ScottVee Gaming

Also in our thrift shop haul was this cute Animal Rummy game of "Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals" from F.X.Schmid of Germany, circa 1980.  You can probably find a game like this in any gift shop in any zoo.  And the tradition goes back to the old (c.1900) topical matching games of Authors or Cities, et cetera. The idea here is that there are 32 cards in 8 sets of 4.  It's meant for more than two players, and you take turns asking for a card you need until all your cards are in full sets of 4 and you go out, rummy style.  I did try showing that version to Anne, but when I dealt the cards there were only 30, so even the basic dull game of asking for cards (a Go Fish variant) couldn't be played.  And the reason you need more than two players is because with just two players you know what cards you need and what cards the other player needs. I tried adding a rule where you can't ask for a specific card, only for a number, but it was still too obvious who had which...

Another thrift store find up in Riverside.  This was in that basket of bundled-up vintage games, and I already knew what it was going to be.  It's just the old kid's game of Greedy Dice or Piggy Dice, but somehow it got sold to Milton Bradley with a guy's name boldly on the package as if he had invented the idea. The one difference is that in the royalty free game we counted the ones as the bad rolls, here they made custom dice with pig icons where the ones should be.  Here's the game: roll 3 dice as many times as you want on your turn and score all those points, but if you roll a piggy you score zero and your turn is over.  If you roll two piggies, your score for the entire game is negated, you start over at zero points. First player to 100 wins.  We ran through a game, then Anne said we should just play to 200 instead of starting over, but that's a mixed decision because it means the stakes are higher: those two piggies can now cost you well over 100 points. T...

Here is another game from Paladone Games, also a 50-cent thrift store find.  There are two sets of cards here: the Find cards and the It cards.  Players take turns taking one of each card and putting them together to get combinations like Find "The most easily stackable ..." and It "... thing that is second hand."  Then the rules say all players must "find an item that best matches" that combination.   Do they mean playes have one minute to run around the house looking for potato chips and car keys, only to have the active player judge which one is better?  Or can we look around the room and name things without making a giant heap of things on the table?  I don't get what they mean here. If you win the hand, you keep the It card and put the other card back in the pile.  5 cards wins the game.  2 or more players, age 8 and up.  Odd. Mango the Cat wanted in on the action, so we let him pose with some cards that almost fit him. Found it!

Game Over by Paladone Games was a 50 cent find at a thrift shop.  I thought the overall look was cute, a set of bold graphics reminiscent of Minecraft.  It says 2-4 players Age 8+, and would probably be fun for 3 or 4, sure.  It's not much for 2 players to do.  You deal out all the cards and then throw away pairs until you have none left.  There is one Game Over card in the deck, and if you're the last player holding it, you lose, that's all. So after throwing out our pairs, we each had 4 or 5 cards left.  Each player holds up their hand facing themselves and the player on their left picks a card at random, then throws down a pair if they have one.  So each actual "hand" is just throwing out pairs then 3 or 4 draws from the other player's hand.  And with 2 players, if you don't have the Game Over card, you know who does.  No real mystery to it. 

"Mathological Liar" is a great turn of phrase, and a catchy name for a card game.  I was wondering how one could make a mystery-solving game that's also a test of Grad 6 math skills.  The answer is, it's part game and part puzzle and not really fun either way.  Probably good for active math students, of course. The idea is that their are 50 cases to solve, each with 4 cards.  All 4 cards have the same story/case on the front.  The backsides have witnesses giving their answers to being questioned about the events, and whoever has an answer where the math is incorrect is the "mathological liar", so, if the math is wrong they must be lying, which makes them the guilty party. I suppose the challenge is in the social aspect: you read your character's answer and analyze whether you think they are innocent or guilty, and use actual math skills to backup your verdict.  You get some number of points for your reasoning. The copy I got was missing the directions....

For my birthday weekend we got a hotel room in Riverside, CA and spent a few days exploring the area.  It turns out we were right downtown near the Convention Center, and there was so much within walking distance of the hotel it was crazy.  But we did drive a bit on Saturday to check out some thrift shops across town, including the Foster Army Pet Adoption shop and the Assistance League Thrift Shop a block away.  Both were well stocked with games.  The Foster Army shop had some pets in the back room ready for adoption, and a huge craft supply section with at least 100 rubber stamps, batches of stickers, crafting papers, and such.   For games, the find of the day was National Geographic Global Pursuit like new for $1.  That was a big game I used to have but I gave away some years ago.  Followed by some 50 cent games: Big Fish Little Fish, Game Over, Find It, a deck of dinosaur matching cards and some old cards from the San Diego Zoo. And from another s...