Our first game of the morning was Chateau Roquefort (I have the Burg Appenzell version). In this game players are mice searching for cheese within the castle. The cool aspect of this game is that the box forms the playing area of the castle. There are plastic wells sitting below the sliding tiles of the game board. When tiles are moved by inserting a tile into the side of the box this pushes other tiles in a line. This can sometimes send a mouse falling into one of the plastic wells (dungeon) as a tile with a hole in it is moved under the mouse.
"Cheese! Gimme Cheese!"
On your turn you have four action points to spend on movement, lifting a roof section to reveal the room(s) beneath (and the cheese!) and also to slide a tile. The aim is to collect a piece of cheese by having two of your mice sitting on the same type of cheese at the same time. As only one mouse can be in a space at the same time this obviously means you will have to find two of the same type of cheese scattered throughout the castle. The first person to reach a set number of cheeses is the winner.
The other trigger for ending the game is for one player to lose three of their four mice to the depths of the dungeon. This actually happened in this game. I'd already used the tile sliding feature to send two of Grandma's mice tumbling to the bottom of the box. Maddie took out her third mouse. At this point the game ended. Grandma couldn't win even though she was leading with two pieces of cheese. The player with the highest total of cheese would then win. As Maddie and I both had one piece of cheese we were tied. In a tie-break situation it is the player who had been waiting longest for their turn that won. As that was me I ended up winning! A very short game but it revealed a new tactic that none of us had previously considered.
Coda - always fun!
The other trigger for ending the game is for one player to lose three of their four mice to the depths of the dungeon. This actually happened in this game. I'd already used the tile sliding feature to send two of Grandma's mice tumbling to the bottom of the box. Maddie took out her third mouse. At this point the game ended. Grandma couldn't win even though she was leading with two pieces of cheese. The player with the highest total of cheese would then win. As Maddie and I both had one piece of cheese we were tied. In a tie-break situation it is the player who had been waiting longest for their turn that won. As that was me I ended up winning! A very short game but it revealed a new tactic that none of us had previously considered.
Coda - always fun!
Our next game was Coda. This is a fast, fun game of deduction which we always enjoy. We decided to play three games, taking it in turns to be the first player. I was very impressed with Maddie's improving powers of deduction. She almost won the first and second games. Grandma almost won the third game. However, it ended up that I won all three (but only by the slimmest of margins).
Our final game of the morning was another family favourite - Der Schwarze Pirat. In this game each player blows their ship around the board with a rubber bellows to try and enter the bays of islands to claim treasure. Dice are rolled each turn to determine where gold is placed and also how many squeezes of the bellows a player can use on either their own ship or the Black Pirate. There was only one pirate boarding in this game, and that was me boarding Maddie's ship. I only got one gold out of that. All the other times the pirate ship was used as a substitute ship to sail to islands to claim the gold.
Maddie's pink ship sails in search of treasure
Our final game of the morning was another family favourite - Der Schwarze Pirat. In this game each player blows their ship around the board with a rubber bellows to try and enter the bays of islands to claim treasure. Dice are rolled each turn to determine where gold is placed and also how many squeezes of the bellows a player can use on either their own ship or the Black Pirate. There was only one pirate boarding in this game, and that was me boarding Maddie's ship. I only got one gold out of that. All the other times the pirate ship was used as a substitute ship to sail to islands to claim the gold.
Maddie's pink ship sails in search of treasure
Grandma did very well in this game (the wind gods must have been with her) for she went on to take the win with 18 gold. Maddie and I shared second place with 9 gold each.
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