emperor points from the red or yellow blocks.

I won the second game too, mostly because of the emperor points, and was amazed to reach 55 points.  But we wondered vaguely why the scoring track had extra markers that could be used when getting right the way around and starting a second lap.

A couple of days later we played another three-player game. This time it became apparent that each game helps with understanding and strategy. The third player, who was only on her second game, didn't get any victory points and filled far fewer rooms than the two of us who had played the extra game. The winner ended up with over 100 points, I was about twenty behind, and the third player reached around 50.

We're not particularly competitive, and it's a game where each plays for themselves rather than any direct competition. Each round (there are seven in all) involves two turns for each player, and the first player moves around the table. There's some luck in the roll of the dice and the cards available, so rather than long-term strategy, it's more of a game of tactics, taking advantage of the available dice actions, or the guests and staff one acquires.

Some reviews say that it's less interesting as a four-player game, because turns can be lengthy and other players are not at all involved in anyone else's playing. It's the only disadvantage mentioned. But while still learning the game and its many variations, this isn't an issue at all because we're all interested in what each other are doing, seeing what effect different staff or guests have on the play and the scoring.

So far, we like 'Grand Austria Hotel' very much. 

A third sleepover for young friends

Three years ago, we experimented with a sleepover for our friends' three youngest children, while their older siblings were at camp. The idea was to give their parents 24 hours to themselves. Their parents were in fact expecting to collect them soon after breakfast on the following morning, and - at the girls' insistence - they ended up staying until after an early lunch, 27 hours in all, although tempers were getting a little frayed by the end, and Elisabeth, who was only four at the time, was very tired.

Last year we repeated it, with similar results. The girls ended up staying 26 hours and, once again, the last couple of hours were rather fraught.

This year, we weren't sure if it would be able to happen at all. I was hoping to go to the UK for three weeks but dates weren't arranged until very recently. I'm not in fact going until Saturday; moreover, camp is a little earlier than it was in previous years.  More of a problem is the fact that our son Tim's cat Lady Jane has moved here, as he has gone back to the UK, and she's treating what was his bedroom (years ago) as her domain. To have three lively girls sleeping there would have caused her immense stress.

However, Katie - who is 11, and quite outspoken - was sensitive enough to realise that this might be a problem, and said, about a week ago, how she understood that they probably wouldn't be able to have a sleepover this year. So I said that perhaps we could all sleep in our guest flat... and she was so pleased that we made a date for them to sleep over last night.

Since the paper dolls I printed for them last year were so successful, I looked for more a couple of days ago, wondering if I could find some with 18th century ball gowns of the kind that they like to colour. In searching online I discovered this wonderful website with printable paper dolls from many periods in history.  I only intended to print three or four... I ended up with about twenty pages for each of the girls. There are many more for future visits.

Remembering the somewhat stressful ends of the previous two years, I suggested agreeing in advance that this year's sleepover would be 24 hours only. And they arrived yesterday around eleven o'clock in the morning, after seeing their older siblings off to camp on the bus.

They were delighted with the historical paper dolls and started colouring immediately:

However, although Elisabeth is now six, she doesn't concentrate for as long as her siblings, and soon wanted a break. She loves to play games, so we had a few rounds of Ligretto:

Then Helen, who is very good with her hands, decided to continue some knitting she started a couple of months ago. She's becoming quite proficient, and has even managed to figure out how to reverse mistakes and pick up dropped stitches:

Katie, as ever, took some time to read:

Elisabeth asked if I would read to her; the only book I actually read her in the whole 24 hours was 'Dogger' by Shirley Hughes, which is my favourite children's picture book:

Richard was out all morning but came back for lunch. I'd made a new loaf of bread, and some peanut butter, and boiled some eggs, and cut up lots of salad vegetables:

After lunch, Helen and Elisabeth got out 'their' Lego. I've allocated a small crate to each of the three to store their various creations from week to week, so they don't fight over who built what, and this seems to work quite well.

Katie, meanwhile, continued colouring her paper dolls. She kept thanking me and saying how much she liked them.

Alex spent most of the morning curled up on top of the printer...

