Worker Placement: Game Mechanics 101

To watch Adam's video lesson click here!

Welcome back to game mechanics 101! Today we are talking about worker placement games. I already shared a little about our experience with Agricola in our lesson introduction. It was our first worker placement game and only our second Euro game. It was difficult for us to learn and understand. Now, worker placement games are among our favorites.

Worker placement games are focused around your worker pieces and where you are going to place them. These games have a shared board with limited spaces to place workers. Each space will provide the player with resources or actions that they need to work toward victory.

In Agricola, only one player can be on each space on the board. This means that players can block each other easily. Viticulture has a limited number of slots open per action, but multiple workers can use each one. The number of available slots is dependent on the number of players.

The Manhattan Project has a main board with actions as well. However, the players can also construct their own board of options to play on. This means that not every player will have the same options by the end of the game.

Are Dinosaur Island and Dice hospital worker placement games? We have had a number of discussions about this. They both use workers that are placed on limited spaces, but the spaces are on the players’ individual boards. There is no community board in which the players interact with each other. What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments. Join us next week for tile placement games.

8 Board Game Apps

Board games are expensive! They also take up a lot of space. If you are low on cash and/or space, you may want to check out these 8 board game apps. Some of them are free and some are frequently on sale, so keep an eye out! Also, these are all available on Android. There are many more apps out there. These are our favorites because of game play and cost effectiveness.

Carcassonne

This is a tile placing game of building cities and farms. Carcassonne was our first board game and fittingly our first board game app as well. You can play solo against AI or with multiplayer pass and play.

Onirim

This is a solo card game. It is a puzzle game that can be hard to beat. The basic game is available for free, so it is definitely worth a try.

Onitama

If you like Chess, this is a great game to try. Onitama is similar to chess but with variable movement types . This is another free game to download and play. You can play it solo against an AI or play pass and play with a friend.

Potion Explosion

In Potion Explosion players are collecting ingredients to make potions. Choosing the right ingredient can cause a chain reaction that gives you many more. You can play solo against AI or with multiplayer pass and play.

Lanterns

This is another tile placement game. In this one you are placing lanterns in the water for the lantern festival. The lanterns you collect are used to make dedications for points. This is one of my favorite apps. I like that, in solo mode, there are achievements you can try to attain. It keeps the game play fresh. You can play solo against AI or with multiplayer pass and play.

Castles of Mad King Ludwig

In this one you are trying to build the best castle. The room tiles come randomly and have to be purchased. You can play solo against AI or with multiplayer pass and play. It also has a campaign that you can play in solo mode. It's tough but a fun challenge.

Suburbia

City building games are all the rage and Suburbia is a classic. The app allows play with the original tiles and the new, gorgeous tiles from the very expensive collector's edition. It also has a campaign to play through in solo mode. You can play solo against AI or with multiplayer pass and play.

Kingdom Builder

This is a light game of placing settlements on the board. The game play is simple and easy to learn. Beating the AIs is a tough thing to do though. The game gives many options for game play. You can play solo against AI or with multiplayer pass and play.

Whether you are trying to save some space or some money, or just wanting a game to play at work or on the road, I hope you found a game or a few that you want to try out. Let us know what your favorite board game app is in the comments so there are more loved apps to share!

Board Game Spotlight: Dreams of Tomorrow

Dreams of Tomorrow has spent a lot of time on our table since we brought it home a few weeks ago. I was originally drawn to it because the artwork is just gorgeous. Our 12 year old son has really enjoyed the artwork too. There are a handful of images and sort of duplicates of them. He likes to compare them and see how they change over the series of each picture.

The theme is about constructing dreams to send to the past to save the future. The central focus is a changing rondel. The rondel is not an often used mechanic and the rondel for Dreams of Tomorrow is done very well. Players can activate abilities that allow them to rearrange the spaces in the rondel.

This week we have been potty training our 3 year old. As we cycle through break times for each of us, we have been getting in some solo plays of the game. The solo bot comes in 3 difficulty levels. In all of them, the bot causes changes to the rondel and it is ultimately a race to build the best dream sequence you can as fast as you can. This has got to be my favorite game to play solo as it is fast to set up and play is challenging but not impossible.

Dreams of Tomorrow is easy to set up, easy to learn, and small too. The tiny box holds a lot of game and many options. We haven't even had a chance to play with the night mare yet, maybe after potty training. We have really enjoyed the game and we're looking forward to seeing more from Weird Giraffe Games!

Deck Building: Game Mechanics 101

Today we are talking about deck building. In a deck building game, players will begin with a starter deck of cards. They will add new and better cards to their deck over time. On a turn a player will typically play cards from their hand followed by drawing new cards from their deck. There are a variety of ways deck building is utilized in games.

