Terrific Toys - Ticket to Ride

I LOVE this game!

Our first purchase was the Ticket to Ride Europe (which is the 2nd installment in the Ticket to Ride Series of games). A couple of years ago, I was looking for a Christmas present for a boy who has too many books, videogames, nerf guns, LEGOs, board games, etc. Too many of everything. 

More importantly, I wanted to find a toy or a game that will encourage more family time when I came across this game in a local Target store.

The online description of the game states "From the craggy hillsides of Edinburgh to the sunlit docks of Constantinople, from the dusty alleys of Pamplona to a windswept station in Berlin, Ticket to Ride Europe takes you on an exciting train adventure through the great cities of turn-of-the-century Europe."

And the goal of the game is collect cards of various types of train cars that allow the players to claim railway routes connecting cities in various countries around the world. At the end of the game, extra 10 points are awarded to the player with:

1. The longest railway route.
2. The most number of routes completed.

BUT it's so much more.

Although the game is recommended for 8+, it's quite reasonable for younger kids, 6+ kids, to play with the rest of the family. The best thing about this game is that it's fun for all ages, adults, and kids. Quite often, when I find a game that's fun for the kids, it's not as engaging for the adults. This game will keep everyone engaged and competing until the very end.

This game supposedly takes between 30 - 60 minutes, but we usually take about 90 min to finish because, we've changed the rules, a bit. BUT, you can stop at any time. If you don't like long games, just set a time limit, and stop. Then just tally up the points and declare a winner. 

Did I mention that it's VERY strategic game? And the unexpected strategies your children come up with to win the game could floor you, too. This game allows room for all kinds of creative strategies. 

As seen on the top of the blog, I've added to my Ticket to Ride collection, and each of them add another element to the game. I'll blog about them in the future.

Terrific Toys - The Game of Things... humor in a box

I came across this game in Target, and the open-ended-ness of the game intrigued me. So, I tried it out on my family during our two-day drive to the Grand Canyon. 

Well, I don't know what I expected, but it was fun! And a lot of the questions were very thought provoking and triggered all kinds of side conversations. This game kept us engaged for several hours (and the fact that the driver could easily participate was a definite plus). 

I'm not sure if I'd put this game at the level of Monopoly Deal, but it has its own charms. Though we weren't playing by the rules (we needed more than four people to play by the game's rules), I thought it did a great job of getting to know each other better (and I thought I already knew my family very well, but there were surprises).

Terrific Toys - Minotaurus by LEGO

My son had this game for several years, but we never really played with it until recently. And boy was I surprised at how wonderful Minotaurus is!

The goal of this game is to get two out of three people to the matching colored area of the secret/sacred temple to win the game.

Each player rolls the dice and either he/she can move people matching the number rolled on the dice or move pieces according to the color square rolled.

• Black - Move the Minotaur eight spaces. If Minotaur captures people, people must return to the start position.
• Gray - Move one gray blocking wall from the edge of the game board to any place in the labyrinth.
• Green (this is optional) - Allows the people to jump over hedges (green LEGO pieces) and move three spaces.

The best part of the game is...it encourages people to change the rules. YOUR GAME - YOUR RULES. That's what it says in the rules book, and we've been changing the rules since we rediscovered this game. Sometimes, it's almost as if there are no rules!

Let your creativity kick into gear and drive other players crazy by coming up with all kinds of rules.

We had a lot of fun moving the gray walls around all over the labyrinth. Blocking the starting point. Blocking the temple entrance. Etc.

Enjoy!

Terrific Toys - Forbidden Island

My son, who hasn't shown that much interest in video games before last year, has been playing a lot of video games lately, and I wanted to find some way to get him away from that. Luckily, he still enjoys board games, and I try to play games with him often (but probably not often enough).

I came across this game from an educational games/toys catalog that started arriving at our house. I don't know how it got there, but this was one junk mail I was happy to find in my mailbox. Because it led me to this is an awesome game! 

So many games in the market place are about winning and domination, beating the other person. But this game is all about cooperation and strategy.

Four price relics are located on a mysterious island, and you and your team must collect them all before the island sinks to the bottom of the ocean. To win in this game, you must collect all the relics and get to the awaiting helicopter before the ocean swallows up the island.

Danger lurks with each flip of the card, and every move must be considered carefully. Various parts of the island are in the process of sinking, and the team must decide which parts to save temporarily and which parts to let go.

Sure, this is only a game (a board game at that!), but a sense of urgency is real. What I find most fascinating is that the team must decided what to save and what to let go. This decision is relatively easy because if certain parts of the island are under water, then the team loses, even if there are other "dry" parts still above water. Still, it makes kids think about how to use their precious resources (ability to save parts of the island).

When I play this game with my kids (and we haven't played this one in a while), we talk about how we live in a world of limited resources, and we, too, should think about how to use those resources wisely.

This game takes a lot of strategy and cooperation, but most importantly, it's fun.

Enjoy!

Terrific Toys - Monopoly Deal

I've decided to write a side column about toys (Terrific Toys) and books (Bodacious Books) that I love for my kids.

When my daughter was five years old, she was introduced to this game by her older cousins and loved it. Then she taught me to play, and as I got to understand the complexity of this card game, I was astounded by the strategy one needed to win. And she won a lot against older players.

So, over the years, I got in the habit of picking this up whenever I see them (my favorite place is Target because I could pick it up for $5.99 or so), and give them away to my friends who had children of similar age or older.

The rules are somewhat similar to the classic monopoly game in that players are asked to collect properties. The player who collects 3 suite of properties (3 of 4 properties in each suite) fastest wins. Simple enough, right? But no. It gets very complicated because you can steal properties, take property from another player in exchange of one of your unwanted properties, demand rent from one or all of the players, depending on what kind of rental card you hold, use "wild" property cards to augment your property holdings, etc. The possibilities are endless!

We have two packs of this game - one to leave at home and one to keep it in the car (but we keep forgetting to do that).

I guess I love this game because it's shown me what a strategic thinker my daughter is. At age five, she'd set me up, give up some excellent cards to me, only to take them away from me just when I thought I had won the game. 

I'm not sure everyone would agree, but I think it's great for teaching children strategy. And I love this game especially because the game could finish very quickly (we've finished a game in five minutes because we've  tweaked the game and created our own family's rules). So, if you have little time, but your children are asking you to play with them, this is a great one to play.

Enjoy!