Game Review: Spy Alley

Kaitlyn received two games from her mom and dad this Christmas.  Both will be reviewed in the coming days, but I figured I would start with the one she decided to play first, Spy Alley.  This game very much reminded me of the classic "whodunnit" Clue due to its player elimination mechanics.  In the game Spy Alley, you are randomly given a Spy Identification card and it is your job to determine who each of the other players is, while trying to prevent them from finding out who you are.

Game play

As mentioned, players have a secret identity that they are trying to hide form the other players at the table while at the same time trying to find out the identities of the other players.  To win, a player must collect the password, codebook, disguise, and keys for their spy and then make it to the embassy of their nation.  The possessions that each player has is open for the entire group playing to see, so to confuse or puzzle (confuzzle) the other players, a spy will purchase the required elements to win the game from other nations besides their own.  This is where the deception comes in.

Kid Friendliness

My girls really enjoyed playing the game.  They got the concept of deception rather quickly and were buying up equipment of other nations in an attempt to deceive me.  I will be honest, I had no idea which nationality their characters were.  They had fun moving around the board and getting into character and trying to be deceptive with the conversation they were having.  Every time someone would buy something or not buy something, a round of "Interesting" would go around the board.

Family Friendliness

As I mentioned off the start of this post, the mechanics of the game in terms of determining each player's identity is similar to Clue and this is the part of the game that I do not like.  In the game, in order to win you have to collect the required items for your nation and return to the embassy or determine the nationality of your fellow players and take a guess.  If correct, they are out.  If wrong, you are out.  This is not my favourite game mechanic.  The game continues with a player out and waiting for the next game to start, which could be a while.

Re-playability

Re-playability in a game is important.  If you play it once and it loses its lustre, there is a financial cost to that.  A game that always sits on the shelf is not a good game.  Having only played Spy Alley a few times, I think the re-playability will be fairly high.  As you play the game you can try to improve your skills of deceit and deception while looking for ways to discover the "tells" in your opponents.  With different players, there will likely be different strategies that work best.

Summary

I think this is a game that kids or adults can have a good time playing.  If the goal is to play as a group for a while, this may not be the game for you.  If competition and deception is the flavour of the day, then get your 007 on and break out Spy Alley.

Purchase

You can purchase Spy Alley at local game shops or online through Amazon.

Game Review: Ticket to Ride

As mentioned in my first post, Ticket to Ride was my first re-intrduction to tabletop games.  As a child and teen, I had learned to play a number of games, but I would not say that I was a master of any.  I played my fair share of Monopoly, especially with my cousin Heidi, but one of the faults with Monopoly was its undeterminate length of gameplay.  You never knew how long it was going to take and playing one game for upwards of three hours was never my idea of fun.

Ticket to Ride was created by Alan R. Moon in 2004 and is a wonderfully drawn railway themed game.  It is a German-style board game, which means that usually players are in the game until the end (no one gets kicked out or dies) and Ticket to Ride follows this pattern of play.

There are two types of cards in Ticket to Ride:

1. Destination Route Cards

Route Ticket from Sault Ste. Marie - Nashville.  It has a value of 8 points if the player can complete the route.

2. Train Car Cards

Train car cards come in 8 colours (red, blue, white, green, pink*, yellow, black, and orange) and there is a wild card train that can be used as any colour train when played.

Game Pieces

Players move around the scoring portion of the game board using a small cylinder shaped block and place mini-train pieces of their colour (blue, black, red, green, and yellow) on the routes they claim.

Game Play

In the game, players take three route tickets at the beginning of the game and try to complete these route tickets by collecting the smaller routes along the way of the larger route.  For example, along the way from Sault Ste. Marie - Nashville, players would likely complete Toronto to Pittsburgh which requires to trains of the same colour to be played.  Other routes in the game require a specific colour.  Players collect train car cards of certain colours to complete sets.  Once the set is complete players can use a turn to play the set and place their trains on the route on the board.  Sometimes a player needs to use a wild card along with their set to complete the route.  Players continue to try and complete routes, taking more route destination cards if they have completed their own routes and feel they can compete more.  The games ends when one person has zero, one, or two trains remaining.

Time

This is the first thing that I liked about Ticket to Ride.  As a parent, it is essential that there be a plan. If there is no plan, supper ends up being at 8:00 pm and the kids don't get to bed until 9:00 pm or later and then the next day is absolutely crazy because they are super tired and very cranky and no one wants that.  But, I can put out Ticket to ride after dinner at 6:30 pm and I know it will be over by 8:00 pm.  There is a defined amount of time that the game will take based on how the game is designed.  As a parent, this means playing a game can be planned.  We can have conclusion.  We do not need the game to be left "just so" in order to continue the next day.  We can clean the game up when we are done, brush our teeth, and get ready for bed.

Geography

This is a great game for getting kids to learn a bit about geography.  They get a better understanding of the layout of the country of the United States.  As Canadians, my kids are upset there are not more Canadian cities, but who knows, maybe a special edition Canadian Ticket to Ride will come out one day.

Ease of Play

This game allows younger kids to play tabletop games.  Kiera, my seven year old is easily able to play.  She still has some learning to do in terms of strategy, but she can certainly engage in the game with her older sisters, mom, and I.

