Gaming With Grandma - 69

My mother (AKA Grandma) visited on Saturday morning for a cup of tea, a chat and to play some games. Our first game was chosen by my daughter, Maddie, aged 7. BRATZ Genie Magic: As You Wish is a game Maddie received for her birthday (not from us I might add). Maddie is a big Bratz fan and had been looking forward to playing this game since her birthday last month.

Another product in the ever-expanding BRATZ line

In this game players are genies-in-training trying to be the first to have three wishes granted by visiting the fab fashion stores scattered around the board. Your tokens advance around a track by rolling an 8-sided die. You receive a number of wish cards determined by the number on the space you land on. As you make your way around the board the numbers on the spaces increase in value.

When you have at least 3 wish cards you can go straight to a store and try to get a wish. To do so you must first ask the other players if they want to join you for a wish contest. If another player has 3 wish cards they may join you. The wish contest consists of each player choosing 3 of their wish cards and revealing them one at a time. Each card has a certain wish value with some cards worth extra points when played at certain stores. Some cards have special actions such as enabling you to discard or take another player's wish card. Once all the cards have been revealed, the player with the highest wish card score gains the wish. All players in the wish contest discard their 3 cards and go back to the start space.

That's about all there is to it. I came 1st with 3 wishes, Maddie 2nd with 2 wishes and Grandma 3rd with 1 wish.

Maddie then wanted to play Hive. As there were three of us, Maddie and Grandma decided to play cooperatively against me. We chose to play two games. I played black and they were white in both games. I won the first game fairly easily.

Black has surrounded the white Queen to win the game

In our second game I made a mistake which both Grandma and Maddie quickly seized upon. I realised I would not be able to surround their queen before they surrounded mine. Realising this I then tried a defensive strategy. It's pretty hard to win a defensive game of Hive but I tried. In the end I used one of my beetles to first allow my Queen to escape and then to move on top of one of the opposing beetles. Alas, my efforts were in vain and Maddie and Grandma eventually won.

The black Queen is eventually surrounded

Our final game of the morning was the marvellous Ingenious. Both Maddie and Grandma are improving their skills in this game. Grandma went on to win with 11 points on a tie break, myself 2nd on 11 and Maddie 3rd on 8.

The final game could almost be a work of art