Elisabeth then asked if we could play 'Misfits', and Helen said she'd join in too. It's a very basic game suitable for children of about three, but they still like it, and are amused by the resultant ridiculous people that get created, different each time:

Afterwards, Elisabeth put them all together 'properly' before putting them all back in the box. Well, she insisted that she put everything away but then Katie found one of the pieces by the bookcase later in the day...

Out came the Lego again:

When they didn't need me, I sat in my beanbag and read, keeping half an ear open to respond to questions. There was a complex war of some kind going on in these two Lego worlds, but it was relatively quiet and civilised:

I haven't been doing much cooking in the past few weeks as it's been so hot, but I knew the girls would want a hot meal, so I turned the air conditioning on in the kitchen late afternoon, and made some pastry. Then I concocted a couple of sausagemeat pies, one with onions and one without, and also a spanopitta as I mostly avoid eating meat.

I made some coleslaw too, and produced some chopped up cucumbers and some cherry tomatoes. All the girls chose sausagemeat pie without onions, and between them ate what was officially supposed to serve 4 people. Richard, meanwhile, ate a quarter of the one with onions, and I ate a third of the spanopitta.

I was surprised when Katie informed Helen that in order to make the sausagemeat pie I must have taken all the skins off lots of 'English sausages' (as ordinary sausages are labelled here) and assured her that I'd done no such thing. I just used some frozen sausagemeat I'd bought before Christmas but hadn't used. She said that her brother Lukas takes the insides out of sausages to make this kind of thing, which seemed like a very complex process to me, and not something I would even think of doing!

I'd bought a melon that morning; it was a bit hard but still quite tasty so we had that afterwards. And then Elisabeth was quite eager to go to bed. I tried to dissuade them as it was only 7.15, and I didn't think they would get to sleep for at least another hour, but they wanted to brush their teeth... and as I hadn't slept well the night before and was very tired myself, I shrugged and agreed, and we went downstairs to the guest flat.

Helen and Elisabeth got ready for bed easily, and Katie, who stays up till 9.00, sat in the living room reading. Of course they didn't get to sleep at once... I ignored quiet talking, but Elisabeth came out about three times to drink water, or to tell me something Helen had done, and Katie went to turn off lights at least twice, and apparently found them jumping on beds. By then I had rather a headache and was feeling shattered so I got rather annoyed...

Richard, meanwhile, fed the cats, changed the litter, put on the dishwasher and locked up the main part of the house. And shortly after Katie went to bed, I did too.

I woke about 5.30am and came upstairs to have a shower, then went back down to read. Helen woke about 6.15 and had a shower in the guest flat, then came to play with one or two of the puzzles we keep downstairs, then the K'nex, which also lives in the guest flat.  I didn't take any more photos... I forgot at first, then thought there had probably been enough.

The girls had breakfast about 8.30; I knew there was some cereal in the guest flat, left behind by other visitors, so I brought it upstairs and they were delighted to find some chocolate granola, which they finished. Some of them had toast, some of them had bananas, some had some other cereal, and they had a few pieces of apple.

After breakfast, Katie coloured more paper dolls and read some more; Helen did more knitting and colouring; three of us played a few rounds of Ligretto; two of them played with Lego.... and at 11.00 their mother arrived to take them home again.

Elisabeth had become a bit bored and whiny a few times, not in a major way but often enough that I realised it was the right decision to stick at 24 hours, at least for this year.

Now they're a little older, I didn't feel nearly as exhausted afterwards as I did in the previous years, but still - being very much an Introvert - quite drained by so much focussed people-time.

Ticket to Ride (Europe)

The first version of this game, simply called Ticket to Ride was made in 2004 and features cities in the US; it was then adapted, with a few additions, to create Ticket to Ride, Europe in 2005. This is the version we were given a few years ago by some good friends.

The aim of the game is to create routes between different cities which are displayed in a vague approximation to a hundred-year-old map of Europe on a large board. Each player chooses from the five colours available, and starts with forty-five plastic train pieces, and three pieces representing stations.

