Games and Puzzles

Colt Express is a fun board game in which you are one of a group of bandits trying to rob a train.  The board itself is a 3D train that you assemble out of cardboard before you play the game the first time. 

Each round of the game has two stages.  In the first stage, the Schemin' Phase, the players try to plan how their character will move around the train in the second stage and what it will do as it moves. So players take it in turn to lay down an activity card.  You will decide, for example, whether it moves from carriage to carriage, climbs onto the roof, robs the passengers, shoots or punches another character or moves the sheriff.  After everyone has laid down there four cards, the second stage, the Stealin' Phase, begins.  The bandits are moved around the train in the way that the cards instruct.  Some bandits may pick up the money and gems, others may be unlucky and meet the sheriff.

The game lasts for 5 rounds which should take about 40 minutes.

2-6 players (better and more chaotic with 4+)

Age suitability: 10+

 

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Outfoxed is an excellent cooperative deduction game.  Someone has stolen Mrs Plumpert's prize pie and you and the other players have to work out which fox is the guilty one. At each roll of dice, you get a chance of finding a clue or revealing a suspect.  If you are unlucky or you make a mistake, the fox moves three steps closer to getting away.

Children like this game because it's fun.  Parents like it because it also encourages the children's logic and memory skills.

Each game takes about twenty minutes.

Age suitability: 5 +

2-4 players

Here is an excellent review on Youtube from Tom Vasel of the Dice Tower:

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Introduce the delights of Scrabble to younger children.

For children starting to spell, one side of the board has pictures and clues for children to guess words that are already on the board (for example f--h paired with a picture of a fish).

On the other side of the board, older children can play a more conventional game of Scrabble, making up their own words but with bigger tiles and simpler scoring.

Contains : Double-sided board, 84 word tiles, 30 counters for scoring, and instructions.

2 - 4 players.

Age suitability: 6+

Here is a video from youtube with a very American voiceover:

Go round the board and pick up cheese pieces without getting caught in the trap. First mouse to get six cheeses wins.

Board requires adult assembly.

2 - 4 players

Age suitability: 6+

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This is one of my son's favourite games, not least because he always beats me.

Always voted as being in the top ten family board games, Cluedo is a bit of a classic. Millionaire Samuel Black has been murdered.  One of his disfunctional guests did it so who was it, how did they do it and where?  As you move round the house and ask questions of your competitors, can you pice together the truth?  Was it Mrs Peacock, the Rev. Green or the new character, the mysterious Dr Orchid and what weapon did they use and where?

2-6 players

Age suitability: 8+

Here is an American video showing how to play (it's called Clue over there):

 

A matching game - Pick a card and try to choose a tail to match up with your unicorn's head.  If you succeed, you can move your unicorn one square across the rainbow towards that pot of gold.

A game for 2 to 4 players.

Age suitability: 3 - 5 years

This game was 'Game of the Year' in 2017. Superficially it is quite simple.  Everybody starts with a castle, around which you build your kingdom.  Then you choose your dominoes. On these are pictured the type of lands you will have in your kingdom.  So you might have a domino with a square of forest at one end and water at the other, or another with meadow at both ends. After you have chosen each domino, you lay it around the castle and, like in dominoes, you can only put a farmland domino next to another farmland and so on. At each step your kingdom gets bigger.  The aim though is to build as big an area of each type of land as you can within your kingdom. So you score more points if you have a block of five squares of farmland together than you would if those five squares were split. Once you have all placed your dominoes, that's the end of the game and you have to total the points.

Each round takes about 15 minutes.

2 - 4 players

Age suitability: 8 +

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 Play the centuries-old strategy game on this wooden board.

Comes with 48 colourful acrylic 'stones'.

Two-player game for people of almost all ages (not suitable for the under 3 year-olds - small bits - choking hazard).

34007

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Colourful wooden board with four wooden counters and a dice.

28 cm across

Age suitability: 3 years +

BJ788

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Camel Up features a camel race and you have to bet on the winners and losers.  Throwing the dice determines which camel moves forward and how far but it's not quite so simple.

Each game takes about half an hour.

3-8 players

Age suitability: 8+

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Abalone is like chess played with marbles but thankfully the rules are more simple and straightforward.  It is two-person game that bright seven year olds will be able to play.  There's even an Abalone world championship.

You have a hexagonal board with 14 white marbles set up against your opponent's 14 black ones. When it's your turn, you move one of your marbles, or a row of two or three marbles, one step in any direction. When your marbles meet your opponents, on your next move you can push them backwards, forwards or sideways.  The aim is to push your opponent's marbles off the board and into the gutter that surrounds it but your column of marbles has to bigger than theirs.  So you need two of your marbles to push one of their marbles, three of yours to push two of theirs. The winner is the first to push off 6 marbles.  For most people, the game will last about 20 minutes.

Here's a video explaining it: