Catan Junior Review

   Catan: Junior is the kid version of Settlers of Catan. It has been simplified, but you still have the same goal. Gather resources and build faster than your opponents.

   The board has two sides. One side is a two player board.

   The other side is for three to four players.

   You have some plastic pirate ships and pirate lairs. These are your game pieces.

   There is a pile of resources. There's cutlasses, goats, wood, gold, and molasses.

   There are Coco the bird tiles. These are action cards you can take. They allow you to build either a ship or a lair, move the ghost captain, or gain resources.

   Whoever has the most Coco tiles, gets to put a lair on Spooky Island. This is helpful because it's one less lair you have to build. If there is ever a tie with the Coco tiles, the lair is removed until someone has purchased more.

   To begin, you are going to put the pirate lairs on their corresponding circles. Place one of your ships on the dotted line that matches your color.

   Each player gets a reference card. This shows you what is needed to build or buy Coco tiles.

   Give each player their color pieces, a reference card, and a wood and molasses resource. Place the Ghost Captain on Spooky Mountain. You are now ready to begin play.

   On your turn, roll the die. If you have a lair on a spot touching the island with the corresponding number, you gain one of those resources. Example: Here a four was rolled. The orange and blue players receive one cutlass each. The red and blue player each receive a molasses.

   After you have rolled the die and receive your resources, you can trade with the marketplace. You can trade here once per turn. Take one of your resources and trade it with one item in the marketplace. If you want to trade further, you can trade in two of the same resource for one resource of your choice out of the stock pile. You can trade in this manner as much as you would like, as long as you have the resources available. If the marketplace has five of the same resource at any time, remove them and place one of each resource back into the marketplace.

   If you roll a six, you get to move the Ghost Captain. Place him on an island of your choice. You gain two of the resource that the island generates. While he is on that island, if that number is rolled, no resources are received for the lairs that are on that island.

   When you build your ships and lairs, they go in a pattern. You must build them in that order. You can not build a lair unless it is next to a ship. Whoever builds all of their lairs first, wins the game.

 

   This is a great game to play with kids. The rules are simple so it's easy to understand. You don't trade resources with your opponents. The dots and lines on the board are easy to see so they can see what they need to build next. Everyone can see who has what resources so if your kids do need a bit of help, everything is already right there. There is only one die to roll which also makes it a bit easier. There isn't a whole lot of strategy, but there is enough that they will need to have a plan.

   I think the only downside to this is the box. There isn't really a way to organize it at all. There is two open areas for everything. I guess it makes for easier clean up. I just like my games a bit more organized than dumping everything in. That's a minor thing and just a personal preference.

   Our family has had a lot of fun with this game. It is simple enough that the kids can play it completely on their own, even the set up. If you are trying to introduce your kids into gaming, this is a great game!

Shell Game Review

   The Shell Game is a one player memory game by ThinkFun Inc. It is for ages eight and up.

   Inside, there is a Challenge Booklet, six shells, three stones and six crabs lettered A-F

   Set up is simple. Pick a pattern and place the stones and crabs so that they match the pattern on the top of the page.

   Once your pieces are set, place a shell over each piece. Switch shells by sliding them to trade places with another shell that has an arch between them. Example: in this challenge, you can switch spot one and two, two and three, or one and four. You can not switch one and three since there isn't an arch between them.

   Once you are done and believe you have the pattern to match the pattern on the bottom, remove the shells and see how you did!

   There is also a little booklet that has the directions and the solutions in it if there is one you just can't figure out.

   Puzzles are anywhere between an easy beginner puzzle,

   to a hard expert puzzle.

   This game is pretty fun. I didn't have any troubles solving them until they got a bit harder. My almost eight year old loved this game. This is a great game to keep a kid busy or if you want to exercise your mind a little. It's great for a quick or long break. The puzzles don't take long unless you are having a hard time remembering what is where. This game is great for when you have a child complaining about being bored.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Giveaway!!

   It's time for another giveaway! Up for grabs this time is a Marvel Avengers vs. X-Men Dice Masters Starter Set.

   This is an excellent game that my family loves. We purchased this from our local game store, Shall We Play. If you live in the Las Vegas area, I highly suggest you check them out!

   A few notes for the giveaway:

   - This giveaway is open to international readers.
   - You can earn entries starting Midnight on Saturday, June 7th until Midnight on Friday, June 13th (PST).
   - You can do as many or as few of the entries as you'd like
   - You can earn extra entries daily by sharing this giveaway.
   - I will announce the winner on Saturday, June 14th at the end of this blog post.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

King of Tokyo Review

   Who wouldn't want to be the King of Tokyo? Okay, I technically wouldn't want to, but in a game, definitely!

    Here's the inside of the box. Everything fits rather nicely.