There are also two sets of cards. The train cards display different coloured trains, and are used to buy routes during the game. The destination cards show routes between European cities. On the board, different tracks between cities are shown with coloured paths, and the aim of the game is to place trains that travel the 'missions' given on the destination cards. Each given route must travel through several cities before arriving at the destination - and the ability to place them must be bought with train cards matching the particular track concerned.

Sounds confusing? It is, at first. Nonetheless, four of us managed to teach ourselves to play it from the instructions, without any idea of what we were doing. That's not easy with most board games, so we were quite impressed. We realised, afterwards, that we had missed one or two points, but even so - it's not a difficult game to learn, even if the strategies take longer to grasp.

Here's a picture showing train cards laid out - two orange, two purple and one blue, which happened to be drawn - next to the upside-down draw pile, and the brown-backed destination cards. Each player starts with some destination cards and train cards, and on each turn can choose either to play trains (if they have the appropriate coloured cards), draw more train cards or - if they have completed all their missions - three more destination cards.

For any given destination card, there are a variety of possible paths, but some of the routes may overlap. So players must regularly revise their plans as other players may take a part of the route that they had hoped to use. They must also weigh up whether it’s worthwhile using a station (which costs them four points, and differing numbers of cards) or whether to play several extra trains to take a more roundabout route to their destination.

We've tried playing 'Ticket to Ride' with varying numbers of people. With only two, it's not particularly interesting as there's no real challenge, although it works well and is good for beginners.

A three-player game works well: here's the board towards the end of a game with just three players, showing how the yellow trains go around the edge of the board, a long-winded route in some cases, but with the aim of gaining an extra ten points from the 'longest route' - ie the most contiguous train tracks. The three-player game is limited in that, in places where there are two tracks running alongside each other, only one may be used.

We more often play with four or even five players, five being the maximum.  The board can become quite crowded with five people, as several may hope for the same piece of track, only to find another player snatches it out of their grasp, meaning they must revise their plans, either collecting different cards for different routes, or using stations as a way of taking advantage of someone else's track.

Here's a view of a board towards the end of a four-player game:

Ticket to Ride (Europe)  has a rather different feel from most of the other games we like to play, and is simple enough to teach someone who has not played it before. It’s not particularly competitive; each player is trying to create his or her own routes, so deliberate blocking is unlikely.

It’s a game that can be played with adults or teenagers, or indeed any child who is able to read well enough to work out the routes, and who is careful with the placing of trains, and the strategy needed to work out the routing. We have played it with children as young as ten, and it has worked well, although we usually just play with adults or older teens.

It's not a game we want to play often - it can begin to feel 'samey', and doesn't have the repeat playability of, for instance, 'Settlers of Catan'. Nor is it a game that encourages much conversation, as each person has to keep thinking about what cards they have in their hand, and how they hope to place them.  It goes quickly, too; each player takes just one action on each turn, and if they don't announce what they're doing, a round can go by very quickly.

But as a change, we like this very much.  It's quick to set up and a game typically takes about half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes.

Kingdom Builder

Our younger son is on a long-term quest to buy us a game that makes a good regular alternative to 'Settlers of Catan'. We love Settlers and all its variations, and play it at least once a week. Sometimes more. But there are times when we really want something different.

Agricola is an interesting game, and Puerto Rico has grown on us. We like them both. But both have quite long setup phases, and games can last quite a long time. They're also rather complex, with a lot of fine detail in the rules: they're not the kind of games that can be explained quickly to newcomers.

Our most recent gift, however, is one that we can already see we are going to play regularly. Kingdom Builder has very few rules, and setup takes a couple of minutes. Basic game-play is so easy that a child could do it (it's recommended for age 8+) but each game has different aims, and also a different layout, so no two games are identical.

Here we are playing for the first time, while following the rules.

There are eight layout boards, of which four random ones are chosen and placed in a rectangle, as shown above. They feature different terrains: mountains, canyons, forest, grass, desert, flowerbeds and sea. They're even divided into little hexagons, making the whole feel pleasantly similar to Catan games.  

