New games for Christmas

Surprise, surprise – we got some new board games and card games for Christmas!

With so many great new family board games coming out every year, it’s hard not to put a few of them on our Christmas wishlist. The games we found under the Christmas tree this year were:

Hive expansions – the Mosquito and the Ladybug
We first got a copy of Hive earlier this year and it quickly became one of our favorite two-player games. The chess-like strategy of Hive provides a great thinking game for people of all ages. But it’s much quicker than chess and can be played over and over in a sitting. So it wasn’t a surprise that the two expansions pieces for Hive, the Mosquito and Ladybug would tempt us to add them to our set. The Mosquito takes on the ability of the pieces it’s adjacent to and the Ladybug can move two spaces on top of the Hive and back down for a quick strike. Of course, if you pick up a copy of Hive Carbon, these pieces will already be included in it. We think Hive is a game you should definitely have on your family game shelf.

Dominion: Cornucopia
The 5th Dominion expansion, Cornucopia, came out in the spring of 2011 and adds even more cards to the ever growing Dominion game universe. The central theme is variety; there are cards that reward you for having a variety of cards in your deck, in your hand, and in play, as well cards that help you get that variety. Some of the cool new cards we like are Farming Village, Fortune Teller, Menagerie, and Tournament that awards you with special prizes.

Dominion brought life to a whole new type of card game – the deck building game – and many game publishers have tried to replicate the formula. But Dominion still reigns. We’ve introduced it to many families in our area (as well as online) and they can’t help but get hooked. While the flow of play remains the same, the random selection of the cards to choose from each game adds so much variability to each game. Of course, it also makes it hard to stop with just one game. We heard of a number of families in our area getting Dominion expansions under their Christmas tree.

Fortune and Glory: the Cliffhanger Game
Fortune and Glory is game of high adventure, vile villains, edge-of-your-seat danger, and cliffhanger pulp movie action. Players take on the role of a treasure hunter, traveling the globe in search of ancient artifacts and fending off danger and villains at every turn in a quest for the ultimate reward of fortune and glory! This may be the perfect game to play on New Years Eve. Fortune and Glory allows for up to 8 players and can be played competitively or cooperatively. It’s also listed as a 90-180 minute game which could be great for keeping all of us up to ring in the new year. While we’ve opened it up and checked out all the pieces, we haven’t started an adventure yet. But we’re very much looking forward to the adventure that awaits when we do.

Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan
Does every boy wish they were a Ninja? Because ours sure do. That’s one of the reasons why Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan looked so compelling. Ninja is a hidden movement game where the ninja player/s of the Scorpion clan sneak into the castle to find their mission objective and escape while the guard player/s of the Lion clan try to thwart the sinister Scorpion. We don’t have a lot of experience playing hidden movement games, but are excited to give this one a try. And we hear it’s a different experience depending on the side you’re playing, so we’ll see if we end up having favorite sides to play.

Carnival
It’s also great to just get some light, fun games for Christmas. Carnival looks like it will be such a game. It’s a set collection card game where you’re trying to build carnival rides along your midway before the other players do. But it’s not just a card game because there are dice involved. Each turn you can roll 3 dice which will let you perform different actions depending on the roll – like stealing parts cards from other players. You also get 3 “tickets” which can be used to affect the dice rolls as well as block your opponents (so there is some strategy). Should be fun.

Reverse Charades Junior Edition
Christmas wouldn’t be complete without getting a fun party game for all the family and friend gatherings. And Reverse Charades is a great party game. So why not get the new edition of Reverse Charades – the Junior Edition? Reverse Charades has turned out to be perhaps our most borrowed party game. It’s always a lot of fun to play and everyone ends up laughing their heads off. In our review of Reverse Charades, our only complaint was that it didn’t work well for kids. So now that there’s a Reverse Charades Junior Edition available, we’re all over that! This should be another great game to play on New Years Eve.

We hope your family has some great new family board games to play going into the New Year as well.
Happy gaming in 2012!