Boardgame Night #3

Much to my surprise we've kept the idea of having regular family game nights going.  It stemmed from realising that we were all sitting at home doing different things separately rather than together. We thought doing something together at least once a month would be change from all being glued to iPads, phones, laptops and TV's.  My teenage son is keen on games but my wife generally isn't but seems to have been enjoying the opportunity to beat me at every available opportunity!

A couple of weeks ago we had another game of Carcassone, this time with everyone fully understanding the rules as I'd come in for a bit of stick on Facebook for not having made everyone aware of the power of farmers! (see the post about it here ).  Justice was served in the rematch as I came last with my son deploying a farmer in the last couple of turns that appeared to be managing some kind of collectivised uber-farm and collected loads of points at the end of the game!.

This weekend my son had a rummage in his room (always a scary scenario) and came up with Munchkin.  We used to play this a lot, especially on holidays, and realised that we hadn't played it for ages...we discovered a score sheet in the box written on hotel notepaper from our holiday in Porec in Croatia in 2010 so it's clearly been a while!

If you've never played Munchkin it's well worth seeking out a copy...it's an ideal game for filling in an hour or two.  I'm not normally a fan of card games but this one works really well.  Originally designed as an affectionate piss take of D&D games, there are now numerous variants of the game including Cthulhu, Cowboys, Superheroes, Spies etc.  We have a few different sets (but funnily enough not the original game) and this week we played Munchkin Booty...the Pirate themed set.

Games follow the same pattern...each player opens the door to a room and fights the monster inside, if there is one...very D&D...and takes the treasure.  Each monster beaten adds one to your level and the first player to level 10 wins.  There are numerous items of equipment that add bonuses or special effects and the charm of the game is in the humour of the cards...for example in 'Booty' there are numerous 'shark' monsters including Great White Shark, the Adequate Brown Shark, and some Lawyers who are of course another form of Shark! 

 

As in any good 'family' game there are lots of opportunities to stab each other in the back and there was a lot of that in out game.  I somehow managed to quickly rise to level 9 and was poised for victory before being ganged up on and brought back down a couple of levels before my son cruised past me and won the game.

So far the games nights are going well...now I just need to introduce my wife to Chain of Command.....