Our latest thrift

While I have pledged not to buy any new games this year (other than PnP files, which includes Kickstarter) for myself, games for the toddler don't count. And, over the last few days, we've ended up taking some home from Goodwill for him.

As far as Daddy is concerned, the real prize is a copy of Junior Labyrinth. Thick, chunky tiles, including the treasure discs, it will put up with some abuse. And while the board is smaller than the original version, it still has all the same great mechanics.o

And, of course, the doodle hasn't been interested in it :P Mind you, he has several years before he officially outgrows it.

We also got some Frozen (tm) dominoes, which I thought would be a good way to start teaching him basic domino skills. But it's missing one and he decided he'd rather play with Mommy and Daddy's Mexican Train set. 

Eh, it's still a step :D

No, the third and last game, Hungry Hungry Hippos is the massive success :P I'm not even sure I can call it a dexterity game. The one plus I'll say for it is that he has no problems playing it by the rules. Or

Maybe that should just be rule.

Toddlers and the tablets of Babylon

As I have slowly been letting go enough to let our toddler play with some of Daddy's games, Bruno Faidutti's Babylon has come out to play. Since it consists of twelve sturdy plastic tablets and nothing else, it'll take some serious effort for him to break any of it.

I picked Babylon up about five years ago, in large part because it had come across my radar so much as a minimalist game. Back in 2003, having only twelve total pieces was a selling point (although I can think of other games with less that predated it) In fact, most of for Faidutti's comments about it seem to be about how small it was. When the guy who designed it focuses on the novelty element, you know the gameplay isn't that strong.

The tablets come in four different colors and the game starts out with them all just sitting out. On your turn, you combine two stacks tablets. They either have to be the same height or be the same color on top. First person who can't make a move loses.

Babylon is a ridiculously quick game, even by the standards of fillers. The official playing time is five minutes and two minutes is  more accurate. More than that, although I have gone out of my way to not find out how, the game has been solved. 

So basically, Faidutti invented an alternative to Tic Tac Toe.

I got the game when I saw it at the GenCon auction hall all those years ago for the gee whiz factor and intellectual curiosity. Even though I knew I could cobble together a functional version of the game with poker chips or Looney Pyramids in fifteen seconds, I knew that the presentation factor of the authentic tablets was the only way I'd get the Babylon played.

Heck, not only did I know I needed the tablets to interest other people, I knew I'd be a lot more interested myself.

While Babylon isn't a great game and might even be a flawed and broken game, it still has some interest for me. I am amused by how it has a syntax built on two terms, hence the whole Babel connection. There is a variation where it is a move to add tablets to the playing field, which allegedly unsolves it. Plus, it's a quick and easy time filler that isn't dice or cards.

But it's the toy factor that really got it into my collection, kept in my collection (along with the tiny size) and has it seen regular use since the toddler likes playing with them and stacking them up.

And, while he's still not clear about the rules (being able to stack stacks of the same size still alludes him), I am working on teaching him the actual game of Babylon to him. It is looking like it will be part of his introduction to abstracts. And, given its tactile nature, it might be perfect as one of a toddler's first abstracts.

I don't think Bruno Faidutti intended to make Babylon as a toddler game. I'm pretty sure it was just an exercise in minimalism. However, I think it's real value in my gaming life with be alongside Tic Tac Toe and Connect 4 and whatever I decide to first teach the kid with Looney Pyramids.

 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7553/babylon

 

Chain of thought with Mastermind

Our latest game to introduce our toddler to was Mastermind for Kids. It's a simplified version of Mastermind with only three holes for the code and jungle animals for the tokens.

Okay, he just wanted to play with the animals and play with how he could put them on the board. Still, he's played matching games so some of the mechanics of Mastermind are already percolating in his brain.

But it got me thinking about Mastermind and similar games. 

While I did play it when I was very young (and that cover is a classic), I'm not super found of Mastermind. I think it's because of the roles of code maker and code breaker just seemed...  restricted and uninteresting to me.

What's funny is that there are games that clearly used Mastermind as a starting point or an inspiration that I really like.

Zendo is easily the biggest example, as well as my favorite Looney Lab game. Perhaps because it's a game for a group, not a two-player activity. It also has as wide as the sky options for rules, as opposed to just a series of colors. And the role of the Master isn't that of an opponent but that of a teacher. It's a deductive game with a code maker but the whole philosophy of the game is the opposite end of the spectrum from Mastermind.

Coda, a very simple deduction game using numbers, is one where both players effectively play the role of code breaker and code maker, is another one I like. It's a good, relaxing little game and I think a key element to that is both players getting to play both sides.

Honorary mentions for me have to go to Jotto, which combines words with Mastermind, and Black Box, which is meaningfully themed around shooting rays at atoms. Seriously, what a theme!

Although, now that I'm thinking about it, doesn't the whole deduction game with someone hiding the information date back to at least Battleships in the 1930s? Probably a whole lot older than that. While I haven't played Mysterium or Codenames, don't they operate on the same principle?

So Mastermind didn't start the fire and isn't the the defining deduction game. It is probably as stripped down as you can get. So, even though I'm not a fan, maybe it is a good introduction for young minds. Maybe.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13164/mastermind-kids

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6830/zendo

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8946/coda

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastermind_(board_game)

A Kickstarter that should play well with children

Another Kickstarter which interests me has relaunched, Dice Bazaar. While it is a game, which is what I generally look at when I look at, Dice Bazaar is for a completely different audience than my usual fare.

Dice Bazaar is a very simple, family game with very intuitive rules. There's nothing hard to understand or particularly deep about it. It definitely isn't the kind of game that I would introduce to my old gaming group, who love games like Terra Mystica and La Havre.

However, I think it will be perfect as a stepping stone in between games like Candy Land and Catan while still being fun for adults, even those of us who are a little crazy about the hobby.

Dice Bazaar takes place at a middle eastern bazaar where the players are trying to buy various items, ranging from low value spices to expensive diamonds, all of which will be worth points at the end.

Each item has a stack of cards which are placed on the main board. Below each item are spots for the merchants dice, ranging from two dice for spices to five dice for diamonds. Dice get rolled for each spot, setting the price of each good.

Everyone gets six dice of their own and a player board that has spaces for each type of good. You buy goods by matching the dice with the merchant. If the tea kettle stack has a two, four and five under it, you need to lock a two, four and five on your tea kettle space to get a tea kettle card.

And you don't have to do it all at once. You work up to the price of a good. However, when someone buys a good, the merchant dice get rerolled and any of your locked dice that doesn't match the new rolls get wiped.

On top of all that, you can trade in good cards to place a die on the next highest good without rolling. (Except for the diamond, since it's the highest) There is a cobra card in each deck worth a random number of points at the end. And there is what I consider an essential expansion that awards bonus points at the end of the game for collecting sets of goods.

It's not a complex game by far. But it includes push-your-luck elements with set collection and simple special powers. Its a cute little trading game where you trade with the game.

It's not going to replace Sid Sackson's Bazaar in my collection for my gaming. But I think it will be a good choice for my son and family gatherings in a few years.

This is the second time Dice Bazaar has been on Kickstarter. It didn't make it last time but I hope it does this time.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/183976/dice-bazaar

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fsosnin/dice-bazaar-dice-rolling-card-trading-family-fun