Tabletop Games

First meeting of the full game group since the pandemic started! The governor of our state recently allowed family groups of up to ten people, but we only needed eight :-) In those lonely weeks and months stranded at home, Wizards of the Coast managed to release the new Ikoria set for Magic: the Gathering, a set focused on such diverse cards mutated beasts, itinerant elemental gods and movie monsters (including the infamous Space Godzilla: Death Corona). ...

I’m not really sure what kind of game someone would expect to play if they were told its name was “Kingdom Death”. Is… a kingdom dying? Is it Death’s kingdom? Kingdom Death is a the most fantastically successful survival cooperative board game that you’ve never heard of. You and up to three friends play a group of settlers returning from a lantern festival that are ambushed by a deadly lion. Armed only with a stone dagger and a lantern, you kill the vicious beast. Wounded, but alive, you return to your village, pile high your lanterns in the center square, and vow to become so powerful that you and your fellow villagers need never fear the monsters that prowl in the dark. ...

It won’t be any sort of surprise that a family that has weekly board game nights plays one of the most popular board games on this planet or any other (as far as we know). Terraforming Mars is a long time staple of ours. It’s easy and fun to play, can take as many people as you can throw at it, and is pretty fast moving to boot. We hadn’t played it for awhile, but at one time we would alternate between Terraforming Mars, Vast and Magic: the Gathering. We’ve since gone much, much deeper into board gaming, but we still make time for the old favorites. ...

Last year for my birthday, Kasul got me a huge, mysteriously heavy box and refused to say what was inside. Anticipation was killing me. When my birthday came, I opened it up and it was absolutely full of Fantasy Flight Games’ Game of Thrones, the Card Game stuff. The base game, custom card holders for each noble house, every expansion, box after box of stuff. It was more than a little overwhelming. We were, at the time, working our way through the Gloomhaven main campaign and didn’t have time for new games. Just after we finished with Gloomhaven, the pandemic happened, crushing our family game night for months. ...

We’ve been doing a family game night where my boyfriend and myself, my son, my daughter and her family all get together to play board games once or twice a week. We recently finished an epic, year-long Gloomhaven campaign. If you have been following my Instagram, you’re probably really familiar with our game nights… That all ended when the pandemic struck. We haven’t had a game night with more than just us three since March. ...