Pandemic

Subject: Geography, Science
Category: Major World Cities, Epidemiology
Ages: 10 and up
# of players: 2 to 4
Time to play: 45 minutes
Mechanics/Game Type: Cooperative

Ratings (1 to 5)

Educational Value: 4
Gaming value: 5
Aesthetic value: 4
Price value: 5
Ease of play: 4
Younger adaptability: 5

My comments: If you are not a fan of cooperative games, this one will likely change your mind.

Four "viruses" (colored cubes) are spreading around the world and the players need to work together to stop them. There is one way to win: collect the cards needed to create cures and eradicate the 4 diseases. There's three ways to lose, however: too many outbreaks, too many virus cubes on the boards, or running out of cards. I have played this games four times now; I have seen all the ways to lose and have yet to win.

Each player is randomly dealt one of five roles. The Medic, for example, can remove all virus cubes on a city instead of one; the Scientist only needs four cards instead of five to create a cure. Players move around the board trying to remove virus cubes, collect cure cards, and build research stations. Meanwhile, more cities are infected at the end of each turn. If more than three virus cubes come up in a city then an outbreak occurs, spreading the virus to adjacent cities. Pick a dreaded epidemic card and not only do more virus cubes appear, but the cards with the cities that already have infections get shuffled and placed on the top of the pile to be drawn again!

There's no need to hide cards or create strategies alone--this game is challenging enough to win--so it is great for younger players or those who generally shy away from complicated board games. The board displays the world's major cities, though you have to look carefully to see the actual location of that city. The pawns, virus cubes, and research stations are made of wood. The cards are a nicely sized and drawn with geographic and population information on them.

This has become one of my favorites; I've been won over to this cooperative game.

BoardGameGeek.com link to this game: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/30549

10 Days in the USA (Europe, Asia, Africa)

Subject: Geography
Category: US (Europe, Asia, Africa)
Ages: 10 and up
# of players: 2 to 4
Time to play: 30 minutes
Mechanics/Game Type: Set collection

Ratings (1 to 5)

Educational Value: 5
Gaming value: 4
Aesthetic value: 5
Price value: 5
Ease of play: 5
Younger adaptability: 3

My comments: The game has a large board picturing the United States, each state of a different color, but you don't play on it. Each player has a tray in which to place 10 "tiles" that are small, thick cards each with a picture of a state along with the capital city and population, as well as car and colored airplane tiles. The object of the game is to create a 10 day trip through the US. You can "walk" to bordering states, meaning the tiles can be placed next to each other in the tray; you can drive 2 states away, meaning you have to place a car between the two states; or you can fly between any two states of the same color so long as you have a plane of that color between them in your tray. You start the game by drawing and placing tiles in your tray--you cannot rearrange a tile once you place it--and you spend the rest of the game trying to complete your trip. The mechanics are easy--draw a tile (from the deck or discard pile) and then discard a tile into 1 of 3 discard piles.

Certainly children younger than 10 can play this game, and you could play "open hand" with younger children with minimal modification to depend more on the luck of the draw rather than the strategy of the discard pile. The parts are well made and colorful, the trays are wood, and the box is small and sturdy. Besides 10 Days in the USA, the company makes 10 Days in Europe, 10 Days in Asia, and 10 Days in Africa. It's a great way to really look at and get to know states and countries.

BoardGameGeek.com link to this game: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/7866

Ingenious

Subject: Math
Category: Geometry, pattern recognition
Ages: 10 and up
# of players: 1 to 4
Time to play: 45 minutes
Mechanics/Game Type: abstract strategy; tile placement, pattern building

Ratings (1 to 5)

Educational Value: 5
Gaming value: 5
Aesthetic value: 4
Price value: 5
Ease of play: 5
Younger adaptability: 5

My comments: This elegant game consists of a game board (shaded three colors to accommodate different numbers of players,) a bag of double-sided hexagon tiles with one of six colored shapes at each end,a tile-keeping tray, and four scoring cards with a small wooden blocks for each color. The scoring cards have one row for each color and 18 columns; each time you score a color you advance the small wooden block of that color on the score card.

Each player starts with six tiles; you play a tile and then draw a tile, trying to get as many color matches as possible with each tile placed. Yet unlike most games, the object here is not to score the highest, but rather not to have the lowest-scoring color.

Both my six and nine year old sons can play this game. The tiles could be a bit thicker, and if they actually fit into a grooved board, like in Blokus, that would this easier to play with active kids. I picked this game up at Barnes & Noble so it was 20% off with my educator's discount. It is well worth it for a game that you'll never outgrow.

BoardGameGeek.com link to this game: http://boardgamegeek.com/game/9674

Australian Rails

Subject: Geography
Category: World
Ages: 10 and up
# of players: 2 - 6
Time to play: approximately 2 hours
Mechanics/Game Type: Crayon Rail System

Ratings (1 to 5)

Educational Value: 5
Gaming value: 4
Aesthetic value: 5
Price value: 4
Ease of play: 3

My comments: What started out as a potential never-to-be-used game has quickly become a family favorite. It is certainly not something you can just pick up and start playing right away if you are new to crayon rail games put out by Mayfair Games. It has an extensive instruction booklet and requires extra set up time the first time you use it so that you can put the stickers on all the load chips. Plan plenty of time to learn how to play this game. Better yet, pay a neighbor kid to learn how to play the game and then come over and teach you and the kids:)

That said, once you have played it one time you will get the hang of it and I hope, find it quite enjoyable as we have. The idea is to build a rail system across Australia and ship goods from city to city. What makes this game exciting is this: Strategy is involved in that you want to get your railroad built without spending too much money building across rivers and mountains and be able to start shipping the most valuable goods as soon as possible. When playing with several people it becomes more challenging because only a certain number of tracks can be built into and out of the smaller cities. Lastly there is the disaster element that can happen randomly, like rain season, dust storms and floods causing tracks to be destroyed and shipments to be delayed.

I purchased this game to help my daughter with her geography so I was very particular about how accurate and detailed the map/gameboard was. I am impressed with this one. The board shows the location of many cities and geographic attributes of Australia. From a gaming perspective, I find it very helpful to have the goal and building costs listed right on the board. I will most definitely be purchasing more of the crayon rail games to use in the future!

BoardGameGeek.com link to this game:
http://boardgamegeek.com/game/935