Independence day, board-game day.

Last Tuesday, on Finland's independence day, we had a board-game day here in Toas Pappila.

We started the day by cooking 3 or 4 litres of rice porridge, sekahedelmäkiiseli, and some veggie pastries.

Tapani played his first game of the day (El Grande) with our neighbours Kalle, Aino, Jesse and Laura.

Meanwhile, on the other table I played some games more child-friendly with Karoliina, Daniel & Niklas. We played Myräpeli and Villa Paletti

Myyräpeli (Mole in the Whole)

This game is very nice to play with kids that are learning how to count, as they count their moves from one to four steps. And it is also an intelligent game for kids, where they can develop basic strategic thinking. The idea of the game is to be a successful digger.

Each player has 6 tiles (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4) which are faced down, player does not know in what order the tiles will come. In your turn, you turn one tile face up and move one of your moles as many steps as it says in the tile. The game board has a few holes, and the idea is to place as many moles in the wholes as possible.

Although the player does not know witch tile he is to pick next, he can have an idea according to the tiles that are already faced up.

It was interesting to play this with Daniel & Niklas (9 and 7 year-old) and to notice how much planning ahead they could do. At first, the kids did not understand that their moves were not completely "just chance". After I said "hey look, all your ones and twos were used", they changed their game behavior. It's was nice to see the boys thinking strategically.

Villa Paletti: another "equilibrium game" to our collection

Villa Paletti

Another one of those "equilibrium game" to our collection, to put in the same category as Eläin Pyrämiidi, Jenga, Bausack, Bandu, etc.

Each player chooses one colour. Each colour has 6 columns: 3 thin columns (1 point each), 2 medium (2 points each), 1 thick (3 points). Players can either take a columns of a lower layer in the board to put on the highest layer, or add another layer to the board.

The one with more of thicker columns on the highest layer is the leader. Game ends when the boards collapse, and the winner is the latest leader.

Niklas and Daniel: our board game evenings are not only for adults

This is a nice little game to play with kids or people that are not used to playing board games, but I can imagine that "real gamers" would get bored at it right away. After the kids left, we got a chance to play a little nerdier game.

Shadows over Camelot

This game owned by our neighbours Kalle and Aino. I think they like those cooperative games. Well, so do I.

Shadows over Camelot has very beautiful graphics and has this interesting idea that there might be (or not) one player who is a saboteur. Roles are given secretly, everyone is loyal, except one player. Once there are more cards then players, it is also possible that no-one is a saboteur. That is what happened in our game. Loyal players aim to a same goal.

The theme of the game lays in Camelot. There we find some characters and items related to the tales of the Round Table: King Arthur; The round table, Excalibur, the holy grail, etc etc.

Although I don't remember playing any games with this exact theme, I found it a little cliche, since the Round Table tale has been used is so many things over my childhood and I kinda got bored of that story.

The theme played a big role to my "liking of the game" although the mechanics could have worked pretty well with any other theme, I guess. I did not think the mechanics were well connected to the theme.

Despite the cliche theme, the mechanics of the game was quite interesting. It was nice that no-one could really do things on their own, and we really had to plan our turns together in order to get a successful game.

Shadows over Camelot: beautiful graphics on the board, and also the game components.

In addition, we also played Shadow Hunters & Franks Zoo