Gateway Games for Kids: GUBS

How do you transition a kid from the simple (but unchallenging) children's games like Candyland to something a little more substantial that the whole family can enjoy? I think I stumbled on to a great gateway game, completely by chance.

My son just turned five, and because we play a lot of games in our house he's acquired a decent collection of children's games. Candyland was great when he was two to teach him the concept of a game, and while he was thrilled with Chicken Cha Cha Cha and Curious George Hide and Seek Zoo, they didn't quite have the tactical complexity I look for in a game.

During our recent pack and move we unearthed a mint copy of Gubs, a game I had picked up from Barnes and Noble the previous Christmas for about 10 bucks and kept on hand as a back-up present in case we needed to fill out a visitor's stocking or provide an impromptu gift. With most of his toys and games packed up, we decided to give Gubs a try, hoping to eek out even 30 minutes of entertainment from it. I was surprised to find that it turned out to be a great little game and taught some important concepts I know we'll be able to build on in the future. A complete review of this little gem after the jump.

I won't go through a complete run down of the rules (they are available online), but in short, each player receives a hand and draws from a common deck of cards. On their turn they may play one or more Gub creatures from their hand or play cards that protect, steal, kill or otherwise alter the Gubs currently in play. There are three letter cards ("G", "U", and "B") in the deck that are played immediately when drawn. Once all three letters are out of the deck the game is over and players score one point for each Gub they currently control. This doesn't sound too revolutionary, so why was I so taken with it?

• Theme: The Gubs are tiny creatures that ride toads and take shelter under toadstools. The whimsical illustrations, silly card names, and diminutive characters were all accessible for the kids and adults. A game with identical mechanics but featuring German Pak40s and Sherman M4s just wouldn't have engaged everyone playing. The cute characters also indicated that this wasn't a game to take seriously, short circuiting some of the poor sportsmanship I expected from a competitive game.
• Tactical Choice: You need to play Gubs on to the table so that once the game ends you can score points, but playing Gubs leave them vulnerable to being stolen or removed from play by the other players. In many children's games I find that the game almost plays itself. The child spins a spinner or rolls a die and carries out the action. If there is a choice it's typically confined to the child's turn. In Gubs, you can plan several rounds in advance, holding your creatures back until you have the cards to protect them, or planning an ambush where you destroy your opponents defensive cards and sweep all of his Gubs with a lure. Did you read that? This is a game you can play with a five year old and you can teach them to set up ambushes. Ambushes!
• Reaction: There are a number of cards that allow you to cancel a card just drawn from the deck or played by an opponent. I recognized the same mechanic used in the now venerable Magic: The Gathering, but it also ties into the same types of decisions made when conducting opportunity fire in a wargame, or leaving some of your forces in reserve to react to an opponent's thrust.

Now don't get me wrong, Gubs is not a deep, strategic knife fight in card form. It's a light game, a bit of fun to pass the time while dinner is cooking, but I think it sets up a number of important concepts for kids, and it's fun to boot. I know my son loves playing, and has continued to ask to play regularly since we first tried the game a month ago. My wife took it to school to give her high school students something to do on the last few days before summer vacation and they enjoyed it so much they asked to borrow it to take to their classes and lunch throughout the day. I've found Gubs has proven to be a fun little game new or non-gamers enjoy.

New Year, Old Games

Games were a big part of college for me. With hours to fill, often snowed in or without transportation off campus, and before the internet was anything more than some ASCII interfaces and screeching modems we spent a lot of time after class dealing cards and rolling dice. When I got to school I found a deeply houseruled local version of "Spades" was the lingua franca across campus. Everyone I met at school either played or quickly learned just to be able to fit in. A few months later another card game showed up in our dorm, but to a crowd that was already accustomed to playing cards late into the night, "Magic: The Gathering" was not alien, just novel. Nobody had heard of it, but "flat crack" spread like a wildfire across my dorm, all before the stigma of Magic players being a bunch of neckbeards and cat piss men had laid hold of CCGs. Everyone I knew played: the brogrammers, the former marine, the coke dealer, the usual assortment of geeks and nerds, and my roommate the Insomniac.

Eventually we all got burned out on Magic after sinking to much money into preorders of an awful expansion. Packing away our cards we looked to new diversions. I veered off towards the geekier side of RPGs and Battletech, while my insomniac roommate pulled some of his old boardgames from storage, the most popular proving to be "Axis & Allies". It's a classic, and I'm sure you've played, but briefly it was one of the big box games released by Milton Bradley during the 80s allowing up to five players to play out World War II at a grand strategic level. It's fairly simple compared to the hex and chit or block wargames but to college kids who didn't even know such things existed A&A was a titan that frightened off lesser players by the sheer size and scope of the rules, the huge board and the thousands upon thousands of tiny plastic men, tanks, planes and ships. We played it a lot, but after graduating real life responsibilities gradually encroached, curtailing our ability to get five people together and play massive 5 hour long boardgames. I still stay in touch with the Insomniac, who's been trying to schedule another Axis game for a few months in vain, but it was his wife who managed to rope enough of us together to play this year on New Year's day. What a gal!