Dominion was the start of the deck building genre. Players use their cards to gain victory point cards. These victory point cards help the players win, but also make it harder to get the cards they want in their hands. In Thunderstone, players use their cards to venture into the dungeon and fight the monsters within. The monster cards then junk up your hand like in Dominion but are also how you win.

Some deck building games work alongside a board. The Quest for El Dorado is one such game. In El Dorado, players use their cards to move to spaces on the board. It is a race to the finish and no victory points are involved.

Another popular deck building type is combined with cooperative play. The Legendary series and Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle are in this genre. In these games the players work together to defeat the villains. They use their cards to attack the enemies and heal themselves and their teammates.

What is a deck building game you are interested in playing? Let us know in the comments. Join us next week as we learn about worker placement games.

Board Game Spotlight: It's a Wonderful World

It is a wonderful world and this is a delightfully simple game with a lot of depth. At it's core, It's a Wonderful World is a drafting game, like we learned about yesterday in our game mechanics 101 class. It adds in a little bit of resource management and engine building as well. Let me tell you about our first game.

The cards that you draft in the game are duel purpose. You need to choose which ones you will build to gain future resources and points and which you will recycle into immediate resources. Adam was very efficient, building very few cards and gaining oh so many resource cubes each round. I was hyper focused on the points the cards could gain me and had a veritable mound of cards under construction. It would have worked too, if the game wasn't a mere 4 rounds long! Adam nearly doubled my score because I was busy playing the long game in a game that isn't long at all.

It's a Wonderful World is fairly easy to learn. Due to the drafting mechanism, each game will play differently. You will need to work with what you have and remember that it is not a long game.

Have you ever gotten so into a game that you forgot that it would be ending soon? I would love to hear your story! Share in the comments.

Drafting: Game Mechanics 101

Welcome to our first mechanic, drafting. Drafting is the core mechanic in many games. It can also be found in many games as a side mechanic or as a variant.

In a drafting game, the players have a hand of cards or items. They make a selection and pass the rest to the next player. Now, they will make a selection from their new hand and pass again. Play continues till the hand is drained, often with the last item being discarded.

7 Wonders and Sushi Go are card drafting games that combing drafting with set collection. The more cards you have that work together, the higher your score will be. Fields of Green is also a card drafting game but instead of collecting sets you are building a functioning farm with your card selections.

Between Two Cities has players drafting tiles instead of cards. The tiles chosen will be used to construct a city with the person sitting next to you. In this game your drafting choices affect your partners as well. Draftosaurus is another drafting game that does not use cards. Players draft from a handful of wooden dinosaur meeples (meeples are the shaped wooden pawns in a game). This game brings back the set collection aspect of some of the card games.

Drafting games can be difficult for inexperienced players to understand since they are not familiar with the cards or items available and how they interact. It is worth the effort to learn and play though. What has your experience with drafting games been like. Share your stories in the comments! Next week we will be discussing deck building games.

World War II: A 7 Week Unit Study FREEBIE

Since we firmly believe in the importance of studying World War II, we are providing this unit for free. This unit study covers language arts, history, science, math, and art. You will be doing a variety of hands on activities as you work your way through World War II for kids. You will be reading a book about the Holocaust, watching some great videos, and playing through a campaign of Undaunted Normandy. It is geared toward grades 5, 6, 7, and 8  but can be adjusted for higher or lower grades.

You can find this unit on our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/33735782. 
If you like our blog or want to access more of our unit studies, become a patron!

3 Games for Studying World War II

Today we are sharing 3 games for studying world war II. It can be a tricky topic to cover given some of the atrocities that occurred during that time. It is so important to learn about though. Each year brings the war further from memory and that increases the likelihood that history will repeat itself. So, study this topic! To help, tomorrow we will bring you a free unit study curriculum for world war II. In the mean time, here are our 3 games.

Undaunted Normandy

This is a 2 player deck building game in which you will be playing through battles that occurred at Normandy. The game contains a book of scenarios to play through. Each scenario is a separate battle between the Germans and Allies. The cards available to build your deck with are based on what was actually available to each side in that real life battle. It is an immersive war game that is very accessible. It is also the board game that will be in our board game based unit study tomorrow.

Captain Sonar

U-boats were a big part of the war and this game simulates that experience. Captain Sonar can be played with 2-8 players. Each team has 4 roles to fill. The captain will be navigating the sub through the waters. The first mate readies systems so the captain can fire missiles or use sonar. The engineer will be trying to keep the sub from breaking down. Lastly, is the radar operator, who will be tracking the movements of the other team and trying to pin down their location. It can be played turn by turn or in real time. Real time has teams playing constantly, is chaotic, but also more realistic. There is also a family version that is great for 2-4 players.

