Monday, June 6, 2011

Fun and Games Blogfest



This post is part of Alex J. Cavanaugh's "It's All Fun and Games Blogfest."  The challenge is to write about my three favorite games. 

1.  Shrek Uno.  I love to play this with my ten-year-old son alone - just me and him.  It's like Uno except the cards are stored in a plastic Shrek head and the cards are Shrek-themed.  We made up our own rules for when it's just us (my husband hates it when we do that).  We deal out 10 cards each  instead of the standard 6 or 7 - I'm honestly not sure about the actual rules.  If we have a Skip, Draw Two, Wild, or Reverse, the play goes back to the person who laid down the card.  So if you have a bunch of these cards, you can throw them all down at once.  We are very non-competitive about it and applaud whoever can manage the best moves with multiple cards.  All of my stress washes away when we play this.  It makes him happy too.  Shrek Uno day is always a good day.

2.  Sorry.  We had this game when I was seven.  My aunt or someone gave it to us just after our lives went to hell when my parents got divorced.  It was fun and happy and was the best escapism I could find.  My kids love to play it too.  We have assigned colors that never change with each game.  Sometimes we let my husband play (he teams up lately with the toddler who sometimes steals the pieces) but it's better with just me and the two older kids. 

3. Puzzles.  I'm not sure if puzzles are technically games, but they sort of are.  We have a cabinet in the basement stuffed floor to ceiling with puzzles.  When my older two were little, they loved to start puzzles, but I always finished them - almost - they insisted on puting in the last piece.  My middle son always would tear up my work and then insist we do it again.  Every time, my apparent OCD would kick in and I would have to finish it - except for that last piece.

Honorable Mention:  Lego Creationary - This game is brilliant.  It's like Pictionary except you build with Legos what's pictured on the card.  It's a regular picture, not a Lego picture - there are no instructions on how to build round things with square pieces.  The other players try to guess what's on the card from the thing you built.  I would love it more if I could build little things on the fly - but I can't and my kids make fun of me for it.  There are cards for different levels of difficulty, but the easy level is kind of hard for me.

Games I hate: 

1. Blues Clues board game - Whoever invented this game where you have to sort something like 36 sets of cards with four cards in each set is evil.

2. Mouse Trap - It annoys me, but my kids loved it when they were younger.

3. Hungry Hungry Hippo - This was fun when I was a kid and seemed like a good idea when I bought it for my kids, but it is unbearably loud and gives me a migraine as an adult.  The little balls should be soft and quiet, and the surface should be padded.

12 comments:

  1. I love the sound of how you play Uno! And we like Sorry, too, and I LOVE puzzles, but my kids never got that into it. I am giggling at your hated list though. We never had Blues Clues. We played Mousetrap non-conventionally... just put it together, then played it like a stupid little game. I like the puzzlish/engineering end of of putting it together enough, though, that I never minded. Chess bugs me, but only because nobody knows any strategy, just how they move, but my son insisted we try to play for years and it just seemed stupid when nobody knew how to actually accomplish anything.

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  2. That's cute you make up your own rules when playing with your son. And I think puzzles count.
    Thanks for participating in the blogfest!

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  3. @Hart - I think the engineering aspect of Mousetrap is what I hate. Seems more like work than fun.

    @Alex - My husband keeps getting out the rule books when we play games. We always look at him like he's crazy and say, "What are you doing?" He usually gives up and walks away. Thanks for hosting.

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  4. I used to play Sorry with my other grandmother a lot. So have fond memories of that game.

    Thank you. Your suggestion worked. I now feel lame that I didn't figure out how to fix my commenting issue myself.

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  5. @M Pax - I think it's kind of lame it's not fixed after a couple of weeks. This isn't really a solution, just a work around. I wonder if they will fix it if everyone can work around it?

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  6. Sorry is the very first game I remember playing!

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  7. Uno is a great game. My husband has a double deck he got years ago and I have a Simpsons themed deck. The two of us play sometimes and we've also played when we've had friends over.

    I haven't played sorry in years. That was a fun game.

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  8. Yay for making up your own rules!

    Yay for 'Sorry!'

    And I'm sorry, but yay for loud, hungry hippos!!

    Thanks for blogfesting.

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  9. you hate hungrey hippos and mouse trap? please tell me I read that wrong

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  10. I have supersonic hearing and can hear what my kids say in the other room when they whisper. It's a curse, really, but makes hungry, hungry hippos unbearable. Gives me an instant migraine. I hate the engineering thing with mousetrap - would prefer it came pre-built. Scrabble I love....

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  11. I think the set-up on Mousetrap irked me more than anything. But the kids loved it.

    Loved Sorry, though!

    Thanks for sharing!

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  12. Ugh, I will never buy Mousetrap for my sons once they're old enough to play it. Takes way too long to set up.

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