Get EOFY Your Butt and Buy Some Boardgames!
With the end of financial year just around the corner, major retailers are reigning down sales upon hapless parents in a bid to fill their lay-buy storage areas well before Christmas. As a dedicated board and card game shill enthusiast, I’ve taken it upon myself to recommend a few of the more easily obtainable titles during this window that should ideally bring joy to the winners and…. the drive to play again for the non-winners? A few classics and a few more recent releases mean there is something for almost everyone here!
CATAN 6th Edition
The grandaddy of German games and without a doubt the most iconic boardgame of the modern era is back, sporting vibrant refreshed artwork, streamlined components including a new tile tray and improved storage for expansions alongside refined rules for improved gameplay. Catan 6th Edition stays true to the original’s spirit of trading, building, and settling, while enhancing the overall experience for both new and veteran players. As with many of the best German euros of old, Catan remains great for families with 6th Edition now the perfect way to discover or rediscover the boardgame that changed the shape of the hobby for decades to come. There are also plenty of 6th Edition expansions available right now including Seafarers, Cities & Knights with more on the way. Catan 6th Edition is available to purchase at JB HiFI for $64.98, as well Amazon AU, Kmart and any toy and boardgame stores worth their salt.
6 nimmt!
A perennial favourite, 6 nimmt has just celebrated its 30th anniversary and hasn’t lost any lustre. Playing up to 10, it combines some sound mathematically based reasoning with good old fashioned, totally BS luck which tend to make up some of the most exciting moments in large group boardgaming. The game itself gets wilder the more players you add with the full count of 10 seeing swings of fortune multiple times in a round. While it may take a round or two for some players to wrap their heads around, even the sorest loser is keen for a second chance at victory in 6 nimmt! You can pick this gem up from Amazon AU for the bargain price of $14.
Wavelength
Wavelength comes from the incredible Wolfgang Warsch (The Mind, Clever series, Quacks of Quedlinburg) alongside the team at CMYK (Spots, The Fuzzies, Monikers), one of the most exciting new publishers around. Wavelength is a social guessing game that will make a successful team feel like they have telepathic powers. Teams alternate turns, rotating a special dial to guess the hidden location of a bullseye. For each turn, one teammate acts as the Psychic who knows where the bullseye is, drawing a card that gives two extremes of a ranged category like Quiet Place – Loud Place. The Psychic then gives a conceptual clue to their team, indicating they believe the bullseye lies between the two extremes before the team then must take a guess as to where on the spectrum dial the truth lies. Supporting up to 12 players, Wavelength is great for groups of family and friends of all ages. It’s available to buy now at Big W and Amazon AU for $39 alongside many other toy and game retailers.
No Thanks!
While the box itself may not look like much, No Thanks! is a modern classic that plays up to 7 and always elicits a ‘One more game!’ response from any new players I introduce it to. The premise is simple, with players passing around a single card from the deck and deciding if they’d like to take it or say No Thanks! and pass it on to the next player. The catch is, every pass costs you a chit placed onto the card, and these are limited – the only way to get more chits is to take cards others have passed on. High numbers are bad, and low numbers are good in No Thanks!, so when the 35 card – the highest in the deck – is being passed around, it can end up with a lot of chits on it. Watching people greedily calculate whether it’s worth the hit is a blast, as is the moment when someone is out of chits and has no choice but to take the card in front of them. Short and sharp, No Thanks! should be on every gamers shelf. No Thanks! is available to buy from a range of dedicated game stores.
Flip7
What the flip? It’s that simple – just flip over cards one by one without flipping the same number twice. Sounds easy? Think again! This isn’t just any deck of cards… In Flip 7 there’s only one 1 card, two 2’s, three 3’s, etc plus special cards that can score you extra points, give you a second chance draw, or freeze you or your opponents in your tracks. Will you bank your points before you bust, or risk it all for the bonus points by flipping over seven in a row? It’s this question that leads to cheers of joy and groans of sorrow during every game of Flip7, when someone gets greedy and gambles too freely. Push-your-luck and light strategy combine in Flip7, self-appointed as “the greatest card game of all time!” Flip7 is available for $26.98 from JB HiFi as well as Amazon AU, Kmart and many other retailers.
You Can’t Say Umm
YCSU is a team-based game from Big Potato for 4-10 players. Each round involves a player from a team taking a green A and B card (A being an adjective, B being a noun) while the opposing team grabs a sand timer and bell. The player holding the cards is the Speaker, who must describe what their A and B cards say without using either word until their team members state the phrase in correct order OR the 45 second timer runs out. Sounds easy enough, but the catch is that whenever the opposing team catches the Speaker saying “Umm”, “Ahh” or any other variant of this, they can ring the bell and give themselves a point. When a team reaches the 5, 10 and 15 point milestones, they reveal one of their secret rule cards which can be absolutely devastating – “You must mime the A card”, “You can’t say words that begin with E”, “You have to maintain eye contact with a team member while speaking” and so on. The final section of the score board is the ‘Danger Zone’ – once entered, no member of the team can say “Umm”, “Ahh” etc. without giving a point to the opposing team. YCSU is one of the better party games I’ve played in recent years and works equally well with strangers as it does with close friends. You Can’t Say Umm is available to buy now at Target but be quick – it looks to be between print runs right now!
That Sound Game
Designed Down Under in Melbourne, That Sound Game is a fast paced, interactive and very noisy party game where teams have only one minute to guess as many answers as they can from one of the five randomly selected piles of category cards performed by their Soundmaster. The Soundmaster can use any combination of sounds (not words!) and movements, but their hands must be behind their back while performing. Lifeline cards allow teams to Uncuff their Soundmaster, letting them use their hands for that round or Steal an answer from another team, a great strategic move when a high value point card is on the line – but be careful, as each team can only use their Lifelines once. Failing or passing cards, Uncuffing without using the Uncuff card or breaking the rules in any other way awards the opposing team a point! That Sound Game is available in both a Standard and Family edition direct from Thatsoundgame.com as well as Amazon AU, Kmart and other toy and game retailers.
Bohnanza
Beans may not be the most exciting theme you’ve ever heard of for a card game, but Bohnanza defies such assumptions. From famed designer Uwe Rosenberg, 3-5 players (or up to 7 depending on the edition you purchase) will plant, harvest and trade beans ruthlessly to make the most money before the draw deck runs out a third time. Presumably inspiring such other excellent card games as Scout and Wind the Film!, Bohnanza prevents players from rearranging their cards in hand at any time – new bean cards always go at the back, and bean cards must be always planted from the front every round. Fields can only contain a single type of bean and with only two fields to work with, players will be trading furiously from the get-go to maximise their profits rather than strip their fields prematurely because higher yields equal higher dollarydoos. Desperately pleading for others to take the useless beans you just drew before they ruin your future as a bean farming magnate has never been so fun! Buy Bohnanza from this Amazon Affiliate link and give Player2 some support!
What do you think about our choices? Let us know on BlueSky if you have any suggestions for the P2 team to get to the table!
