Happy (almost) New Year! We’re back to doing “regular” shows after our PAXU blitz, and it feels good.

Games Given and Received for Christmas:

IceCOOL (which we had before we received IceCOOL2 from Brain Games for review! Argh!)

Mole Rats in Space – a nice cooperative game from Peaceable Kingdom. Draw cards that determine what you’re allowed to do on your turn. Not a lot of room for error, which makes for a good cooperative game. We found it a little easy, but there are additional challenges we’re looking forward to trying.

Lots of EXIT and Unlock! boxes.

Cosmic Run Regeneration – we mentioned this when we talked to Dr. Finn’s Games at PAX Unplugged.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (for Nintendo Switch) – had a great time playing this on Christmas Day with most of the extended family.

LEGO Incredibles (also for our Switch)

Kinect RUSH – to replace the old version for the Xbox 360 that our kids liked but had a really tough time with (due to buggy 360 Kinect implementation)

Andrew’s favorite moment was making his sister cry. The whole family pooled our money to buy her a nice 3D printer.

What We’ve Been Playing:

Smallworld – we can see why this is a classic example of an area-control game. We ended up only playing 4 rounds because it ran very long, but we’re willing to try it again.

Kingdomino – Anitra played this with our youngest. So cute. Not really about keeping score, but it’s interesting that understanding the strategy does not require understanding the math.

Jumanji – we played this after watching the original movie (which holds up surprisingly well! We love Robin Williams). It’s not a great game, but we played semi-cooperatively, as the game was intended, and had a decent time with it. (Don’t play it as a take-that game! Flip The Table tried that and most of the players ended up miserable.)

Movie Time (a Slight Digression)

We watched A Wrinkle in Time. It was a fantastic theatrical spectacle, but it wasn’t a good representation of the book. There were a lot of decisions that didn’t make sense and took away from the cohesion of the story told in the book. The kid who played Charles Wallace did a wonderful job, though.

If you want a movie spectacle… watch Mary Poppins Returns! This was a lot of fun. Emily Blunt was fantastic.

Back to the Games!

Potions Class – a cute little game from Button Shy which we’ll review soon. Not a favorite, but a decent ultra-portable game for two players.

Ticket to Ride New York – we picked this up right before Christmas. We played with the grandparents and Asher. Anitra says it felt very much like the original Ticket to Ride, but shorter. Andrew got destination tickets that were unobtainable and spoiled his experience. We don’t know yet whether that was a fluke or a normal problem in the game. The components (taxi cars and board) did feel rather cheap, but on the other hand, it’s a cheap game.

Dinosaur Tea Party – another one played with the grandparents. It brought non-gamer stepmom out of her shell; by the end of the game she was asking questions and using funny accents like everyone else. Something to add to Nick’s review: this is a tough game to approach for a player that gets sensory overload, because there is SO MUCH to look for. Eventually, you can learn what to look for and what to ignore, but that’s a learning process.

Get the MacGuffin – a light silly game from Looney Labs. A fun 5-minute filler that works well anywhere from 2 players...