It’s fun to Bring Your Own Book

We’ve always enjoyed reading books in our family.

Jaden and Caleb in particular absolutely devour books. I don’t know where they got their ability to speed-read, but they read circles around me.

So when we got a recently released game from Gamewright that involves books, we were anxious to play it.

And now that we’ve played it, we can confirm that Bring Your Own Book is a fantastic game for families.

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Best Games of 2015! – The Dice Tower Awards

The best board games, card games, dice games, family games, and party games of 2015 have now been awarded!

Just a couple days ago, on July 9, The Dice Tower announced the winners of the Dice Tower Awards — the annual crowing of the best board games published.

With thousands of new games published each year, there’s always so many great games to choose from.

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Burgle Bros. is a great cooperative board game

Just like we’d imagine a real heist to be, Burgle Bros. is a challenging cooperative experience. Players work together to crack 3 safes and escape to the roof in order to win.

However, if they don’t stay clear of the guards, they’ll be caught, rat out the co-conspirators, and lose.

While playing, you’ll feel the tension build as you explore the 3 floors of the bank – setting off alarms, cracking safes to grab the loot, and trying to stay a step ahead of the guards on your way to victory. (Or terrible defeat – which can be a common outcome.)

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Light your Lanterns for family fun

We’ve never participated in a Chinese Lantern Festival. But we can imagine how cool it would be to see.

After all, we’ve seen the hope lit lanterns can bring in Disney’s movie Tangled. And that led to “happily ever after”, right?

However, our score of participating in a lantern festival is still zero.

Playing Lanterns: The Harvest Festival by Foxtrot Games and Renegade Game Studios is our next attempt at being close to the real thing.

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Create your own solar system in Planetarium

We very rarely talk about games that aren’t yet available in game stores. But every once in a while we discover a game that hits the mark for a great family board game. And Planetarium is such a game.

Planetarium is a fun game with a great balance of strategy and luck that families throughout the galaxy will enjoy playing together.

And if your kids enjoy Planetarium as much as our Caleb does, you’ll be controlling matter and planets for a long time to come.

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Fugitive – A quick and fun 2-player card game

We’ll cut right to the chase (pun intended) — Fugitive is a quick and fun 2-player card game that keeps both players on their toes.

If you’re the Fugitive, you draw cards and play them as Hideouts in order to escape. If you’re the Marshal, you draw cards to get more information to uncover the Fugitive’s hideouts.

Yet, as easy as the game play mechanism of drawing and playing or guessing a card is, there’s enough thinking in Fugitive to keep both players’ minds working the whole game.

And when one game ends, you’ll want to jump right back in and play it again.

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Memoir ’44 week for D-Day Commemoration

This past week I’ve played a lot of Memoir ’44.

And I’ve loved every minute of it!

Those that are familiar with our reviews will know that Memoir ’44 is one of my favorite board games. And it’s my most-played 2-player board game.

Since I first played Memoir ’44 with my buddies, we’ve held an annual D-Day Commemoration game night around June 6.
I always look forward to it and have yet to be disappointed.

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Escape The Room: Mystery at the Stargazer’s Manor

Since it’s a cooperative experience, Escape The Room can definitely be enjoyed by everyone in the family.

The game box says ages 10+ and the challenges will take some thinking. But that shouldn’t stop you from having younger kids join in the fun.

In our case, my wife and I made sure not to take charge in solving the puzzles, but rather let our kids read the clues, try to solve the challenges, and open all the packets.

But what we liked the most is that even though we let them lead out, we weren’t sitting idly by. It truly felt like a joint deductive effort.

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