Family Games Nights--Everyone Wins!

When I was a kid we had a family games night, and it's one of the things I remember best about growing up. The four of us would sit around the kitchen table and play boardgames and card games together. It was our family bonding time. It didn't really matter what we were playing, it was more important that we had our weekly ritual together, and to know that we had a designated time to just be together and interact with each other.

My early days of game playing obviously had a big impact on me, because I've turned into quite the games collector. My hubby and I have so many games in fact that on more than one occasion I've seriously considered trying to open some sort of boardgames café.

Our collection is getting to be so extensive that we're actually running out of space to put it all! We have equal love for boardgames as we do cardgames, and have worn our copy of "Monopoly Deal" out so bad that we had to buy a second copy of it for when the original finally kicks the bucket!

 

 

The two newest games that we've acquired are "S'Quarrels" and "Rummikub." My grandmother introduced us to Rummikub, and while browsing at the games store S'Quarrels sounded interesting enough to pick it up without any previous experience of it. (We've actually accumulated several games this way, and only once have we been disappointed with our choice!)

 

S'Quarrels is a cool game because it combines several features from different card games into one. Each player has their own card stash plus cards in their hands, there are actions cards to keep the game interesting and the turn order changing, and there's a "slapping" component to make sure everyone's paying attention! The rules are simple and the goal clear: Store the most nuts before Winter arrives. (The pile of placemats was to mellow out the 'slapping' sound to avoid waking the boy-o up! It worked really well FYI)

 

 

Rummikub has been around for a while but I just recently discovered it. It's a different take on the traditional card version of Rummy. You still have to collect sets and runs, but you all play together in the middle and can steal and re-arrange what other people have played in order to get rid of your tiles. If you can't play a tile you pick one up and it's the next person's turn. The first one to get rid of all their tiles wins. It's not a fast paced action game, but it does work really well for inter-generational game play. As I said,  my grandmother (who is 92!), taught me how to play this game a few months ago and I liked it so much I bought my own copy!

 

 

Both of these games are really fun to play in their own ways, and I can't wait till the boy-o and his future siblings are old enough to play too so we can start our own family games night! Until then, we're pretty happy to play with our older family members and host our friends for games nights.

 

Hubby and I have our favourite games that we like to play when it's just the two of us playing as well. Some of our current favourites include, Hive, Ascension, Monopoly Deal and Bananagrams.

 

If we have friends over playing games some of our go-to choices include 7 Wonders, Thurn and Taxis, Minotaurus, Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt Skullzfyre, and Settlers of Catan.

 

The last few games nights we've had it's been all about the Catan! What are some of your favourite games to play?