A Couple o' Keepers...

Last week we grabbed a couple of games of both Carcassonne and Small World. Being the night before Thanksgiving (happy turkey day, by the way) we had a few friends in from out of town. They don't have the gaming groups they used to in their new locales, so many were eager for some hanging (and geeking) out around the game table.

A couple of folks were familiar with Carcassonne, it making appearances in the most unlikely of households, but even for those who had never heard of it, it's very easy to pick up. I've been so used to playing with my daughter (and not scoring farmlands), I got my arse handed to me in the final score tally, arrrgh! Although we had intended to play Galaxy Trucker (great game), everyone was interested in trying out Small World instead.

This is another one of those great intro type boardgames. Carcassonne had a couple of people on familiar ground, sure, but Small World was new to everyone at the table, many had never even heard of it. I should also mention that one of our buddies there was a non-gamer to boot (gasp!). The game's an impressive sight when it's all set up, and again, the simple mechanics and fun-to-play environment makes it ideal for casual gaming with plenty of replay value, plus, it has plenty of colorful hands-on pieces with entertaining art.


So for the casual and hardcore gamer alike, these are two keepers that should be 'must-haves' in everyone's inventory and game closets. For a mere $20 bucks you can pick up Carcassonne, and this gem of a tile-layer has infinite replay value and can be played by both stalwart game veterans as well as your rookie aunts and uncles alike. Small World is a bit more pricey at about $50 bucks, but you get all the production value and quality of a $100 Fantasy Flight game, with half the learning curve, and half the pricetag!