Game Hunting in Julian

I ran a strategy game in my head to guess if there is any good time to drive up to Julian (CA) where it would not completely swarming with people.  Before Labor Day weekend, I had a Thursday appointment at the DMV so I took Thursday & Friday off.  In my head, I figured a friday morning would be the right time for that Julian trip.

It worked out perfectly.  Half the shops didn't open until 11am, so 10 o'clock on a friday was optimal: there were barely a dozen people walking around town.

There were tons of games tucked into different shops.  Julian Mercantile had a big game section upstairs and then a huge back room with some really fun themed booths with even more games.  



After lunch we went to the actual game shop next door: Julian's Toy Shop.  This had a big selection of classic board games, card games, puzzles and toys.  We already owned almost every one of these games, at least some version of them.  The only thing I could find that I had not seen before was a Mah Jongg card game.  We also grabbed a basic deck of cards for our hotel room, with some Kawaii characters to match the Super Kawaii Pets game that we like so much.

From there, we went down the side street to the California Wolf Center, vaguely remembering that they had a few wildlife-based games.  They have a nice relaxed feel, with a lot of educational items about wolves and other wild things, as well as a little museum in the back with skulls, walls of animals facts and a big TV with videos about their wolf rescues.  Sure enough, we grabbed a wild animal Monopoly.

On the way back down to Ramona, we stopped at Wynola Junction.  It's a favorite spot that looks like a forgettable little roadside shop, but it's so much bigger on the inside: room after room of antiques and other goods.  I always forget how big it is, with even more buildings out back, and Wynola Pizza across the street.  We found the little board game section but there was nothing that caught my eye except for a Grumpy Cat book that we just had to have.  Then we headed out back to look for the goats, and the shop cats came to keep us company.  There was a separate building called "Trains and Toys" with a train set outside, but it was not open. 

 

It was a fun day of looking for things, getting exercise, and taking a lot of photos.  So many of the games we saw today were ones we had tried, were not thrilled by, and donated.  It's an expensive hobby, right?

We are trying to be a lot more selective when it comes to the games we buy, since we don't have a lot of space or money.  We just enjoy trying new games.  Here was our final selection, back at the hotel:




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Idle Planet Miner: Selling Your Galaxy

Image
Back in Idle Planet Miner, production was starting to bog down, with crafts taking an hour apiece, and sometimes needing hundreds of items to unlock new research.  So, I figured it would be a good time to test out their "Sell Your Planet" feature, which has so many people online asking questions. These idle games can't level up through an infinite many items, so they all have this same kind of game reset mechanism.  In Idle Planet Miner, the Sell Galaxy button shows you the value of your galaxy and how many credits you will get for it.  These credits are a kind of meta currency, letting you buy new rooms for your ships, with each new room offering a different game boost.  Clicking the Sell button will show you exactly what you will lose: all planets, cash, ores, alloys, items, research.  Which sounds terrible.  But you get to keep your dark matter, your managers, your beacon buffs (though you will have to research the Beacon again to get it back on screen),...
Read more

Cat-astrophe

Image
We were looking forward to getting Catastrophe -- we were watching old videos of Lil' Bub, even the documentary Lil' Bub & Friends, and then got a ping from Lil' Bub's human about this new game with a tribute to Lil' Bub.  Had to have one.   The box opening was fine.  There's a gorgeous full-sized full-color booklet about famous video cats, including a whole page about Bub.  The cards had those famous cats, and other characters.  A lovely production.  They clearly loved these cats. But then, the gameplay was essentially about sending cats to their doom.  Spending their nine lives, and trying to avoid the Grim Reapurr, to be exact.  That would have been okay, pushing other cats down the tower so you can be the last cat standing.  But the action cards were almost entirely: gain/lose/steal a life unless you roll 3-6 or 4-6 or 5-6.  Sure, you can spend your yarn balls to reroll dice, which was cute, but it's hard to get more. ...
Read more

Back to the Favorites

Image
We were hoping to find a fun new game on our trip this weekend, but the ones we found were pretty ordinary.  We did bring one of our favorites, Skip Bo Junior.  It's nice to just deal out the cards and play without having to learn new tricks.  Although we always wonder if we are forced to play every card.  Sometimes, the only strategy there is is to hold back a card to not give your opponent an easy time. Anyway, kudos to the classics and favorites. We found these little gummy pizzas the next night.   Not exactly a game, just being playful. We also play Yut on the tablet a few times per week -- that simple game is still hard to beat for total Sorry-style chaos and unpredictability.
Read more