Do you have friends on your list you are never sure what to get? You know the couple you coffee with weekly, or that you share a cabin with in the summer.
Well a social game can be just the ticket as a Santa gift.
Social games in my world are those not taking too long to learn, and that can be played without a lot of brain burning, allowing time for general kibitzing as the game rolls on.
There are many games which fit that category, but I’m going to focus on three that I can highly recommend since we drag them out fairly regularly.
The first is Quartex, an offering from CSE Games, a Canadian company. It is always a bonus to buy Canadian.
Quartex has no annoying dice to foil plans with an unlucky roll result, and while tiles are initially drawn, they are kept hidden behind a screen, but the luck element is still low enough to intrigue.
After selecting your initial tiles, you pull five from the bag, you begin playing your tiles by matching and placing them beside other tiles already in play. If your tile completes a four-corner shape, you earn a point token of that colour.
“The 55 unique tiles have symbols on each corner. The symbol for each corner is the same on both sides, giving you a mirror image of the tile simply by flipping it over. There are four different symbols that could appear on each corner of a tile. When a symbol from one corner is matched with the same symbols from the corners of three other tiles, the four corners form the following shapes, a purple X, a turquoise star, a red diamond or a yellow circle,” explains the rules.
“Choose one of the tiles you have behind your shield. Place it on the table against the edge of at least one tile currently in play. Each edge of a tile can only touch one other tile and the symbols on all touching edges and opposing corners must match exactly.”
When you complete a four-point match, you gain a token of the matching colour.
The game continues until the tile bag, and players are no longer able to play any of their already drawn tiles.
What I particularly like about Quartex is the method of scoring, which reminds somewhat of that used by Gute Nachbarn by Alex Randolph one of the best-known of recent game developers.
In the case of Quartex, “each token a player has in front of his or her shield is equal in value to the number of unclaimed tokens of the corresponding colour. For example, if there are three purple, two red, six yellow and no turquoise tokens left, then the purple tokens are worth three points each, the red tokens are worth two each, the yellow tokens are worth six each and the turquoise tokens are worth zero,” details the rules.
This one is great fun, with some nice strategy mixed in.
Next, I had the opportunity to run off a print ‘ n play preview copy of Bullfrogs - a Strategy Card Game of Amphibian Combat some months ago I jumped at it. I loved the game and have a full copy now. Getting to play the game with actual wooden frog and bullfrog pieces enhances game aesthetics way past recycled wooden cubes from an old Risk Game.
Regular readers might even recall I bestowed an Honourable mention on the game in terms of ‘best of’ for those games I reviewed in 2014.
The game by designer Keith Matejka is a card game for two-to-four players, in this case think of it for two couples.
Each player has a set number of cards, along with a handful of pieces representing frogs and bullfrogs.
The idea is to move your amphibians around the ever-changing maze of cards until they are full of frogs. The players with the most frogs on the ‘lily pad’ wins the card, and associated ‘victory points’.
In four-player strategy goes by the wayside as too much happens between your turn and the next time you have a chance to influence the game to hold a strategy in place.
So check it out at www.thunderworksgame.com , you will not be disappointed.
And then there is a dominoe set which are used as the basis of a myriad of games, in this particular case Mexican Train.
Designed by Roy Parsons and Katie Parsons, Mexican Train was released only in 1994.
The recent creation of the game and its popularity today tells a lot about the game.
Granted the game tends to be most popular with older players, who no doubt find it enjoyable as a social game which can be played by up to eight players.
Dominoes by nature last, so the game travels well.
It is also widely available with most large department stores carrying the game.
Now mix in simple rules, although there are variations depending on the source of the rules, or local adjustments.
Still, in general terms players take a set number of dominoes, and must play them out onto either their own train, or those ‘not owned by any one player’. When one player manages to play all their dominoes, the others count the points they have in their hand.
Games are played over a pre-determined number of rounds, with the player accumulating the fewest points the winner.
There are a few more details within the rules, but it is about as simple as you can get which makes it a great social game.
