She may look like her mom, but she's got my geek genes!
Well, this is something new, my daughter and I sat down for a friendly afternoon match of the great game Carcassonne! She's seen me play countless times, and has even painted a few figures of her own, but this is the first time that both worlds truly intersected. I've got an XBox 360 (which has been collecting dust lately, but I did download a trial version of the video game port of Carcassonne, and it's not bad at all. She's been playing that off and on, so is familiar with Meeple placement, scoring, and the overall scope of it. This would be the first time the two of us sat down and played the original version.
Prepping the table for the game
Turn 1!
The only difference here is that we were not scoring farmlands. Oddly enough, the trial version on the XBox doesn't either (it might if you buy the full version). She picked black and I picked green and then turn one was under way.
The game progresses...
I didn't set out to slaughter her in her first game ever, but also I'm of the mind that "letting people win" just doesn't pay off in the long run. Obviously I helped along the way helping to remind her to 'finish that road', or 'that monastery needs more surrounding pieces', etc. She needed zero help with placing tiles and always looked over the whole board, turning her tile in different directions to see which was the best fit. A couple of times she would say things to herself aloud that made me smile, like, "I can't put it there, it'd help your city", and "Ooh, a church, I'm definitely putting a Meeple on there!"
Pulling ahead!
After completing a rather large city section with a couple of tile pieces (which I thought she'd never finish), she pulled ahead in the points. This of course bolstered her confidence as she continued to play, and I thought to myself, "Okay, the gloves are off!".
and the winner is...
Okay, well maybe the gloves weren't "off" per se, but we had a great go at it nonetheless. The final score however was her with 64 points, and me with just 60, a pretty close game! How can a game like this be anything but fun? She held her attention throughout the entire game, beginning to end, and didn't get discouraged when she was behind in the points. The funniest moment was when she asked at what point do we hit the "Y" button, which in the XBox trial game let's you watch the match on auto-computer.
This opens up a lot of possibilities, and considering I can't even get my wife to play Scrabble, my daughter might be the only gaming buddy in the house on a rainy day. Maybe the spouse will have to cave in once she sees both of us having fun. What's next? Well obvious some more miniature painting, and maybe a basic combat tabletop system, she does enjoy playing with all of my old Mage Knight stuff. Maybe Kids of Catan?
Cleanup is as important as setup
Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteI know how special it is to play games with your children. Bravo mate!
Nice Game Report, no too in-depth but still giving a feel of the game.
ReplyDeleteLooks like great fun!
ReplyDeleteThanks guys! It was fun, and a legitimate game to boot, that was the coolest part!
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed. You're a lucky man to have a daughter that age who can enjoy a strategy board game. I have friends my own age who don't have the attention span for it!
ReplyDeleteGood job on giving her a run for it. I agree, throwing games doesn't help in the long run. I still remember the first time I legitimately beat my dad at chess. I knew I had learned so much.
Thanks! Now I need to get her into painting some figs!
ReplyDeleteFantastic! We just tried the game at a local con and loved it; how old is your daughter? Our son is 6 (and a half) and I am wondering at what age to start trying to see about the gaming thing... Kudos!
ReplyDeleteShe was six when we played this game, and that's pretty much where I started her out with gaming in general. If you can get the spouse in on it, even better, it'll make the games even more exciting and fun. There's a ton of kid-friendly games out there too that are fantastic and some, like Carcassonne, don't have to necessarily be for kids to still be viable.
DeleteThanks for stopping by!