Oh oh oh! Games! Yay!
There is a strange game my mother played with me while growing up. Whenever it happened (Perhaps four or five times in my life) it was a wonderous event. Whole years were spent waiting in anticipation for The Game.
A circle of five or so people gathers around. In the center of the circle is a baking sheet covered in unwrapped chocolate bars. No fancy things like Snickers, just plain old chocolate. Also needed are a ski cap, mittens (on the large side), a scarf, a pair of forks and pair of dice.
The pair of dice is passed around the circle. Each person rolling them once. When someone gets a double, he or she has to put on the cap, mittens and scarf, and procedes to use the forks to eat as much chocolate is possible. Meanwhile, the dice continue around the circle. When someone else rolls doubles, that person gets the winter apperel and forks, so that they can eat chocolate. The game continues until either all the chocolate is gone, or someone gets sick.
I havn’t played that since I was a kid. Going out to the grocery store and buying chocolate just wouldn’t have the same magic. I still play a lot of games, though. My friends and I are board game fanatics.
Settlers is one of our favorite games. We like it because the changing board (you construct the layout of the “island” from randomly places hexagonal tiles) means that strategy is different every time. We don’t have any of the expansions, but occasionally we will put two boards together and play a “peanut board” game. We never use the theif (a piece that allows you to take other players cards and hinder their collection of resources) because it causes too many hostilities.
We also play Mushroom Hunt, a game I know you havn’t heard of because we made it up. After hearing about the intrigue that revolves around mushroom hunting, we made it in to a game. The goal is to make enough money to retire to Florida. You run around the board, collecting mushrooms (which are represented with accurate drawings) and selling them at a central market. Selling Halicinagenic mushrooms can lead to a lot of cash or a one in six chance that you will be caught by the cops and executed. Dead people respawn, without their mushrooms or money. In order to move, you also need to eat mushrooms to gain energy. When selling or eating, you choose randomly from your stash, and eating a poisenout mushroom will kill you. Finally, there are mushroom wars, in which you challege someone ajecent to you to a dual to the death. Each of you rolls, and whoever rolls lowest takes the amount of the high roll of their life points. This continues until someone dies. The victor takes the losers mushrooms, but not money because that is stealing a stealing is wrong. The game continues until someone makes a preset amount of money, usually two hundred dollars.
We mass produced many copies, on nice cardstock and struff, and gave them to our friends. It has been quite a hit with them.
Another thing we will do is play silly kids games in a serious manner. “Mafia” is one of our favorites. In “Mafia” you get a deck of cards that have a queen, king, and seven of spades. You flush out the deck with random cards for the rest of the players (this game works best with seven or more people). Each player takes a card. The two players with the face cards are the “Mafia”. Their goal is to kill off all the rest of the player (“Villagers”) without getting identified. The seven of spades is the “Stool Pidgeon”. After everyone knows their roles, they all close their eyes and stomp their feet to cover up ambiant sounds. The Stool Pidgeon opens their eyes while the two Mafia members raise their hands. The Stool Pidgeon now knows who the Mafia is, but the Mafia does not know who the Stool Pidgeon is. The Stool Pidgeons goal is to lead the townsmembers to kill the Mafia, but not reveal that they are the stool pidgeon because that would lead to their instant elimination.
Then gameplay begins. The Villagers make the first hit. They argue amongst themselves (with little evidence at this point) as to who the Mafia might be. They eventually vote to accuse one person. This person is out of the gameplay (He or she is allowed to watch everything, but not to speak about who might be Mafia, Stool Pidgeon, etc. The first victem also acts as an “MC” for the rest of the game.
The next round is the Mafias. The MC tells everyone to close their eyes and stomp their feet. While everyones eyes are closed, the mafia members (or member, if one was eliminated in the first round) point at a person to kill. The MC sees this, and tell everyone to open their eyes. The MC then informs everyone as to who was eliminated. Then the Villagers have another round, accuse another person, and then the mafia kills another person, etc. etc.
Gameplay ends when the villagers have either accurately accused both mafia members, or there are three people left. If there are only three people left, then whichever side has two people left standing wins.
It is a silly kids game, but it can be lots of fun. We had one game last for hours, as we analyzed every move and every word said in the game. It uses logic, psychology and reasoning skills to play it well.