BoardgameKids

Kids Game Day Report @ Kids Edusoft Cheras 11/11/2005
by jack208

Games: Hare & Tortoise, Ticket to Ride, Pirate’s Cove, Boomtown, Bang!

Location: Kids Edusoft, Cheras
Date/Time: 20 November 2005 12.00 PM – 6.00 PM
  

We kick-off the National Games Week with our Sunday afternoon Kids Games Day!

The session started sharp at 12 noon with all 3 tables fully occupied. A smaller group of kids played Hare & Tortoise on Table 1, while the other tables were playing Ticket to Ride and Boomtown.

These games are already familiar with most of the kids here except some of the  newcomers.. So after a quick round of rules explanation, off they go!

The Hare & Tortoise game always amazes us adults when we watch the kids play this game. Some may not like maths but they never stopped them from wanting to join in the game.

When we facilitate this game for kids, we can always spot those who are excellent in their maths and those who need more time to work on the numbers. While the game in itself does not teach mathematics, it requires the kids to be good at maths in order to win the game.

And all kids love to win in games.. So this is a great incentive for them to improve their numbers.

Ticket to Ride is another fave with the kids. I guess the little trains attract them.

We’d a more aggressive group today as the kids were starting to block each other’s route! It’s amazing how the kids grew in their experience playing this game… their 1st game is usually focus on completing the destination tickets, the 2nd game sees them checking out others’ destination tickets, and their latter games would see some contriving to block others’ route – to prevent them scoring bonus points!

They are certainly getting better at this game.

On table 3, we have a group of young teens mining gold in Boomtown. Since both our facilitators were busy with table 1 & 2, the children in Table 3 “facilitated” the game themselves. In fact, Aruwin (12 yr-old) actually took on the initiative to brief the two newcomers on how to play Boomtown!!

Most of the younger kids have to leave at 1.30pm when their parents came to fetch them back for lunch and some family time. This left us with a nice group of 5 players… which is just perfect for… Pirate’s Cove!
 

I believe there are two themes that are very appealing to children – trains and pirates! You can see the joy in their face when we open the Pirate’s Cove box to reveal all the nice components (kudos to Days of Wonder for the quality game), the pirate ships, the Legendary Pirate cards, the treasure chests, gold dubloons and the beautifully illustrated gameboard depicting the islands.

A quick 10 minutes of explaining the rules to them, and off we get started with the game. The first legendary pirate drawn was Captain Hook and he’s an instant household name to all of the young pirates (who does not know Peter Pan and Hook?)

In the beginning they tend to avoid him (Hook i.e.). But as the game moved on, they realized Hook is beatable and they begin to fear him less. A few did confront him and lose (one after a very close and ferocious battle).. But the courage to face Hook again did not diminish.

One behaviour I observed in this game is that in some adult’s play of Pirate’s Cove, they tend to avoid fighting against the Legendary Pirates. They would rather flee to Pirate’s Cove!!

In this game, those who flee, be it from the Flying Dutchman or another buddy pirate would be labeled as “Chickendee” and have everyone laughing at him! Therefore they chose to stand their ground and fight… till their ship were crippled and they’d to limp to Pirate’s Cove….

In fact, one of them was consciously improving his Hull so that he can take on Captain Hook (Legendary Pirates tend to attack your hull so if you have a stronger hull, you stand a chance to defeat them)! And he did take on the legendary Captain in Sail Island and actually defeated him (and therefore gain 4 fame points!).

In the last round, the legendary Flying Dutchman moored himself at Treasure Island, awaiting those foolish enough to wait till the last round to bury their treasures. And would you believe it? 4 pirates actually chose to wait till the last round to bury their treasures in spite of knowing that the Dutchman will be there waiting for him (the facilitator made it doubly clear to them that the Legendary Pirate will be in waiting and perhaps they might consider burying their treasures in round 11).

One of them commented, “If I cannot defeat him (Flying Dutchman), then I do not deserve to bury my treasures!” Wow.. Such bravado! Hmm… most of us adults instead chose to bury our treasures in round 11 and then hop around in the last round playing safe. Here we have 4 young pirates deciding to push their luck and gang up on the Flying Dutchman for one last act of bravery before they retire to Haven’s Island and become the famous pirates they were meant to be!!

And the results??

YES the combined firepower of the 4 pirates did sink the Flying Dutchman’s ship… the CHEERS from the young pirates were deafening… A well deserved cheers I would add. They finally buried their treasures and then retire to Haven’s Island as famous buccaneers who defeated not one but two legendary pirates!

The children all love this game!!
 

There’s enough time for one more quick game so we took out Bang! – a game with the Wild Wild West theme. We did a modified House Rule for Bang! In order to make it accessible to children. We’d seven players so the full complement of roles were played – 1 Sheriff, 2 Deputies, 1 Renegade and 3 Outlaws.

The game started quickly… the Sheriff (laiwah) played it cool, hanging around and watch the other players while one of her deputies started firing on the others. There were some petty fights here and there but nothing major until someone lite the dynamite and started passing it around. One of the unfortunate deputies were blown (RIP) by the dynamite and this event caused the outlaws to adopt a more aggressive stance and two of them started hitting the sheriff.

A fierce gunfight ensues in which a renegade and an outlaw were killed…. The final standoff was between the two outlaws and the sheriff and her deputy. It was tense and hot, another dynamite has been lit and moving around… a good shot from the deputy took out another outlaw but alas it was a little too late to save the sheriff who was killed by an Indians attack!

Till next… bye for now!
 

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Tags: 2005, Bang, Boardgamekids, Boomtown, Hare & Tortoise, Kids Edusoft, Pirate's Cove, Ticket to Ride