To make the resemblance stronger, there are four sets of forty little wooden houses, exactly the same as the Catan settlements. And they have to be placed on the board.  There the similarity ends, however; players draw terrain cards in turn to indicate where three new houses - which we keep calling settlements - must be placed, and they have to follow some specific rules. Most important of these is that new settlements must, if possible, be placed adjoining that person's previously placed settlements. 

Then there are three mission cards selected randomly from a pack of ten, explaining how victory points will be earned in this particular game. They range from building settlements next to mountains, through to counting the houses in the largest group of contiguous ones, or having as many as possible in a straight line. Players have to decide how they can best meet as many of these aims as possible. 

Oh, and there are 'locations' and 'castles'. Each of the eight possible playing boards has one or two castles (three points for building next to one) and one or two 'locations' which have bonus cards attached allowing extra optional moves: for instance, placing an extra house at the edge of the board, or building on the sea. A players gets the use of a location bonus for the rest of the game by building next to it. 

So there's a lot of rapid thought needed in this game, which lasts for about 12 rounds. A rough strategy can be planned, but luck comes into play with the terrain cards. The game is about making the best use of the land, while aiming for one or more of the specific game missions. 

I like it because it's quick and easy to set up and put away, because a game typically lasts about 45 minutes, because it's simple to explain, and because every game has different aspects. Then the graphics are very nice, the game play straightforward enough that it's easy to chat while playing, and it's not a competitive or vicious game. There's no trading, and while it might occasionally happen that one player blocks another's access to somewhere, moves are made for the benefit of the person playing them, not to foil anyone else's desires.

Scoring doesn't happen until the end. The terrain boards all have scoring grids on the back and the arithmetic needed is not difficult. None of us has scored more than 60 points in a game, and we've played at least half a dozen so far. Typical scores seem to be around 35-50. It will be interesting to see if our scores reach higher numbers when we've been playing a bit longer and are able to think more strategically.

But, at least so far, this is definitely a winner - and highly recommended. We are already tempted by an expansion that will increase the number of players to a maximum of five. 

Puerto Rico

We were given Puerto Rico for Christmas 2013. It's a strategy game for three to five players, and one that we've played perhaps once a month over the past year.

It takes a while to set up; there are lots of little cards representing plantations, buildings, gold ('doubloons') and victory points, as well as little wooden pieces for people and barrels of crops. Different numbers of some of these are needed for different numbers of players, and the buildings have to be sorted and placed on the central game board before starting.

Nonetheless, it's an interesting game, and one that has gradually grown on us as we've realised the potential for different ways of playing.

Each player has a board with spaces for plantations and buildings. In each round, every player chooses a 'role': the mayor brings more people to the islands, the settler digs more plantations, the craftsman produces and harvests crops, the trader sells crops, and the captain exports them to other lands. Strategies, broadly, either focus on getting plenty of crops to export or in getting as many buildings as possible, since these are the two ways of gaining victory points.

The rules are quite lengthy and highly detailed; it took us a game or two to get the overall feel of how it works, and we then re-read the rules and discovered one or two ways in which we had been playing incorrectly. 

This shows a game as it nears the end. Many of the building cards from the central board have been bought and populated (the little brown circles are the people) and piles of the little red-rimmed hexagonal victory points have been collected. 

It's a good game where tactical skills are at least as important as overall strategy. There's no real overt competition, other than thinking, before taking one's role, what will most benefit oneself while not helping the others so much.  There's no trading between players, no way of spoiling someone else's chances other than by forcing crops to be exported rather than sold; or, perhaps, by buying a building someone else wants - but that's surprisingly rare. 

What I like best is that there's no scoring until the end. We sometimes have an idea of who's winning, but it's never certain until we finish and start adding up, as victory points are turned upside down. I've sometimes played a buildings strategy and won with a lot of points for my buildings, but that doesn't always work.

Puerto Rico is recommended for players of age thirteen and over; I think that's about right. It certainly wouldn't be suitable for anyone who couldn't read well and think fairly fast, but while some strategically-minded children of around ten might be able to play it, I suspect that many under thirteen or so would find it a bit complex, maybe even dull. 

