I’m very pleased with the selection of games we bought at my first UK Games Expo, there is something for everyone.
Hero Realms – The Ruin of Thandar – because we play Hero Realms a lot
Hero Realms – Character Packs – to add variety to our plays
Unlock – we’ve done a few Exit games so curious to try a different style
Queendomino – we play Kingdomino alot, B tried this in the demo zone and loved it
Champions of Midgard – for Ed
Clank – this wasn’t actually a purchase, but a birthday gift for Ed from our friends because we love Hero Realms they thought we’d like to try a different deckbuilding game
Adrenaline – another one for Ed
Icecool – the children tried this out and loved trying to flick the penguins
What a treat going to UK Games Expo and being able to play many games, although only a small proportion of the ones available. What did you play and enjoy?
Here’s what I played:
Iquazu
A set collection and area control game with a waterfall that moves over the playing area removing any remaining tokens
Concept
A party game where cubes are placed images to help people guess the clue.
Beasts of Balance
A game that interacts with your tablet, where the items you stack appear in the world you’re creating (until the stack falls down).
War of the Nine Realms
Two teams of Norse characters fighting against each other using a 12 sided dice (can you tell I wasn’t taken by it).
Ore-some
Move around the mine to find places to dig for ore, and if you see another cart feel free to ram it and collect any dropped ore! Then complete contracts or sell the ore to the bank.
Drop-It
Collect points by dropping shapes into the frame and making sure it lands so it isn’t touching another piece of the same colour or shape.
IceCool
No photos of this, I only took videos of people flicking the penguins.
Hero Realms* is a fantasy card game for 2-4 players, originally funded through Kickstarter raising over $500,000. It is a deck building game, meaning you buy and discard cards to build a deck of cards that you hope is stronger than your opponents. It has an average score of 7.7 from 4,500 ratings on Board Game Geek. The game suggests it is suitable for ages 12 years and older. However, my 9 year old daughter loves playing it, and even my 6 year old son has played it.
I’m keeping a note of the games I play this year as I was intrigued by a challenge on Board Game Geek to play 10 games 10 times in a year. And Hero Realms is the first game that I’ve played on ten days.
Why I’ve played it on 10 days
I find it funny this is the first game I’ve played on 10 days because we owned it for about 6 months before we played it for the first time. However, once we tried it we became hooked for two reasons:
I was eager to show I could win a game – I can win Star Realms which is very similar, but it took many plays for me to get my first win of Hero Realms
our 9 year old daughter, B, frequently asked to play it
In reality, B is the main driver for playing this game so many times (fortunately she agrees it is much more interesting than Top Trumps*). She particuarly loves that she can beat me most of the time and unfortunately not because I let her win. I don’t understand how she does it.
game is based on strategy not luck or turn of the cards
it is not a forgone conclusion – the person who looks like they’re winning can change quickly with one strong hand
game plays differently each time, as you don’t know which cards will come up and whether you can afford to buy them
family game – my 9 year old daughter asks to play this. My 6 year old has played it with some help but prefers to watch
expansions sets* are available but are not needed (we haven’t got any yet)
I suspect I will play Hero Realms many more times before the end of the year. Maybe I’ll reach 20 times and maybe I’ll win a few more games. What is your favourite game so far this year?
*Disclosure – this is an affiliate linking meaning if you buy something after following the link I will earn a percentage of the value, but it will not cost you any extra. All thoughts and comments are my own.
Playing board games is an important part of our family. As well as sitting down to spend time together games help us talk to each other. For the children they also teach fair play and, depending on the game, new skills such as times tables. We play a variety of games and we all have our favourites, but there is enough overlap to ensure we are happy to play games other people suggest.
Our favourite board games*
I challenged everyone to pick their top five games. These are the five most popular (in alphabetical order). I found it surprisingly difficult to pick just five games and could easily have picked 10, which I suspect is the same for everyone.
In Animal upon animal you stack wooden animals on top of a crocodile. It is a quick game and we often play around or two straight after dinner. Obviously, there is skill in positioning your pieces, but a dice roll may mean you can place two animals or someone else has to take your turn.
Catan Junior
Catan Junior is about trading resources so you can build ships and lairs. Dice rolling dictates what resources people get each turn. I did wonder if trading resources was too complicated for my five year old to understand. However, he recently beat me for the first time so I think not!
Kingdominio
Kingdomino is one of the games my husband brought back from Games Expo UK this year. It involves selecting and placing dominoes to build land around your castle. You get points for the number of squares of the same land type touching each other. This introduces spatial awareness and thinking ahead. The scoring uses multiplication so another great learning opportunity.
Magic Maze
We struggled to buy Magic Maze game during summer. It was obviously in high demand as it was out of stock everywhere. However, it was worth the wait as we’ve had great fun playing this collaborative game. The concept of a dwarf, elf, mage and barbarian trying to escape a shopping mall is amusing for the children. You have to work together to move the pieces around the mall because each person can only move each piece in one direction. It can get both amusing and frustrating as you’re not meant to talk or gesture to each other! There are large number of difficulty levels and we’ve only done the first four so far so there is plenty of development for us.
Tsuro
Tsuro is another quick playing game where you lay tiles to move your dragon around the board. The aim is to be the last dragon standing by not flying off the board or flying into another dragon. It sounds simple, but once your flight path intertwines with other flight paths you are not in control of where your dragon goes.
The votes broken down by person
Here are the favourite games by each person. Again these are in alphabetical order as it is too difficult to select a favourite, let alone list five in order of preference.
This selection led to a conversation about what is a board game. Do X wing and Deadzone count as board games and if not should Animal upon animal and Exit which do not have boards? We went with the definition of what games would he like to play most if he was choosing the next game.
Do you play board games as a family? What are your favourites? Which would you recommend we try?
*Disclosure – this post includes affiliate links which means if you buy something after following a link I will earn a percentage of the sale but it will not cost you more. These games are genuine choices by me and my family.
