In Professor Treasure’s Secret Sky Castle, players compete over three rounds to earn the most points by collecting stolen treasures from the Professor’s Castle. It’s a puzzle-y game where you’ll need to outwit your opponent by sending adventures out with unique abilities to collect these priceless treasures. Be wary as the other team will seek to thwart you every step of way.
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Duel to the death with a cast of unlikely-looking ninjas in Tiny Ninjas, a portable game of cards and dice by Ryan Leininger.
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Playing Castle Panic (a fantastic game) with my 4-year-old felt more like giving instructions to an unwilling robot. He wasn’t enjoying himself, and I wasn’t enjoying him not enjoying himself. Would My First Castle Panic be different?
My First Castle Panic is a cooperative tower (castle) defense game for 1-4 players ages 4+ that plays in just 20 minutes. Team up and protect the castle from monsters coming to knock it down! Throw the monsters in jail and save the castle!
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Fluff, from Bananagrams, is actually the two-hundred-year-old game Liar’s Dice, with adorable but shady looking critters and clever dice cups. Claire tells you why we like it.
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Hanamikoji is a beautiful compact game for two players from Deep Water Games. Win the favor of geisha by playing their favored items, but choose carefully! You’ll also have to give cards away to your opponent.
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Palm Island is a 17-card game designed and illustrated by Jon Mietling, published by Portal Dragon Games. It needs no flat surface at all; the entire game is played in one hand.
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The constant push and pull to acquire the right resources and rooms to ratchet up your victory point and gold total is a fascinating puzzle for me. If you enjoy the careful balance of tight resource management games you will enjoy Cave vs Cave.
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Deblockle is a beautiful and elegant game of abstract strategy that’s durable enough to keep on your coffee table – even with kids!
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It is up to you to find the most Scarab relics! From the desert to the rain forest, from the Bermuda Triangle to Antarctica, these golden beetles are scattered across the world. Set up camps and mark Excavation Areas. Can you find the most Scarabs and uncover the mystery of Scarabya?
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If your friend orders fries, you may experience regret. But what if you stole some fries from your friend? They won’t notice, right? That’s the idea behind Fry Thief, a quick game for two hungry players.
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“What I love best about Sports Dice Football is that it plays in real-time; there are no commercial breaks or risqué half-time shows. The best roll makes the play. Rules are simple, making it appealing for new players.”
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Mix potions faster than your opponent in this micro-game from Button Shy. Potions Class sits at a low simmer for us; with just a few changes, it could hit a rolling boil.
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Welcome to the exciting world of bug collecting! Snatch bugs off the rug to add to your collection, but watch out for the bugs you don’t catch – they’ll fly onto the wall and do tricky things.
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Race for the treasure in Gnomes at Night, a cooperative maze game with a vertical board. Your partner(s) may have clear paths where you have a wall, so you’ll have to work together – fast!
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Drop It was designed by Bernhard Lach & Uwe Rapp and published by KOSMOS. It feels a bit like Connect 4 played with tangram shapes, if your object was to make as few lines as possible. Hear our impressions of this strategic dexterity game in about 6 minutes, or read on for more.
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Four explorers arrived on the beaches of Karuba in search of the lost temples. Which player can clear the best path through the forest, find the most treasure, and find their temples first? Karuba is a simultaneous tile-laying game designed by Rüdiger Dorn and published by HABA. A game lasts 30-40 minutes for 2-4 players age 6+. Setup To set up
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Untold is an episodic cooperative storytelling game. The premise is that you and up to three fellow players are characters in a TV show. Using a framework of “scenes” and Rory’s Story Cubes, you’ll work out a role-playing story together.
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In Catch! from Peaceable Kingdom, players work together to move 4 cats to surround a mouse and keep it from escaping the yard.
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You want to be a master painter? In Pigment, from Copper Frog Games, you can be. Send your apprentices out to collect or trade “pigment” cubes (red, yellow, blue). Then spend them in the right combination to paint Renaissance masterpieces.
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Once again, the holiday shopping season is upon us. The Family Gamers present our recommendations for your family: gifts of new games for all ages and abilities! We’ve got everything here from games for toddlers and preschoolers, to adult games, to large groups or two players. No matter what age you’re shopping for or what the occasion is, our family
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