Rainy Day Games

On a wet Sunday there wasn't much to do in the house. Having exhausted a few appealing options (Lego, books, squabbling) the three boys in the house decided to break out the games.

The final front room

First to the table was Galaxy Trucker. Aside from the timer the boys are now at the stage where they can play this - Stanley completely independently; Joe given some assistance at the build stage. As a result of this assistance Joe always finished his ship-building first, which was to serve him well in a decidedly peaceful universe. I talk them through the cards and while the finer details are still hazy the gist of it - grab cargo, avoid attacks, arrive in first if possible - is pretty much there. However Stan's admirable independence in building his own ship meant he always travelled at the back; and the way the cards came out favoured the front runner. We played all three rounds and Stan and I were soundly beaten by Joe, despite him spending much of round three reviewing proceedings from a static piggy-back position (my back):

Joe 88
Sam 63
Stanley 60

Next up was String Railways. This was a bit of an impulse by after a first-play impression - I thinnk it's not been out of the box much since. Not enough for me to be fully cognizant of the rules anyway - we did a sort of basic version which Stanley won by a significant margin:

Stanley 32
Joe 23
Sam 20

It's impossible to get a serious photo. Impossible.

Finally with the boys really getting into the gaming spirit we brought out Portobello Market. This s a bit of a halfway house game - it looks like a full-on game but time-wise could be thought of as a filler, as it can be over in well under an hour. I realised my explaining skills were not confined to Tuesday nights - as I did my usual mistake of explaining the turn order without giving the theme - when Stan said "But what am I actually trying to do?"

Stan and I drew the first game (66 each? Can't remember) then we drew the second game 82 each with Joe - assisted, but enthusiastic - 1 point behind us.

See?

Just like a Tuesday night though, all good things must come to an end. So we went upstairs and read a bit more of The Hobbit. It's really violent! I felt like complaining to someone. But who?