Crokinole

John was nice enough to invite me over for a Thanksgiving feast. There was good food and good gaming. The first game was Crokinole which we played while dinner was being prepared. I am not dexterous enough to be good at this game, so I don’t really like it. But I dont mind playing it once in a long while.

Quarto

John has a lot of two player games to play with his wife, Gina. And he introduced me to one, called Quarto. This is a connect four game where you try to connect a line of pegs that have four of the same attributes (light/dark, round/square, or hole/solid). You pick the piece that the opponent must play. I forgot about the solid attribute which let John win the game.

Anno 1503 Aristokraten & Piraten

John wanted to introduce Gina to Anno 1503 since she likes games where there is no direct picking on your opponent and each player has their own board. The dice was not as kind to me as it was for the others. But the game was surprisingly close with all three of us vying for the win. Fortunately for me, I had two cards that would allow me to steal the resource that I needed for me to win and stop John from winning. I learned this trick from Doug, who used it against me in the last game.

Ganoven Jagd

We played another simple and quick two player game. This has a movement mechanism like Billabong. And the goal to move the numbered piece representing your detective on top of the opponent’s crook.

Honey Bears

And then we introduced Gina to the classic game of Honey Bears. And, of course, introduced her to the house rule of “Go Red Bear!” Enough said on that topic.

Subulata

For the last game of the night, we played John’s Board Game Geek prize table pick. We got one rule wrong where we moved the pieces backwards as well as forwards. This turned the game into a much more meatier and chess-like game. I was too focused on eliminating John’s pieces. This allowed John to set up a trap when I took one of his last pieces. This ended the game and gave him the win. I had forgotten about that rule. It was my fault. I could have instead moved my pieces into the target area instead. But I choose to go for the blood instead.