Sunday, December 31, 2023

New Year, New Games!



Our family just received some new games over the Holidays that I'd like to recommend.**

Good games, like good museum exhibit experiences, share a few common traits:

1) Easy to learn and play.

2) Fun for a variety of age levels.

3) Challenging, but not too challenging.

4) Interesting enough to play again and again.

So here, in no particular order, are some games that you might like to check out. (The link attached to each game name brings you to Amazon.)



Charty Party is a card game for adults that reminds me of another card-based game called Apples to Apples. During each round of Charty Party, one player is chosen to be the judge and flips over a chart card. The other players then anonymously play their funniest orange card to name the Y-axis of the chart. It's an easy but often hilarious game.
As the name of the game and the picture below implies, this is a game about birds!  You play against other players to collect bird cards, get different types of food, and gather eggs in various ways. Wingspan is a gorgeous-looking game, with each one of the beautiful playing cards showing an accurate picture of a real bird. Wingspan feels educational but not boring -- with interesting, solid gameplay.

We like the game so much that we bought one of the "expansion" packs -- in this case, the Asia Expansion set, which adds a whole new flock of birds to learn and play with!





Brought to you by the same people who developed the "Exploding Kittens" game, Mantis (named after the super-cool oceanic creature the Mantis Shrimp) comes with a bonus physical copy of the comic book, "Why the Mantis Shrimp is My New Favorite Animal."

The aim of the game is to be the first player to get 10 or more cards into your score pile. You do this by collecting matching sets of colorful Mantis cards and/or stealing those same cards from your opponents! Mantis works as a card game for kids but is also one of the adult party games you’ll want to play again and again.





If you've ever imagined yourself tearing up Tokyo like Godzilla or blasting New York City from an alien spaceship, this is the game for you!

A dice-driven game with a good combination of both luck and strategy needed to win, you compete against fellow "monsters" to collect energy points and avoid losing health points.  Each round plays relatively quickly, so it's a great game for people at a party to jump in and out of.



Here's hoping your 2024 gets off to a fun and playful start!


As I mentioned above, each game name leads to a link on Amazon where you can purchase your own set!  (** Note: Commissions may be earned from the Amazon links above.)





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Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

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