 

   The game play and rules are simple. Pick your monster and its matching monster board. There are many fun monsters you can choose from.

   Set the points on your monster board to 0 and life to 10

 

   Place the board between you.

 

   Make a pile of your energy cubes. You use these to buy power up cards.

   These are the cards that you will use your energy cubes on. The amount of cubes is in the top left corner. The description of what it does is on the bottom. The artwork on the cards is pretty amazing! Shuffle these cards and place the first three on the side of the board, face up. Those are the ones you can choose from. Once a player buys a card, take the top card off of the deck and place it where the other one was.

   Some of the cards make it so you can do things such as poison a person. There are tokens for those powers to help you keep track.

   There are six dice. There is a lightning bolt that gives you an energy cube. A heart that heals. The paw is an attack. There are numbers one through three. If you get three of the same number, you get points. Three ones are worth one point. Three twos are worth two points. Three threes are worth three points. After you have your three of the same number, if you roll an additional one, it scores one more point. There are two green dice. There are cards that give you extra dice to roll. Only the person that has that card can use the extra dice.

   Your game is now set up and ready to go!

   The first player rolls all six dice. You can re-roll any of the dice you like. You can re-roll twice. The first person that gets an attack is put into Tokyo City. Place your monster on the Tokyo City circle on the board.

 

Here are the rules:
- You can not heal while in Tokyo City.
- If you are attacked, you take one damage per attack rolled.
- When you are attacked, you can take your damage and decide to leave Tokyo City.
- When you leave Tokyo, whoever attacked you must go into Tokyo City.
- If you are in Tokyo and you roll attacks, you attack every player that is not in Tokyo.
- You get one point when you go into Tokyo City.
- If you are still in Tokyo City when it comes around to your turn again, you get two points.
- If you are playing with five or six people, you use the Tokyo Bay circle as well.
- Tokyo Bay is used the same as Tokyo City.
- Once you get down to four people, you no longer use the Tokyo Bay space.

Keep going until you have a King of Tokyo. You become the King by either getting to 20 points first or when everyone else dies.

I really really enjoy this game. It's a fun family game that only takes about half an hour. Our boys love to play this game. It has a lot of luck and not much strategy. If you are looking for a game for the whole family, this is one I would highly recommend!

Hey, that's my fish! Review

   Hey That's My Fish is another fun little game. It's great for a time filler as it plays rather quickly. We have played this while waiting for everyone to show up for our game nights. The idea behind it is to get more fish than everyone else.



   It's a rather small sized box, so it doesn't take up much room. The tiles are small as well so you won't need a huge game playing surface for it.

   To set it up, you lay out the tiles. You alternate between rows of 7 and 8 so they make a square.

   Pick a color of penguin you would like to be. There are four colors. Each color has four poses. I think these little guys are awesome. They are wearing bibs and running off with fish.



   You start off by taking turns placing your penguins. For a two player game, you use all four of your penguins. For a three player, you use three penguins and for a four player you use two. This game has some strategy to it. You can move your penguin in a straight line until it hits another penguin or comes to a hole in the board, like if they were sliding across ice.



   When your penguin moves, you take the tile that was under it while singing "So long and thanks for all the fish!" (You don't really have to, it's just fun) Those fish are your points. There are 1-3 fish on each piece.

   You need to be careful, as your pieces can get stuck between two others, like the green one at the bottom. When this happens you end up with a penguin just sitting there unable to get you any more fish.

   When there is a tile that can no longer be reached, its removed off of the board and isn't scored at the end.

   When there's an island, the piece on it gets all of the pieces it can get to while going in straight lines so make sure you plan it out.

   Sometimes there is a tile or two that you can't get to on an island. The piece(s) left would be removed from play.

   After all the tiles are taken, you add up your fish. In this case, yellow got 51 fish, green got 48 fish and there was one we couldn't score. Yellow won! (because I was green)

   We were watching a review of this game on YouTube (sorry, I can't remember which one) when they were talking about how sometimes it's hard to get the tiles out because they are so small and all lined up. They had a suggestion about a way to get the tile out easier. It's a super special tool.

   You can use a Nerf dart with a suction cup on the end. It works pretty well at getting the pieces out without messing up the rest of the board.

   This is a fun game. I enjoy playing it and we have played it with our older boys. I say older but they are almost 9 and 7, so it's pretty easy to understand. I think this game is a great one to help children learn good sportsmanship while playing games. Things don't always go as planned and it can keep you on your toes a bit. You're trying to get the most fish while making sure you don't get blocked out and maybe trying to block out someone else while you do it. It makes kids plan a strategy that is going to be constantly messed up so they have to use problem solving skills as well. I like playing games with my kids that make them have to use their brains.