Card Games

 

 

 

7 Wonders has won a huge number of awards since it was released in 2010.

It can be played by 2-7 players but probably best avoided if there are only two of you.  Games take about half an hour. 

Like most board games, the rules are a little complicated to explain in a few sentences. It's only by playing the game do you really get to understand it.

At the start of the game, you get one of the Seven Wonders of the World and seven cards. You then pass six of the cards to your neighbour.  The one you choose to keep back could be used for several purposes: for resources, to build your Wonder and to strengthen your military might. Of the six cards you receive from your neighbour, you choose one and pass the remaining ones on. It goes on like that until the initial cards are all used and that's the end of the first round or Age 1.  There are two further Ages each a little more complex.à At the end of Age 3, you tot up the points you will have received for your efforts to decide the winner.

Here is a short explanatory video:

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Jungle Speed is a fast and furious, somewhat chaotic, game of observation and then of lightning reflexes, so that rules me out.

It is a matching game, a bit like snap, but, instead of calling out snap when two cards match, you have to be the first to grab the Totem (the yellow rubber cylinder thing) that sits in the middle of the table.

The cards are divided equally amongst the players (the more, the merrier).  On each card is a symbol in a variety of colours.  Some symbols are quite different, others are deceptively alike. Players place their cards in a pile face down in front of them.  One by one, each player flips over the top card and, as they accumulate, gradually makes a discard pile in front of him.  When one player flips over a card whose symbol matches the shape of the symbol on the top card of another player's discard pile, both players make a lunge for the Totem.  The winner then smugly hands over his discard cards to the loser who puts both these and his own discard cards face down under his cards.  Grabbing the Totem mistakenly results in you getting everybody's discard cards. The winner of the game is the first to get rid of all their cards.  Each game takes about 20 minutes.

To complicate the game further, there are several special cards.  One of these special cards for example changes the rules so that you have to match the colour of symbols rather than the shape. A different special card requires every player to lunge simultaneously for the Totem.  A third one requires everybody to flip over a card at he same time on the count of three.

2 - 8 players

Age suitability: 6 +

Here's an excellent Youtube video from Skip the Rules (NB the Totem has since been changed from wood to rubber):

 

Two teams, the red and the blue team, try to guess the identity of their own spies.  Twenty five cards are laid out on the table.  Each card has the codename for an agent. Some of these will be red spies, some blue, some will be innocent bystanders and one will be the assassin. Each team's spymaster gives the team a single word clue.  They then have to choose which spy or spies' codename this clue relates to.  However should they choose the wrong one, they help the opponents.  Should they accidentally choose the assassin, it's game over for them.

Each game takes 15 -30 minutes.

Number one party game on Boardgame Geek, the website for avid games players.  Over 5 million copies sold.

2 - 8 players ( ideally at least 4)

Age suitability: 10+

Dobble is a modern-day classic game of observation. Each card in the tin is unique and has 8 symbols on it.à However one of these, but only one, symbols is shared with each of other cards.  You have to be the first to spot that shared symbol .  It should be easy but it's not.

Suitable for 6 years+  (younger children might stuggle with some of the symbols so try Kids Dobble which has fewer but more recognisable symbols)