Secret Hitler

This game has had a bit of controversy around it. It is such a good game though, for play and especially for learning. We have never played a game of Secret Hitler without explaining the election that brought him to power. Most people we have played with have questioned our playing it. After discussion about how Hitler gained power in the first place, everyone wants to see if they would have elected him too. We would all like to think that we wouldn’t have, but this game helps us remember that we are looking at the situation with 20/20 hindsight. If we want to prevent a future “Hitler”, it is important to know how the first one gained power. There is also a free print and play edition available here: https://www.secrethitler.com/.

There are so many games about WWII. Which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

Why Learn Game Mechanics? Game Mechanics 101

Welcome to game mechanics 101! Today, we are going to talk about the "why" of game mechanics. Why is this something to even know about? We have a few reasons for you to think about before we dive into the first mechanic next week.

Learning New Games
Has this ever happened to you? You open a new game, look at the rule book, and are immediately daunted by its size. When you start at square one, the rules can be long and confusing. Years ago, it took us hours to figure out how to play Agricola before we discovered a how to play online. How to play videos are life savers in learning a game.  Now that we have played Agricola, we pick up worker placement games very easily. They function in very similar ways and knowing the mechanic has given us a head start on learning.

Game Descriptions
Let's stick with our Agricola example. When people ask me what kind of game Agricola is, I tell them it is a worker placement game about farming. I have the vocabulary to give a short, concise description. It also helps when choosing new games. We know that if a game says it is a worker placement game, there is a good chance we will enjoy it because we have liked others in that genre. Our family doesn't really enjoy bluffing games though, so we tend to avoid those.

Designing Games
If you are interested in game design, you should be trying as many game mechanics as possible. A limited exposure to games gives you a limited number of ideas to draw from. The more mechanics you know, the more variety you can put in your designs.

Are you looking forward to learning some game mechanics? Leave us a comment about mechanics you love and some you want to learn more about! Also, join us next week for our first mechanic, drafting.

9 Board Games to Supplement Sonlight Grades 3-4 Curriculum

Gameschooling takes many forms. For some, games are the curriculum. For others, it is an intentional supplement to bring their studies to life. Today we are sharing 9 games that that can supplement your Sonlight grades 3-4 curriculum. The curriculum packs are D and E. We are not suggesting you add all of these games to your collection, but if you find 1-2 that you want to add to your school day, great! Have fun with whichever game(s) you choose.

Discoveries: the Journals of Lewis and Clark

This game is about the creation of the nature journals that Lewis and Clark made over the course of their trip. Players use dice to complete portions of the journey. This allows them to add the portion to their journal. The art in the game is beautiful as well.

Mobi

If you have played Bananagrams, this is basically the same game with math. Players create what is basically a crossword puzzle of math equations with the number tiles that they have. It is a great game for practicing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Since the function of the equation is chosen by the players, kids can choose what they are comfortable with or parents can encourage playing with newly acquired skills.

Karuba

Karuba bring the players into the jungles of the Americas. They will be searching for hidden temples and the treasures within. It is a tile placement puzzle game. The tiles are used to cut paths through the jungle to reach the temples.

Catan Geographies

These are scenario sheets that require the normal version of the game to play. They feature various regions of the USA. The sheets have pre made tiles and numbers on it as well as facts about the region. Even the basic game can be great as your students learn about colonization and natural resources.

Timeline Americana
Timeline is a very simple game to play. Players take turns trying to fit their events I to the timeline. Repeated play will help bring the dates and events into the students' memories.

Agricola
This game is about farming. It would be a perfect addition to learning about settling the west, as many were farmers. It is a worker placement game. Players will be growing crops, raising livestock, and growing a family as well.

Planetarium

This space game has players take a hand in developing planets. The features of the planet's will be dependent on the resources they find as the planets orbit. The art was made in cooperation with NASA and is just stunning. The cards also have facts about the features they add to the planet.

Whistle Stop
This is a train game. Players are adding tracks to the board and moving their trains toward their goal. The tracks are like a maze, making it hard to work your way across the board. With trains being a big part of western expansion, this game is a fun supplement.

Bang! The Dice Game
The wild west was a bit crazy. In this game players take on various roles in an old west showdown. It does require 3 players. It is a quick dice rolling game. If you can play Yatzee, you can play this and probably have more fun doing it.

