Many Short Games: Part the Sixth

Welcome to Many Short Games: Part the Sixth: Miscellaneous other short games. This is the last of the Many Short Games posts and these games are 5 games that don’t fit in any of the other categories but needed to be showcased. They may also be games that I think are really enjoyable and since I’m writing this series, I’ve included a post for them. Thanks for reading, I hope you take your new found knowledge and go play Many Short Games!

Bananagrams (Bananagrams): Oh I do love me a game of Bananagrams despite the fact that I can’t spell (and Bananagrams does not helpfully underline the words you get wrong). I also keep forgetting to clean up after myself when I yoink tiles from one word to build another but I get ahead of myself. Bananagrams is like a free form game of Scrabble except that you can tear down your Scrabble grid and rework your words if you need some of the letters. Each player gets a certain number of tiles drawn from the big pile in the middle and play begins when someone says the ridiculous start word of “split” or “peel” or “Bananas Foster” (this is the only aspect of the game I really don’t like. There are perfectly good English words for “Start” or “Draw” or “Win” but noooooOOOOooooo. Banagrams gets all cutsie and I can never remember what I’m supposed to yell). Anyway. At the same time everyone flips their tiles and starts building a crossword-like grid of words. The first person to use all their original tiles yells some word and everyone draws a tile. Eventually, when you are at N-1 tiles, where N is the number of players, you trigger end game. At that point, the first person to have used all their tiles and made a completed grid shouts the victory word (bananas?). If all their words are legitimate words (and not, say turr because you have removed the ‘et’ for application elsewhere) then they win the game.

Legend of the Wendigo (Iello): This is a concentration like game that you start by laying out all your scouts out on the table. There is a second set of identical scouts that have a Wendigo flip side which one person manages. The Wendigo Master picks a random Wendigo/scout tile and searches the field of scouts for the same scout picture (the scout and Wendigo/scout tiles are numbered to make it easier). Everyone else turns around and the Wendigo Manager replaces the the scout tile with the Wendigo/scout tile, Wendigo side down.The players turn back around and have 45 seconds to memorize the field before they turn their backs again and the Wendigo Driver removes another scout tile and moves the Wendigo/scout tile to take up the position of the removed scout (hint: pick similar looking scouts to eat so that you are harder to call out). The players have 5 turns to correctly guess which tile is the Wendigo/scout to win while the Wendigo Wrangler has to eat 5 scouts in order to win.

Ticket to Ride: NY (Days of Wonder): Do you like train games but never had the time or patience to learn them? You are in luck! Days of Wonder has a short version of their flagship train game Ticket to Ride. Instead of building train routes across all of America (or Europe, or India, or Africa, or Asia, or Nordic Countries…) you are building taxi routes in New York City. Other than the slight change in locomotion, this game plays the same as the bigger Ticket To Ride, save you have half the pieces to lay down and about a quarter of the map. There are still train (well cab) cards to build your routes, and destination cards that tell you which routes you need to build, and the person with the most points still wins. It’s a good intro to Ticket to Ride, which is a solid beginner train game. First play is free.

Tricky Druids (Pegasus Spiele): The Games Library got this game before it was released in the US because Pegasus Spiele is just that cool a gaming company. Many thanks to them as this is a delightful little resource game. I’m also super amused at the rules which state, “The kindest player starts. If you can’t decide who is the kindest player, it looks like you are all meanies and unfortunately not allowed to play this game!” Snerk. Somehow we all played it and enjoyed it quite a bit. You have to concoct a potion by filling at least one ingredient from each of the three required ingredients in the recipe at the top of your secret potion card. The other 3 spots can be filled by any other number of the required ingredients. You get ingredients by rolling the 4 ingredient dice and hope you don’t get ingredients you can’t use because your composting bin only has a small number of spots to stash unwanted ingredients (you are tricky but environmentally nice druids so you compost the stuff you can’t use). You also *must* offer another Druid at least one of your ingredients (or in the advanced game you roll a die marked 1-3 and have to offer at least that number of ingredients) before taking them into your potion or compost. You can refuse to take anything from another Druid but that just isn’t neighborly. Plus the other Druids will remember your refusal if their compost bucket overflows, as it will do so right into the brewing potion and spoil it. The first Druid to successfully brew 3 potions wins. It’s tricky to rock a vine, to rock a vine that’s right on time. / It’s tricky.

Tsuro: The Game of the Path (Calliope Games): Tsuro is perhaps best described as a zen race game. Each person places their marker somewhere on the side of the board and is dealt a hand of several tiles with lines inscribed on them. When it is your turn, pick a tile and place it in front of your piece, then move the piece along the path to its conclusion somewhere along the edge of that tile. If you place a tile that connects to another tile, move your piece until it comes to the end of the path. Sometimes the end of the path is out in the middle of the board and you will need to wait for your next turn to advance your piece. Other times the path doubles back and hits the edge of the game board. If this happens, you are out of the game, so try to avoid placing tiles that run you off the edge of the world. Always sound advice, imho. Also, try to avoid placing a tile that will cause your piece to smack into another piece because then both players are out (although if you are feeling a little vindictive yet martyrish, by all means, take out that player who is giving you the side eye). However, because pieces move when there is more path for them to follow, it is possible to move your piece onward while also causing another player’s piece to follow the inevitable conclusion to the edge of the board. The piece left standing at the end of the game is the winner.

-JQ

All The Many Short Games of the Games Library:

7Ate9

AttrAction

Bad Beets

Bananagrams

Bounce Off

Bowling for Zombies!!!

Brick Party

Carcassone: Dice Game

Chickyboom

Chopstick Dexterity MegaChallenge 3000

Codenames

Codinca

Coup

Covalence

Dicey Goblins

Escape

Fluxx – Batman

Fluxx – Chemistry

Fluxx – EcoFluxx 1.0

Fluxx – Family Fluxx

Fluxx – Oz Fluxx

Fluxx – Pirate Fluxx

Fluxx – Zombie

Fluxx4.0+TableTop expansion

Fuse

Game Election (with Dictator expansion)

Get the MacGuffin

Hisss

Keyforge: Call ofthe Archons

Kingdomino

Labyrinth Jr.

Le Bomb

Legend of the Wendigo

Legendary Forests

Loonacy

Luchador! Mexican Wrestling Dice

Mind, The

Mmm…Brains

Monster Laundry

Pantone

Patchwork

Pengoloo

Pizza Theory plus Anchovie Expansion

Qwixx

Rat Splatter

Robot Turtles

Room 25

Shaky Manor

Simply Suspects

Spot it

Stop Lights

Super Circles

Sushi Go

Suspend

Ticket to Ride New York

Tiger Stripes

Timeline: Inventions

Totemland

Tri-Versity

Tricky Druids

Tsuro

Two Rooms and a BOOM

Unlucky Sevens

Worm Up

Zombie Dice