A game takes about an hour, and we find it far from dull: now we're familiar with the mechanics, we can chat while playing, and like it very much. It's not a game for casual players, or for introducing as a quick after-dinner game; the setup is a bit slow, and new players will be at a disadvantage as it's not really clear how different tactics work until a few games have been played. 

But for a family who like this kind of tactical strategy game, I would recommend it highly. 

Misfits

 When my sons were small - over twenty-five years ago - I looked for simple board games that they could play, to introduce the ideas of taking turns and of observing specific ‘rules’ for the course of a game. One of our favourites was called ‘Misfits’. I gave it away when my sons outgrew it, but a couple of years ago I managed to find an updated edition inexpensively, and bought it to play with a friend’s young children. It was an instant success.

COMPONENTS OF MISFITS

Inside the box, if it’s bought new, are cartoon depictions of twelve differently costumed ‘people’. These include, a ballet dancer in a pink tutu, an astronaut dressed to walk on the moon, a cheerful clown, a warty witch and a white-garbed chef. They’re caricatured, of course, so instantly recognisable by adults and older children; it’s not hard for little ones of two or three to learn what they are if they don’t know. 

There is also a single sheet with instructions, explaining that this game is for 3-6 players, aged three and above.

AIM OF MISFITS

Each of the twelve caricatured people is made up of five thick pieces of card that are easily separated: a ‘hat’ (or other headgear) of some kind, a face, a body, and two individual legs. The aim of the game is to create individuals with the correct number of body parts - but as ‘misfits’. So, for instance, a pirate’s hat can be on a witch’s head, with a chef’s body and a pair of ballerina legs.  And there’s the catch: the legs must be in a matching pair. 

PLAYING MISFITS

The cards are placed face down on the table or floor, and muddled together in a pile. Each player takes seven of the cards and looks at them. With little children, of course, it’s easier just to lay them out on the table in front so older players can help them, but they’re supposed to be kept private.  

The first person to find a hat card places it on the table, and play then continue clockwise. The person on the left of the starting player can either play another hat, if they have one, or they can play a face card directly underneath the hat that has been played. The person to their left can then play a hat, or (if the second player placed a hat) a face, or (if the second player placed a face) a body. It takes longer to type than to explain; the idea is that each ‘misfit’ is built up a piece at a time, starting at the top. 

At the end of the round each player draws another card from the pile, and play continues until all cards are used up. If a player cannot play a card, they pass their turn and do not draw an extra piece from the pile.

Whoever finishes a misfit creation (by playing the second leg) takes it, and it counts as one point.  Thus the only ‘strategy’ to the game is to avoid playing a leg when there are other options, in the hope that someone else plays the matching one first. Of course, if a player has a matching pair of legs, then winning that misfit creation is guaranteed. 

CHILDREN’S OPINIONS

My sons, and more recently my friends’ children (three girls) all liked this game when it was first introduced to them, and understood the rules quickly. It’s actually suitable for children younger than three so long as they don’t put the pieces in their mouths; I assume the 3+ recommendation is for safety reasons. My sons would have been about four and two when they first played it; the youngest of my friend’s daughters was nearly three. Even at two the idea of taking turns was familiar to them, although there were a few complaints, now and again: ‘But I want to play two pieces!’ or ‘He’s taking too long!’

I thought at first that having only twelve characters would make the game too quick, but in fact it’s about the right length; there are 60 pieces in all, so with four players that’s fifteen rounds - more than enough for a small child. Occasionally they’ve got bored part-way through and we’ve then just put the pieces away; other times (particularly with the girls) they want to make up the ‘real’ characters with the correct body parts, so that’s usually another five minutes of entertainment at the end.

ADULTS’ OPINIONS

This is not a very interesting game for anybody over the age of about six, although I’ve had children of eight or nine play it with younger children. However, played once or twice per month it’s not too irritating, and since part of the fun is making silly characters, nobody seems to mind who wins. 

