Castle Panic

One of the great things about having boys is that, as they get older, you get a chance to relive your (misspent) youth as you introduce them to the geek way of life.  By way of example, let me show you the latest game that we have been playing.

Castle Panic

Castle Panic is a co-operative board game by Fireside Games.  The easiest way to describe it is to liken the game to a board game version of the tower defence games that seem to be so popular online these days.  in essence, you are the master of a castle under siege by the orc and goblin hordes.  If your tower still stands at the end of the game - you win.  Otherwise, you become fodder for the bellies of the neighbouring horde.

Getting ready to defend against the goblin horde

Part of the reason that I got this game in the first place is that its a co-operative game.  Currently, Gerry isn't really mature enough to handle losing so playing most normal board games with him just tends to result in an appearance of the Incredible Sulk.

Our princess - safely ensconced deep within our castle

The game is fairly simple and easy to learn.  The developer recommends an age of 10+ but it is actually playable by children of 6+ if you play with the easy variant and help them out a little with tactics.  The base game itself doesn't give you a whole lot of tactical depth but I hear that the Wizards Tower expansion corrects this.  Of course, when you are playing with kids, a simple game is actually a good thing.

Gordon rolling to see where the next monster shows up

The game is also quite well designed in that it brings out moments where you have the entire group all rooting for the same thing to happen.  In particular, one of the monster tokens is a boulder which flattens everything in its path on the way to taking out one of your castle walls.  When you have a ton of monsters in an arc and draw a boulder, the entire group starts to chant for the die to come up in the right number and conveniently help you take out a bunch of monsters.

My kingdom for a boulder!

Overall, Gerry and Gordon really enjoyed this game.  Its fun, easy to learn and really gets them pumped up every time they take out one of the invading monsters.

The dance of (minor) victory

More info

If you are looking for more info on the game, the developers website is found here.  You can also find more information about the game from Boardgamegeek here.

The Tabletop episode showing Castle Panic is also a good watch if you want to get a feel for how the game plays.

Macau 2012 - tea time

In between all the fun and games, we made sure that we took a break every once in a while to sit down, relax and enjoy some tea and cakes.

Gerry with his hot chocolate

Gordon with his hot chocolate

Mummy and one of the rare occasions where she actually drinks a coffee

What tea time would be complete without cake!

And of course, Gerry has his own

Noticeably absent from the above is cake for me.  Luckily, I still managed to get a coffee!

Macau 2012 - The Venetian Qube

The Qube is the name for the kids play area located inside the Venetian hotel.  Seeing as the weather wasn't particularly great when we were in Macau, we spent a fair amount of time inside the Qube watching the kids play.

There are several different games but by far the favourite are represented in the below photos.

The Slide
The favourite was this huge slide that had several "waves" on the way down to the bottom.  The slide itself was pretty big as the kids had to climb up two sets of stairs in order to get to the top of the slide.

Gerry and Gordon getting ready to race down the slide

Gerry - the clear winner

The Wii
The other favourite was the Wii.  This was really popular although playtime was limited as there were lots of kids which meant they could only play for 20 minutes at a time.

Playing a racing game with the racing wheel

Gordon trying to turn a sharp corner

Other than racing, they also managed to play a sword-fighting game - with Gerry taking great pains to remind everyone at every opportunity that he won