Writing Prompts for Bananagrams

Periodically we post writing prompts based on board games for our patrons on Patreon. This week our prompts are for Bananagrams. It is a great way to bring a bit of language arts to your gaming and draw out the learning from the fun. If you want to add writing prompts to your gameschool day, consider becoming a patron. It supports our blog and patrons at any level gain access to writing prompts and board game based unit studies on our Patreon page.

Is there a particular game you would like to see prompts for? Let us know in the comments below!

Become a patron here: https://www.patreon.com/gameschooling

3 Games for Studying Fairy Tales

Today's 3 games video is all about fairy tales! Fairy tales are a wonderfully enjoyable topic to cover. They give great insight about the values of the culture them come from. So, here are our 3 suggestions.

Gingerbread House

In this game you are the witch from Hansel and Gretel. Fairy tale creatures keep coming and eating your gingerbread house and you are tired of it. You are going to lure them in and trap them so you can build your house in peace. It is great to talk about the characters that come up. What story are they from? Are they from a fairy tale or a movie? It's a fun puzzle game filled with fairy tale people and creatures.

Similo Fables

Similo is a quick cooperative deduction game. One person gives clues to help the other players guess which of 12 cards is the fairy tale creature that has been selected. This is a super small game as it is a deck of cards. Similo History is also available if you like the concept but not the theme.

Fairy Tale

It is a fun game of drafting and set collection with fairies, knights, and dragons. The cards interact with each other making for big bonuses at the end of the game.

Which fairy tale is your favorite? What fairy tale based games do you like? Share your favorites in the comments!

Coming Soon: Game Mechanics 101

We will be launching this video series in February. You will find it on our YouTube channel on Thursdays and will, of course, share them here and on our social media pages. There are so many reasons why it is good to learn about game mechanics, and we will share them in our introductory video. This is going to be great for your young game crafters and anyone wanting to learn games a little more quickly.

8 Games to Supplement Sonlight K-2 Curriculum

Gameschooling takes many forms. For some, games are the curriculum. For others, it is an intentional supplement to bring their studies to life. Today we are sharing 8 games that that can supplement your Sonlight K-2 curriculum. The curriculum packs are A-C. These games are going to be great for all 3 years and so will give you more bang for your buck. We are not suggesting you add all of these games to your collection. If you find 1-2 that you want to add to your school day, great! Have fun with whichever game(s) you choose.

Similo History
Similo History is a cooperative deduction game with cards. One player gives clues to the others to help them guess which historical person on the board is the selected card. It has historical characters from ancient Egypt to Marie Curie. It is a short game and can add a touch of overall history.

Cardline Animals
Cardline is another small, quick card game. In this one, you each have a hand of animals and you are trying to place them in order in the center of the table. You can order them by height, weight, or lifespan. It is a versatile game and we play it with our 3 and 12 year old often because they both love it.

Kingdom Builder
This is a game about building your kingdom. You are placing settlements in the terrain type your card shows. The goal is to build near castles and accomplish various goals that change each game. The game is simple enough for younger kids and can be modified easily if needed. It has been a hit with everyone I have played it with from small children to elderly seniors.

The Quest for El Dorado
El Dorado is a deck building game. Each person has their own deck of cards that they play through and add to. The cards allow players to traverse the map of the jungle in a race to find the lost city of gold. This one is simple but with great depth.

Imhotep Duel
This game uses a tic-tac-toe type placement to acquire pieces to build monuments and pyramids. It is very easy to pick up and works well with any level of gaming experience. This one is for 2 players and is actually on our "to buy" list. We played it at our local game store and just love it!

Word on the Street Jr.
This is a team word game. Each team will get a topic and need to come up with a word to go with it. The letters in their word will move toward them till they get far enough to be claimed. It is like a letter tug of war. The jr. edition includes all of the letters, which will help early readers and spellers. You can also make your own topic cards based on what you are currently learning.

Carcassonne
This is a board game classic! The players place a tile each turn to build medieval cities, paths, cloisters, and farm land. At the end of the game, the table looks like an old map. It looks different every time. This was our first modern board game and it is still in our collection.

Planet
Planet is a very light game of planet construction. Each person has a 3 dimensional planet that they add terrain tiles to. The goal is to gain animals for their planet based on what terrain they like.

So, those are our 8 games. We are planning on sharing picks for other years of Sonlight curriculum as well. Is there a curriculum that you would like us to give suggestions for? Let us know in the comments below. You could also keep the conversation going by sharing some of the games you have used with Sonlight k-2. Our list is by no means exhaustive after all!

3 Games for Spelling and Vocabulary

3 Games for Studying Infrastructure

3 Games That Can be Adapted for 2-3 Year-olds

3 Games for Studying World Culture

3 Games for Studying World Geography

3 Games for Studying Animals