What family games are you playing for Thanksgiving?

Gary Sax wrote: Did you play Bonanza Brothers? I love that game.

That's the one! Yeah, it was a good time.

Sac Noir. This one works great for large groups, and is actually fun for spectators as well. We play the version where you either bid to buy a piece, or pay to avoid one. I am an unchallenged Master of this game, usually winning with zero pieces and a couple of bidding beans left... The game is not about stacking stuff at all, but manipulating the economy and bleeding people out while appealing to ego and anxiety with pieces that juuust might fit in a stack but actually put it at risk for future placements—and then sending the tower-wrecking bits around the table (like the Hockey Puck of Doom, among others). I raised my boys to play it lean and mean, and to sweep the goddamn leg.



I won the first two rounds, with one of the dads forcing us to change seating order every game as he was sure that my wins were due to where I was at the table—he had no clue that it MADE NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER, for I have lighting in my eyes and thunder in my step! The only reason I lost the last round was due to kingmaking on his part, collusion between him and his 10-year-old boy.

But it was still close.

As a side note, I managed to avoid my 8,940,347th game of Rat-a-Tat Cat.

Hey HiveGod, it looks like you have that nicer version of this game. I have two thrifted copies combined of Bandu which has unfinished wooden pieces. I've also added pieces that I've found, like golf tees, cabinet knobs, etc. Why are there different colored pieces in your version? You're right that this game great for large groups and explaining the limited rules is easy to do--in two minutes, you're playing. However, many of our games often end when someone bumps the table so you have to be careful.

In general, the black pieces are "easy" and the red ones are "impossible mode". Just try stacking something on The Gnome, above! Of course, every piece is situational...

What I love about playing this with new people is that you're all sitting around the table and you tell them to watch it and not bump the table and they're all like, "Yeah, yeah—whatever," and then the game heats up and pretty soon everyone's standing, all the chairs are pulled well away, and parents are yelling at kids to stay back!

The guy who won last weekend during our olympics was a sight to behold. He had the shakes! He even used his other hand to steady his arm.

Trump does a good impression of that guy

We played Fairy Tale, Biblios and Tichu. All went over great. Of course, today is when my copy of Spyfall and Codenames arrive, but we'll break those out at Christmas.

Played 3 games of Kingdom Builder, which I'd never tried before. It's OK for a pretty simple Euro. I, uh, won all three games, too...

KingPut wrote: Codenames was a big hit. It's so simple to teach. Easy for 3 generations of family to play together. We ended up playing 3 games of it between eating Turkey and eating dessert.

I played Codenames on Thursday night as well, with my girlfriend and her parents. We played what... 10 times?

A friend from college picked it up on my recommendation and said it was a "huge hit" with his in-laws.

It's as accessible as Apples to Apples, but a lot more tense and fun. It plays well with most player counts. It's fun as a 2v2 couples game.