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Lowell Kempf
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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When it comes to my family and gaming, I seem to be something of a genetic sport. While my brother and sister-in-law enjoy party games and my father has some appreciation for abstract strategy games, I am the only one who regularly/obsessively plays board games.
So, when I visit family, there usually isn’t much gaming. To be honest, most of the games in my family’s homes are the ones that I’ve given them over the years  Still, at least once I holiday, I manage to drag folks over to the table and get a couple of games going. In my defense, my family usually enjoys what I force them to play 
With my family, I have found that the rule of thumb for games that they will enjoy is not necessarily going for light or simple games but for going abstract games. I realize that is not necessarily the case for all non-gamers but it is the case for my family.
This holiday season, I got Uptown and Blokus Trigon out on the table, both games I had given my family at past Christmases.
I have already written about how the changes in Blockers make it a better game than Uptown. However, I hadn’t played Uptown by its original rules since I had played Blockers. We could have played by the Blockers rules (which might well have changed who won) but I felt we were better off playing by the rules everyone already knew. And even with the original rules, it’s a good little game.
But Blokus Trigon was the high point of the gaming.
When Blokus Trigon first came out, I assumed that it was a gimick. When I actually bought so that my Go group would have a three-player abstract, I found that, instead, it was actually the most enjoyable of the Blokus family for me.
While the triangles are more forgiving than the squares of regular Blokus, they also make more interesting patterns. On top of that, Blokus Trigon plays two, three and four well. Actually, out of all the games I have given my family, Blokus Trigon is probably the one that actually gets played when I'm not visiting
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