The New Year's Game

We drew straws and I wound up with Germany, the one nation I had never played in Axis. I faced off against frequent opponent Mike in Russia. Scrambling for a plan, I attacked too cautiously in the first round, perhaps the worst mistake you can make with Germany during the early blitzkrieg years. Oops! I managed to recover and threw the bulk of my strength into an attack on Karelia, seizing it and leaving the Russians bloodied and falling back to protect Moscow. In Africa, my panzers routed the brits and were poised for an attack into Syria. In the east, the Japanese had a field day, destroying the U.S Pacific fleet and securing the ocean for themselves before running rampant across Asia. Of course, I had to take a pic of our victories which only seemed to rub salt in the Allies wounds.

Panzers and Luftwaffe ready to descend on Moscow.

Germany demilitarized.
"Hey! Hey dude, take a picture of THAT!
Where's your Instagram now?"

My fortunes began to reverse over the next few turns when the Brits dropped an industrial complex in South Africa, the Russian transport I had failed to knock out dropped a tank off in west africa, and the U.S. turned her entire attention to building a European invasion force. I continued to attack, but quickly the Allies began landing multiple amphibious assaults into France. I struggled to hold on as the Japanese army overran Asia and began to mass tanks just south of Moscow, but after the "Battle of the North Sea" (I sent four fighters to take out six, virtually unguarded transports. I knocked out one, but all of my fighters were shot down by TRANSPORTS), it was clear Germany's offensive was done. The 6th Army could only watch in horror as the Allies overran the depleted rear guard in Berlin. As part of Germany's reparations, they were forced to take a photo of their defeat. Sadness.


Still, what a fun game. I'm a little wary of playing these large strategic WWII games anymore out of fear of simply seeing history repeat itself. Luckily in this play through things went pretty bonkers. Russians in Africa, Japanese threatening the Middle East, the Pacific ceded to the Rising Sun. It's nice when a game I've played dozens of times with the same guys can still offer a surprise. Hope your New Year was as full of gaming shenanigans too!

Lord of the Rings Living Card Game

With my wife's work schedule clearing up now that school's wrapping up for Summer, I thought we'd have time for a week-night two player game, but I didn't want to deal with the time investment of a true wargame. I picked up Fantasy Flight's Lord Of The Rings: The Card Gameafter reading a bunch of good reviews and watching the demo on "Watch it Played". We've played a few games, and I've really enjoyed it.

Gimli in a life-or-death struggle.

It's fairly complex initially, and seeing the explanation on Watch it Played was a huge help. Briefly, each player starts with a deck of cards representing three heroes from the Lord of the Rings saga, as well as allies, events and equipment to help them in their adventures. Players can customize their decks using the cards in the initial box set, as well as expansions that area released monthly.


Before play, the players pick a scenario and construct an adversary deck with unique creatures, events, locations and goals. During play, the adversary deck will generate an ever growing threat of creatures, nefarious locations and the treachery of the Enemy. The players need to balance a number of potential actions between reducing the growing threat of the Enemy, questing to complete scenario objectives, and attacking and defending against monsters who have grown bold enough to actually engage the heroes in combat.

There never seems to be enough resources to handle everything, and you can never do quite as much as you'd like each round. This game is tough, but in a good way. Players have challenging decisions to make, and the end game can be a real nail biter.  There's also enough "narrative backbone" to envision what could be going on during play, instead of all the cards and effects being completely abstract.

We jumped on the LotR LCG train fairly late, and I have no idea how many expansions we'll pick up, but for now we're really enjoying it.

Colosseum

Worked on a few wargames projects this weekend but not enough progress to show.  I did get in a game of Colosseum though, our first play of it even though I've had it for a few years.  It was fun, though there are a lot of fiddly bits to the rules that will take a while to master.

Crummy iPhone pic. 

Set in ancient Rome, each player  attempts to draw the largest crowd to the events they put on in their arena.  You acquire gladiators, chariots, thespians and more and combine them into a variety of "shows", the more extravagant the better. There are also bits about attracting senators and the emperor, making improvements to your amphitheater and bidding against the other players to acquire the best stable of performers. Play felt a little bit like Pirate's Cove, and I can bet we'll give it another shot some time.