This week we went away for a two day camp where I was more babysitter to Padawan Minigeek & Babygeek & less actual attendee of the camp itself. Inevitably, the kids of the campers end up being sequestered in a room nearby where they can watch movies, play cards & generally tire themselves out without destroying the hotel in the process. Time to start boardgame evanglism! But before that, a short session report on yet another interrupted game of Harbour...
Game(s) Played:
Session – Harbour
Player(s):
Here you see Padawan Minigeek's hand flying in to swat my counters with Louanna looking on in amusement. You need to have a photographic memory of your pieces when playing with toddlers around
We started a little late which resulted in the game called early & was primarily my fault as I needed to get Padawan Minigeek cleaned up. Louanna's Noble's ability was redonkulous which gave her a start with a Coin, Warehouse & the Tophat she starts with. Sadly I was stuck playing catchup as the value of the goods kept shifting around a little too fast for me to capitalize on. Jimmy was rushing low cost buildings whilst Louanna kept beating me to high value combinations.
As you can see, my goods were never in the right place when compared to the market
We had to call the game at three buildings because Louanna had to go off. Gideon did show up towards the end & we did set up a new game to be played between Jimmy, Gideon & myself but couldn't proceed as we had run out of time. But guess what? Gideon's two character choices had Diplomat in it again! (see last posts' commentary) He was pretty upset... again.
Jimmy's winning plateau
Louanna very nearly tied for first because of her high value buildings & her bonus resources points at game end. So whilst rushing forward with cheap buildings is a viable strategy, you really need to be the person to end the game to have a real advantage against the high value strategies.
Time Taken: 45 minutes
Results Of Game(s)
Winna - Jimmy (20 VPs)
Second - Louanna (19 VPs)
Dead Last - Justin (12 VPs)
Session – Bohnanza & Dixit
Player(s):
Junior Padawans
The kids were watching movies & playing Monopoly most of the first night. Padawan Minigeek & Babygeek were a little cranky from the drive so we retired to the hotel room early. The next day, I introduced them to Bohnanza which they took to like a duck to water. I have no idea how many games they played over the course of the next two days but it seemed like the kids started disappearing really quickly during meal times after asking me if they could play my copy of Bohnanza whilst I was stuffing myself with breakfast / lunch / dinner.
I'm not entirely sure they played with the correct harvest rules (where if a field has only one bean, you must harvest the other field instead) but as long as they were having fun I think it's okay to house rule it. The conversations I overheard were pretty cute:
Kid A: Can I have your Blue Bean? (to Kid C)
Kid B: Yeah you should give it to him since he's your brother. (to Kid C)
Kid C: Hm, okayla. Do you have a Stink Bean?
Kid A: I have three. Here I'll give them all to you.
I don't remember playing ANY game with my siblings that did not involve murmuring, open threats, violence & tantrums in that order. Still wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.
So you see how everybody had loooong bean fields full of beans
On the last day, I thought I'd introduce Dixit to gauge their reaction to it. I played one round with them & handed it over to another padawan before going off to arrange for checkout. I came back about an hour later & the group had actually expanded & was still going strong. Naturally, Dixit was more attractive to the girls versus the guys.
I'm glad the kids managed to get a taste of euro boardgaming. Sometimes I get the feeling that they are more open to trying new things as compared to adults but there actually is a trick to boardgame evangelism with kids. You attract the attention of 2-3 kids & introduce something new to them. The horde will suddenly pop up like dandelions after the rain, each asking "Can I Play?". Mission accomplished.
My clue: ET Go Home! Kids: Who's ET? Me: Uh-oh
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