The ease of play also makes this a great intro game to the world of tabletop gaming.  It is not so easy that the game becomes boring nor is it so difficult that the game becomes frustrating.

Strategy

The game strategy can range from friendly to cut throat.  If players play a "I'm just going to collect my cards" type of game (which is normally the case at our game table) the game is quite friendly.  There are times when a player takes a part of someone else's route in trying to collect their own, but it  is not with hostility towards the other player.  In other games, there can be strategic decisions to take a route that is not necessarily needed by a player in an attempt to block another player.  This can certainly cause bad feelings.

Scoring

As mentioned earlier, this game allows players to play to the end (no one gets kicked out or dies) and some scoring is done during the game (players collect from 1 - 15 points for completing a route between two adjacent cities), but scoring also happens at the end of the game when players add up all of their completed Destination Route Cards and score points for those.  If the route is not completed, it counts as negative points.  As one final reward, the player with the longest continuous train get s a bonus 10 points.  The scoring (math) is very easy and allows younger players to work on their addition skills.

Re-playability

Ticket to Ride is the type of game that can become a family favourite and the old "go-to" game.  The game is fun enough that players will not mind going back to it.  There are numerous other versions of the game (see below for a list) and expansions for the game (see below for a list) that the game can be played for years to come.

Summary

For the reasons given above, I believe Ticket to Ride is a game worth purchasing.  It is a gateway game that will get players involved in tabletop gaming.  It is not so intense that players can't have a conversation while the game is happening, it is a social experience and not a competition experience.

Purchase on Amazon

Games

Ticket to Ride
Ticket to Ride: Europe

Stand alone game that features European geography and some different elements during game play.

Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries

Stand alone game that features Nordic Countries.

Expansions

Ticket to Ride: 1910 Expansion

Expansion for the original Ticket to Ride.

Ticket to Ride: Europa 1912 Expansion

This is an expansion for the Ticket to Ride: Europe game.

My Reintroduction to Tabletop Games as a Parent

For the last year or so, I have become more and more interested in the world of tabletop gaming.  You are certainly more familiar with the term "board game" and this would include classic games like Monopoly, Risk, The Game of Life, and Sorry.  Tabletop gaming is a bit more diverse, because it includes card games, dice games, and role playing games.  Online gaming can include these types of games, but in my experience, often is more a combative type of video game that can include role playing type games such as League of Legends or World of Warcraft and also includes first person shooters like Halo and Call of Duty.  I will fully admit that I have not played very much of any of the games that I just listed and this has created a huge bias for me and I am pretty sure if I was a teen instead of a 30-something parent, I would be much more invested in these type of games.

My status as a 30-something parent, however, gives me a perspective that leads me to believe that there is a place for gaming in my household.  It exists, however, sitting across from my children playing tabletop games and not playing a first person shooter with somebody else's kid.

My re-introduction to tabletop games happened by chance about a year and a half ago.  In following the suggested video on Youtube, I came across a video of Wil Wheaton (from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Big Bang Theory fame - as a fan of the TNT show Leverage, I must also point out his work on that show, also - Go "Chaos").   I was a huge Wesley Crusher fan so I decided to continue watching.  In the video, Wil was playing a tabletop game on his show Tabletop which appears on the Geek and Sundry Youtube channel.  As I discovered that there were multiple episodes of the show, I began to watch more and more of them until my binge watching was stopped by the fact there were no more episodes.

One episode in particular caught my interest and that was the Ticket to Ride episode.

I thought to myself - "Self, this is totally something that you could do with Bethany and Kaitlyn".  Bethany and Kaitlyn are my two daughters who at the time would have been 10 and 9.  I was a bit skeptical of how I would make this work as I had not played games in a long time because, and I have to be honest here, I hate to lose and have been known to be a poor sport.  I truly blame "only child" syndrome and would like to believe that I have matured and done some growing up.  The fact is, I have gotten much better, and don't mind losing, because I have a new goal in mind when playing.  I will get into that a bit more in a moment.

So, I happened upon a copy of Ticket to Ride in a local Chapters book store a couple of months later and introduced it to the girls.  And boy am I happy that I did.

What an amazingly rich experience it was.  The new goal of my tabletop gaming experience became one of having a great time with my two daughters.  Who won or lost was inconsequential.  IF the experience for them and for me was a positive one, I was a winner.  No trophy or victory dance was necessary.  The opportunity I had to sit down for 45+ minutes with my girls, our focus on a similar experience was amazing.  We were certainly not victims to the relatively short attention spans everyone seems to have these days, rather we were able to engage with one another, talking about our lives while our fellow player strategized their next move.  The tabletop game created time for us to enjoy one another.  It was fantastic.

Ticket to Ride has become one of our family's favourite games and I plan to continue to write this blog reviewing new games to us and sharing our learning and experiences.  Keep checking back for more blog posts in the very near future.

FULL DISCLOSURE - I am becoming a huge fan of tabletop games, but they are not cheap.  So, I signed up to Amazon's Affiliate program and anything that is purchased from Amazon through the links on my site, get me a small portion of the profits.  My plan is to use this "revenue" to purchase more games that I can then play with my kids and review.  So, if you would like to play a game I have reviewed, click on the Amazon link.

To purchase a copy of Ticket to Ride from Amazon, click here.