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Who's the more foolish? The fool or fool that plays after the fool?(loofish)United States
DURHAM
North Carolina
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In honor of Father's Day, I thought I'd post my last few games with my 2 sons (age 8 and 10).The first was the classic Monopoly or in our case Star Wars Monopoly. I was inspired to pull this game out for a number of reasons. The first was my possibly foolish goal to get all my games played (which will apparently mean I will play some not so good games that I acquired many moons ago and will include a game of Risk at some point
). Another was that it was Star Wars and my two love them some Star Wars. Then there was the little thread and comments I have read over here on BGG that Monopoly gets a bad rap here and that played properly it is not nearly so bad and not nearly so long as you remember.Well, we had no problem with playing the game, the boys picked up the rules pretty quick and were quickly demanding their payments of $22 from each other with great relish. Most properties were bought right off but we had the auctions when that came up. Both of them had a property lead on me: my first two attempts to get around the board ended 3/4 of the way round with "Go To Jail". They were most amused.
However, the game stalled: we had all but a couple of properties but still no one had a set, unless you include my utilities. So I mediated a trade between the boys to get the game going and started to trade for the singles that they had. Both of them built up some colonies (houses) on their sets and they got a pay-out a couple of times - I think I paid both of them. However, too many turns were just a pointless back and forth of small change or in fact nothing at all. 90 minutes into the game and it was dinner time. Looking at the board situation, everyone had money and no one was about to be eliminated. I called the game and we counted up. That there was a way to go could be easily established by the fact that we all had over $2000 in funds and properties.
Not sure if they were all that excited by the game despite the fact they got to be R2D2 and Luke. On the plus side, i won't feel compelled to pull this out again any time soon.Our other board game recently was Gulo Gulo. Both boys like this one, though in our last play it was more my eldest that was interested, my youngest was feeling a little out of sorts. That continued as he kept pulling eggs carelessly and setting off the egg alarm. Both were a little clumsy in fact and I was way out in front with my perfect record of egg stealing. Of course, this game gives you considerable opportunity to catch up and my 10 year old was right behind me by the time I reached the end. And in typical fumble fingered fashion, I messed up BOTH my runs for the purple egg, while my eldest son pulled it out like a plum with no problem at all. He was very pleased with himself.
The last bit of gaming came as I tried to decide what book to read them at night. And the book that came to mind that I thought they might enjoy was the old Fighting Fantasy Book 01: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.We skipped most of the dice rolling and concentrated on the reading and deciding part, and I must say they were quite into it, keen to see what happened next. At the point where bed time is called, they were a bit lost in the Maze and it was a good point for a break. My wife arrived home from work during the reading and it hooked her enough that she went through making a map for them to follow!
I do regret to report that we made it all the way to the end, but we had the wrong three keys. But they asked me when we were going to try again. And that makes me a proud father.
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