Connor and Chase Reed, Gamesmiths
posted by Daddy.
Mommy had to work today, so Daddy was home with the kids. Nevertheless, he had nothing to do with this. Honest!
"Hey, Dad! Come see our new game we made!"
Well, this should be good. So I walked over and was presented with this:
The playing board is a combination Cribbage/Mancala board that came with our 10 Family Games kit. Note the use of Sorry pawns, chess pieces, Cribbage pegs, checkers (occupying Mancala houses), Mancala stones, and dice. I asked them what it was called, and Connor said "Build It-Make It". Okay.
You roll and advance your Cribbage peg (singular - the picture above depicts the four-player/two teams of two configuration). First one across the board wins. But of course it's not that simple.
If you roll two fives, you have the option of shooting a "frisbee" (checker) at one of your opponent's pieces. As far as I can tell, this is an automatic hit, but it involves picking up your Cribbage peg and the checker and then dropping the checker on the target (with appropriate explosive sound effects). The frisbee is apparently a boomerang as well, because it comes back and can be reused - so they only way you lose checkers is by having them shot away by your opponent.
If you roll two sixes, you can shoot one of the "fireworks"/"bullets" (Mancala stones); unlike the frisbees, these don't come back, but they are essentially unlimited ammo. Here again, you have to pick up your peg and drop the weapon on the target, but actually hitting the target physically is not required.
You have the option of hitting the chess pieces or the checkers. Taking out the checkers removes opposing firepower, while eliminating all three chess pieces constitutes an alternate victory condition. The King is the hardest to take out - he has a force field, so it take two hits (the first one takes out the force field).
If opposing pegs ever land on exactly the same rank of the track, they have a "war". This involved a lot of picking up and dropping and battle sound effects, and I wasn't able to discern the precise mechanics.
While I've been documenting, they've been refining, so I get to peripherally observe the creative process in action. So far there is a rule requiring the player to say "uh-oh", and apparently some sort of marriage clause (but only for players on the same team, so it's only applicable in a 3-or-more-player game).
They decided that the one-player side should only get to roll one die, but that rolling a single 5 or 6 was sufficient to fire weapons. I tried to point out that this was a tremendous advantage for the lone player, but given the other rules in play, who knows?
You know, maybe instead of "frisbee" they were saying Fizzbin.
Mommy had to work today, so Daddy was home with the kids. Nevertheless, he had nothing to do with this. Honest!
"Hey, Dad! Come see our new game we made!"
Well, this should be good. So I walked over and was presented with this:
The playing board is a combination Cribbage/Mancala board that came with our 10 Family Games kit. Note the use of Sorry pawns, chess pieces, Cribbage pegs, checkers (occupying Mancala houses), Mancala stones, and dice. I asked them what it was called, and Connor said "Build It-Make It". Okay.
You roll and advance your Cribbage peg (singular - the picture above depicts the four-player/two teams of two configuration). First one across the board wins. But of course it's not that simple.
If you roll two fives, you have the option of shooting a "frisbee" (checker) at one of your opponent's pieces. As far as I can tell, this is an automatic hit, but it involves picking up your Cribbage peg and the checker and then dropping the checker on the target (with appropriate explosive sound effects). The frisbee is apparently a boomerang as well, because it comes back and can be reused - so they only way you lose checkers is by having them shot away by your opponent.
If you roll two sixes, you can shoot one of the "fireworks"/"bullets" (Mancala stones); unlike the frisbees, these don't come back, but they are essentially unlimited ammo. Here again, you have to pick up your peg and drop the weapon on the target, but actually hitting the target physically is not required.
You have the option of hitting the chess pieces or the checkers. Taking out the checkers removes opposing firepower, while eliminating all three chess pieces constitutes an alternate victory condition. The King is the hardest to take out - he has a force field, so it take two hits (the first one takes out the force field).
If opposing pegs ever land on exactly the same rank of the track, they have a "war". This involved a lot of picking up and dropping and battle sound effects, and I wasn't able to discern the precise mechanics.
While I've been documenting, they've been refining, so I get to peripherally observe the creative process in action. So far there is a rule requiring the player to say "uh-oh", and apparently some sort of marriage clause (but only for players on the same team, so it's only applicable in a 3-or-more-player game).
They decided that the one-player side should only get to roll one die, but that rolling a single 5 or 6 was sufficient to fire weapons. I tried to point out that this was a tremendous advantage for the lone player, but given the other rules in play, who knows?
You know, maybe instead of "frisbee" they were saying Fizzbin.