Games of Christmas 2014

It's time again for my annual post about the games which I played over the Christmas / New Year's holiday.  It's a long list again, and that makes sense.  I am a gamer.  I have raised children who like games.  Sherry and I almost always start our vacation already in the middle of playing a video game, and we set aside three days before the New Year specifically for gaming with the family and Uncle Paul, and this year we were joined by Uncle Mike, too.  (See 2009,  2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)

Without further ado, let's start with ...

Games New to Us This Year 

Splendor has to top the list.  It is one of nine (Nine!) new games I received for Christmas.  It is a resource acquisition game.  In many ways, it's similar to Bazaar, which I have discussed several times over the years.  But as much as I like Bazaar, I think Splendor is better.

The design is elegant, with a little randomness, but plenty of room for planning.  After playing it four or five times, I can already see more experienced players using a combination of defensive tactics along with their acquisition strategy, but it appears that a new player will have fun going through the process, and will still have a decent chance to do well.

Love it.

Sushi Go! is one of five games Sherry got for me, and one of the four of those which are planned to be a part of TableTop Season 3.  (Sherry gave me Splendor, too, but as far as we know, it's not one of the TableTop games.) We did not play the other three because the rules for those other three were long, and we try not to take a lot of time reading rules when we have so much gaming to do.

Sushi Go! however, had a very small rule set, and it was quite easy to learn and teach quickly.  As the box says, this is a "Pick and Pass Card Game" where players are trying to collect sets of sushi items as they play through three "courses" at a sushi restaurant.  I think I won once, and I lost, badly, most of the other times I played.  And I still had much fun!

The Resistance is a very tense, political game, likely to cause stress and distrust.  In that way, it's very similar to Diplomacy.  Each game consists of five "missions" which the members of the Resistance must undertake in order to win.  But each mission is undertaken by only a subset of the players, and one or more of the players is a Spy, who can force a mission to fail.

Thus, of course, every player SAYS they are working for the Resistance, but some of them are not.  If the Spies can cause three missions to fail, by convincing the Resistance members to bring them along on the mission, then Resistance fails.  So, lying and misdirection are key to the game, and other than the randomness involved in deciding who among the group are Spies, the game is all about trying to suss out (or conceal) the Spies.  Tense!  But fun!  Thanks, Adam and Marisa!

The Red Dragon Inn 2 is the second (duh!) installment of a game I bought myself.  I had played it only once with The Dudes, but I knew I wanted even more options for the game, so I asked for this as an expansion, and my parents gave it to me.  (Thanks, Mom and Dad!)

In this game, each player takes on the role of an adventurer who has spent the day roaming around dungeons, but now the group is relaxing at The Red Dragon Inn.  The winner of the game is the one who is not drunk or out of money.  It's pretty funny, and the characters provided in 2 seem quite balanced with the characters introduced in the original.


I think that's it for the games which were strictly new to us.  So now it's on to the long list of ...

Games We Had Played Before

Superworld  is the traditional game of the holiday season at the Will house.  We've been playing this Superhero Role Playing Game for over 20 years on or around New Year's Eve. This year, our group of heroes was sent on a mission beneath the Alaskan Highway, to retrieve a device which The Good Guys need to have a chance against some Bad Guys who are able to become immaterial.  The team included Anastasia, Foil, Solo, Toymaker, Phoebe, Phoenix (no, not that one) and Icebird, as usual, but we were also joined by Widget (he might technically be Professor Widget, but he's a teenage kid, so I have trouble calling him "Professor".)  We were all grateful that, despite having The Semester From Hell, our game master, Paul, was able to put together a scenario.  It was fun, and tense, and a bit scary and I got to run over a super-villain with a truck!  (OK, well, Icebird did, but that's basically the same thing.)

Magic: the Gathering.  Though this is one of the favorites for many of us, we do not typically get to play many games of it over the break, because it does not involve enough of us.  That was true again this year for the times when a large group of us was around, but there were several times when fewer people were available, and then some of us Magic players played.



The Great Dalmuti - Again, a New Year's Eve tradition. It's not fair, but then again, life is not fair. And we all play for fun.  We were happy to have Mike with us this year so he could join us in the traditional  Huzzah! when a person earns the spot of Great Dalmuti.  I actually started in the spot this year, and stayed there until Kevin deposed me as we decided to stop.




Skip-Bo is an old stand-by and must be played every New Year's Eve. We had a couple of 6-player games, and a 4-player game or two.

