We’re loving being part of the Blogger Board Game Club and our latest two games have been big hits with all my children, keeping them happily entertained during all the rubbish weather we’ve had recently.
Carcassonne
My dining table has this game set up 80% of the time at the moment, with the children grabbing every spare second to continue their game.
Carcassonne is slightly unusual as the game board is a medieval French landscape built by players as the game progresses. The game starts with a single terrain tile face up and 71 others face down for players to draw from. On each turn a player draws a new terrain tile and places it next to tiles already on the board. New tiles must match and extend feature on the tiles already there. For example roads must connect to roads, fields to fields, etc. After a player places a new tile they can then choose to add a “meeple” ( wooden person ) on a feature of the new tile not already claimed by another player’s meeple.
The game ends when the last tile has been placed. Players score points for features with their meeples on, and the player with the most points wins the game.
Players must use their logic and thinking skills to decide if features are worth adding meeples to and if they should expand their own features or try to interfere with another player’s features.
Carcassone is quite a simple game once you get the hang of it, but every game is different. As I said above my three big children ( aged 10, 9 and 7 ) love it and it’s nice to find something they can play together without too many arguments,
When I Dream
When I Dream is a fun, family game which is all about dreams and imagination. Players take turns to be the Dreamer ( who wears the sleeping mask ) while other players take turns to describe elements ( on the cards ) to the dreamer using just one word. The dreamer doesn’t know if they have guessed correctly, but at the end of the round the Dreamer has to tell the other players a dream using the elements they can remember.
Making up the dreams is our favourite part of the game, it’s given us lots of giggles as the dream descriptions have become more and more outrageous. The scoring is a bit tricky, the Dreamer and the good spirits get a point for every card in the good spirits pile, when the naughty spirits get one point for every card in the naughty spirits pile. The tricksters get points according to how well balanced the two teams were at the end of the round, gaining extra points if they managed to equally balance the two piles. Once you get the hang of the scoring When I Dream is brilliant fun, with ever changing gameplay which is great for keeping everyone entertained.
When I Dream comes with 11 Dream Spirit cards, 110 Dream cards (double-sided, each with four elements), 104 Point tokens, plastic bed with headboard, game board, sleep mask, sand timer and instructions.
This game is suitable for aged eight and above. The game is for four to ten players so would make a great party game too! It’s available to buy from 365games.co.uk, Esdevium store finder RRP £26.99 and Amazon.
Thanks to the Blogger Board Game Club for these two great games!
This sounds like an interesting game, It sounds like you really get to use your imagination when it comes to this game which is always fun.
This looks like a lot of fun. I can’t wait until my daughter is old enough to enjoy games like this and we can play as a family.
Carcassonne sounds slightly similar to a game I played recently where you had to create a house and you had to match corridors and doors and stairs in the right places x
These both sound a lot of fun! I love how different they are to other games. Carcassonne sounds like it would be a hit in our house with me and my hubby. x
The Blogger Board Game Club sounds like so much fun! These two games look great, some fun for all the family
Our kids love playing board games but we have not heard of Carcassonne or When I Dream before but reading your post, I’m intrigued by them both. Hope to get them for our kids as I know they will enjoy it.
Carcassonne or When I Dream – I never heard about these games before. thank you for sharing this knowledge and I will get these for my friends’ kids.
When I dream sounds like a really good game. It is great that it gets their creative juices flowing at the same time as having fun.
we’ve had Carcassonne sitting in our games room for ages and we haven’t opened it up yet! will definitely need to finally give it a try
Love this! Proper quality fun time with no tablets or tv in sight x
Oh I’ve not heard of either of these – You definitely had me when you said that yours play without too much arguing. Always a winner in my eyes!
I really like the sound of “When I Dream” and I think we’d all really enjoying playing this game. It’s a great opportunity for both kids and adults to use their memory and imagination and also have fun taking on the different roles in the game!