Since there is no reading involved, and no counting, it’s playable by any child who is able to take turns and who has some idea of how bodies go together. It’s a great way to introduce the concept of following specific rules in a game - useful in helping children understand the concept that different people have different ‘house rules’. It’s also easy enough for an adult to manipulate the winnings slightly - by choosing when to play or withhold a leg - and since it’s mostly luck, a very small child has just as much chance of winning as an adult. 

The pieces are big enough that they’re unlikely to get lost, and since we don’t allow food with games, and always have hands washed before playing, the cards have remained in good condition. 

POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS

Misfits is, of course, not a game to be taken seriously. In the version my sons had, there were slightly different characters including a kilted Scotsman and a South Sea island girl in a grass skirt. These do not feature in our current edition, so I can only assume that they were withdrawn due to perceived problems with racial stereotyping. Fair enough, I suppose, although small children are unlikely to be prejudiced. However there are now only three female characters amongst the twelve, and since the evil-looking witch and mermaid are not real, I feel that the danger of sexism is possibly worse; the only ‘real’ woman is the skinny ballerina.

Dixit

We were given the game of Dixit by some friends, who brought it from the US although it's available in the UK too.

Dixit is easy to learn, and we find it ideal to bring out after a meal with friends who would like to play a game, but can't decide what to play. The game consists of a set of 84 large cards with brightly coloured and somewhat stylised images on them. There are also voting cards and little rabbit scoring markers. It's not a game we want to play every week, but when we do get it out, people usually enjoy it - particularly if playing for the first time. It's best for 4-6 players.

The easy part is choosing a colour (I have yellow if I can) and placing the rabbits at the start of the board:

Each player is dealt five of the large picture cards, the others being placed face down on the table to form the stack. One person is allocated as the first ‘storyteller’. Not that they tell a story - the idea is to select one of their cards, without letting anyone else see, and then say a word or phrase that is in some way connected with the image.

The aim is for some - but not all - of the other players to guess correctly which of several cards matches this phrase. So the storyteller must choose something which is neither too obvious nor too subtle. As the storyteller says their phrase, the selected card is placed face down on the table. Then each of the other players selects a card from their hand which they feel is also, in some way, connected with the word or phrase, and places it face down with the first one.

The storyteller picks all these cards up, glances at them to see what has been chosen, then lays them face up (including the original one) in a row on the table, without comment - other than numbering them from 1 to however many cards there are.

All the other players then try to guess which card was the storyteller's. Which might sound easy, but it’s surprising how often there is at least one card which seems to fit the theme rather better than the original. I don't recall what the phrase was for this particular set, but - as usual - everyone had to ponder awhile before using the little square cards to cast our votes.

Here's a set from a different game, on a different occasion, with mostly different people. One card (the centre one in the lower set) happens to be the same as one in the top set - but was evidently selected for a completely different phrase.

Scoring is the most complex part of the game, in my view; we refer to the scoresheet almost every time for the fine details. Basically, if either everybody OR nobody guesses the correct card, then the storyteller gets no points. If just one or more (but not all) of the others guess it, both they and the storyteller score. Also, if one of the other players has their card chosen by another player, they also score.

Each player’s coloured rabbit is then moved the relevant number of spots along the scoring track:

Everyone picks up another card from the stack, so that they have five to choose from. The next player, counting clockwise, then takes over as the storyteller, and the game continues until all cards are used up. This means that in the final rounds, players will have fewer than five cards, and in the last round each will only have one. It’s amazing how often even that final card will somehow have a connection with the storyteller’s phrase.

I’m not a visual person, and I find it difficult, sometimes, to come up with a word or phrase that suits any of my cards - usually I either make it too obvious, so that everyone guesses, or too subtle, so that nobody gets it. But it doesn't matter; I'm not particularly competitive and it's a fun game that only lasts about half an hour. I do quite enjoy the guessing part which often prompts discussion, once the story-teller's card is revealed. Of course. each player must be careful not to indicate in any way which of the cards they have played so we tend to stay quiet until everyone has voted.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes board games, although it might not appeal to those who tend to be literal in their language, or to people who only like strategy games. It’s ideal to play at a small, relaxed party, or for a bit of socialising with good friends.