More games, this time in the library.

Today we spent most of the day in the library, because there was a family event on.  Imagination Gaming were there with lots of different games and we had a go with quite a few new ones, this time some of them with some friends who'd also come along.  K had to go for her ballet lesson in the middle and we did pop out to get a burger from the Farmer's Market for lunch, but we were there from just gone 10.30am until about 3.30pm!

We started off with Botswana, which is deceptively simple and appealing to children because of the little toy animals but actually very strategic. 

Rat a tat Cat is a card game that is rather like the Kings game that A, the girls' childsitter, taught them last month. 

Dixit which we'd played last week in Oxford, we introduced this to our friends, S, A & J, who also really liked it.

A round of Dixit

Katamino is one that just K & I had a go at, while M was playing another game with friends, which is basically a spacial awareness puzzle.  K was very focused on this one for quite a long time, I had moved on and she'd done another level before she decided she wanted to spend some time with friends again.

The Magic Labyrinth is the game that K & M both spotted when we first arrived, but it was already in use, so we had to wait.  In fact we ended up playing it while K was at ballet, but she fortunately she didn't seem too bothered.  The labyrinth in question is 'invisible' as the walls are underneath the board and you find out where they are when the ballbearing your magnetic counter is holding on to is knocked off by one, as you try to move towards the tokens you need to collect.  So you need to try to remember where the walls are as you go, because each time you bump into a wall you have to go back to your starting point.

M's turn at The Magic Labyrinth.

Take It Easy was, I think, my favourite and can be played against others or on your own in a beat your best score sort of a way.  One player picks a tile at random, calls the numbers on it and the other players find the same tile, so that everyone is playing with exactly the same tiles.  You then fill the board with the tiles trying to get as many complete lines of one colour from one side of the board to the other.  Different colour lines are worth different amounts and at the end you get points for each tile of a completed line, so a line of four yellow nine tiles gives you 36 points.

My board half way through a game.

We stayed pretty much until we were kicked out and then went back to our friends' house, ostensibly so that M could have a try on J's trumpet, but also for a play in the case of the girls and a cuppa in the case of the Mummies!  Having had a go on J's trumpet, M didn't have a huge preference, but has decided she would like to learn to French horn, so now I need to find out about hiring a French horn (having looked at the price of them, that's definitely the way to go until we/she are sure she is really keen!) and find a teacher, although I have already asked the girls' piano teacher if he knows of anyone.