Strangely, I don't think Sherry won any games this year. I think cheating must have occurred!  (Kidding.)  [Correction: Sherry informs me that, partnered with Troy, she won the first Skip-Bo game played during the break.  I stand corrected; thanks, Sherry!]



Funglish has now been played in four of the last five years (somehow it was not played in 2012.)  I'm glad it made a comeback. It is really funny, as long as you're not too terribly interested in who wins.

Lucas won.  Try not to look so surprised. (Kidding again.)

Ticket to Ride Switzerland -  We gave this to Kevin for Christmas, and this version came with two maps - Switzerland and something else I forget because I didn't play it.

Leah won handily, though I felt like I was pretty close until the scores were talied at the end.


Whoonu - Making its return again this year, with a couple of brand new players in the house, this party game helps you get to know your friends and family. Mike and Kevin, the new players, seemed to have fun, even though they did not score as many points as others.  And is anyone surprised that Lucas won?  I thought not.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.  As I mentioned at the top, Sherry and I are almost always in the middle of playing some video game around Christmas.  This year it was the excellent Skyward Sword chapter in the Legend of Zelda series.

If I recall correctly, we were not quite done with it when Leah arrived home, but we definitely finished it before the big events happened.



Nintendo Land is the game which came with the Wii U when I bought it.  It's fun for several players at once, particularly in the games where the controller of the Wii-U tablet can play against, or cooperatively with, the other players.  We mostly did the games where one side runs away and the other side tries to catch them (a video game analog to "Tag") but we also discovered the cooperative game based on Pikmin, and that was cool, too. 




As I copy and paste from previous years, I am surprised to find that I don't have the following to copy.  I mean, we must have played them, right?  Well, certainly.  Except for the first one -- Adam hates the first one.

Apples to Apples - Yes, it's subjective.  Yes, it often seems like you have submitted the best answer and someone else's gets chosen for reasons known only to the controlling player.  But hey!

That's the game!

Outburst is a game we've owned for many years.  Sometimes we don't have as much fun with it when the younger generation is playing, though, because so many of the cards are old, and to be honest, not many of us "mature" players know 10 John Wayne movies, either.

But we pulled it out and had some fun.

Catch Phrase is another party game I thought we had played over previous Christmas gatherings.

We've certainly played it before in large groups, and the kids seemed to remember it well, so I think I just missed documenting it in previous years.

Careers is a game we played when I was a kid, and Leah remembers playing and enjoying it, so she suggested we introduce it to Kevin.  As usual, I picked too much Fame in my victory conditions, and ended up quite far away by the time Sherry won.  Leah was set to win on her next turn as well.  A fun old game.

Dungeons and Dragons is not typically a Christmas / New Year's game, but as it happened, the DnD gang wanted to get a chance to see Leah while she was in Rochester, and I had some non-adventure stuff to do with the players, so we all gathered, with families, for a dinner and then the players and I gathered around the table to get some treasure sorted out.


Pikmin - Since Sherry and finished the Zelda game, we had to start something else as the vacation wound down, and we chose Pikmin.  We also finished it before the vacation ended, setting a record for most Pikmin grown and least Pikmin lost.  That series of games is so fun, it's hard not to play them over and over.





So, that's 19 games I personally played.  And that total is only below 20 if you don't count:

Forge of Empires - I am still playing this game, because two family members and two Dudes are playing it.  I've completed all of the ages which have been released to this point. (Contemporary Era is the last one so far.)  I mentioned this game in late January, 2013, so I guess I have been a part of the game now for about two years. 

Dave and Buster's hosted the Will Family gathering the day after Christmas again.

I played fewer games this time, but this event is more about socializing than gaming, and we definitely enjoyed ourselves with the games we played.



I'll mention again that I am no longer involved in every game that gets played during the holidays.  There are too many of us to play the same game each time, so here are other games which I saw played, or which Leah told me were played:

• Star Fluxx
• Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries
• Ticket to Ride: India 
• Ticket to Ride: Africa
• Othello
• Battleship
• Lord of the Rings: Card Game
• Blokus
• Where's My Water?  (I don't know what this is!  I think Leah is kidding around.)

So, there it is.  The list is done.  Thanks to everyone who provided games and/or participated.  I still look forward to playing some of the games which were brought over, but which just didn't get in my mix.  I'll try to get some of them played before next year!