viaDigita

ENTERTAINMENT  ::  great fun

Family Games

Card Games, Board Games, Travel Games, Outdoor Games

When I was growing up and we didn’t have video games or the Internet, we used to play old-fashioned games like Bridge, Checkers, Chess, Crazy 8’s and Canasta. Board games like Acquire, Masterpiece, Monopoly. We actually put some nice chamber music on the stereo in the background, sat down together at the dinner table, and spent a few hours just playing together. High spirits, tense moments, arguments, laughter…family time.

Try It, You’ll Like It

Maybe you’d like to try an old-fashioned game like we used to play, just for a change. How about learning a game like Nine Men’s Morris? — Then again, what is Nine Men’s Morris?

Family Games will tell you about more than 200 games of all different types, including something of the history behind each game, the goals of each game, and the basics of how each game is played. The book is liberally illustrated with simple, clear diagrams to show you how each game is set up and played.

Types of Games

Family Games contains information on parlor games, pencil & paper games, spoken & word games, games of dexterity, outdoor games, one-player card games, card games for 2 or more, children’s card games, board games, and domino games.

There is a comprehensive and well-organized index and something I’ve never before seen in a book: a special separate index on “half hour games” that could come in handy if you’re playing with a very young child who has a limited attention span or if you find yourself with only a few spare minutes in between other activities.

Games Known and Unknown

One thing I really like about this book is that, while it contains a whole lot of games I’ve never heard of, it also contains the rules to all sorts of well-known traditional games like Hopscotch, Tiddlywinks, Backgammon, Dodge Ball, and various types of Solitaire, so if you’ve played one of these games back when you were a kid, but never really knew the official rules, you can read up on them here and pass them on to the next generation.

As far as the “new” games included in the book, there are quite a few variants of Solitaire; a pencil & paper game of Battleship that pre-dates the game produced by the Milton Bradley Company; British, Canadian, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish Checkers; 8 or 9 versions of Dominoes; and a variety of games with names like Piquet (pronounced “pee-kay”), Beggar My Neighbor, Donkey, Fox & Geese, Hex, Snakes & Ladders, Alquerque, Blind Hughie, Elves, Gnomes & Giants, I Have Never, and Owari.

Playing Games with History

In addition to the rules of so many games, there are interesting historical notes about each of the games, which come from all over the world. There are games here that are less than a century old and others that have been known to have been played for thousands of years.

HOME  ::  BLOG  ::  BOOKS  ::  CLASSICAL  ::  DESIGN  ::  ENTERTAINMENT  ::  ONLINE  ::  SOFTWARE