Calliope Games: Got ‘Em!

June 2, 2012 By Skye 17 Comments

 

 

Got ‘Em is  a delightful way to corner your friends- literally! Trap their pawns in one of two games of escape and capture. In Bright Got ‘Em! you outsmart and corner your opponents through savvy card play, sly movement, and clever placement of blocking walls. In the still-casual but even-trickier Brainy Got ‘Em! you toss aside card actions in favor of a purely strategic challenge.

Surround yourself with friends and family and get ready to enjoy two great games that hold more fun than any four walls can contain!

My family is super competitive- so I knew this game would be a hit in our house. The game is pretty simple to play. It does require a bit of planning ahead and thinking strategically to survive so the age range of 8+ is pretty accurate. The color side is provides easier game play and the colorless side is more for older kids and adults!

I love strategy games, but just do not have time to play them most times because they take hours on end and tons of focus to win. Got ‘Em! challenges my mind, but does not take hours to win. Actually sometimes the game goes by so fast we can play five or six games with in an hour!

Buy It: You can purchase Calliope Games: Got ‘Em! for 20.81!

Tabletop–Wil Wheaton hosts online gaming show

Filed under: Pop Culture — 1 Comment  June 12, 2012

Rod Roddenberry’s website (where the son of Gene Roddenberry sells and promotes a lot of Star Trek replica merchandise, among other things) put me onto a new Internet series on gaming.  It’s not about video games.  It’s about good old-fashioned “game night” games, board games with dice and cards and tokens, and it’s called Tabletop.

If you’re a fan of Wil Wheaton, it’s the show for you.  Wheaton is best known for his role as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation and as the young star of the Rob Reiner/Steven King film Stand By Me, but he has been quickly branching out as a stellar guest star on series like Leverage (as a superb IT villain) and Big Bang Theory (where he often plays himself), showing he’s gone beyond the kid actor thing.  And even if you’re not a Wheaton fan–like you thought Wesley Crusher should have been left on Rubicun III–give this series a try anyway.

Tsuro game in play on Tabletop.

My favorite thing about Wil Wheaton is he seems to thrive at all things geek and nerd.  He’s not apologetic in the least, and in chatting up his love for games and TV and books, he is bringing everyone along for a fun ride.  He’s a regular at San Diego Comic-Con, and I saw him at a Star Trek writers panel with Star Trek authors where he showed a great rapport with fans, and seemed to love talking about what he liked (and didn’t like) about Trek.

Wil Wheaton with authors Kevin Dilmore and Dayton Ward on a panel at Comic-Con in 2008.

Tabletop is an online half-hour, biweekly series just beginning and in its first five episodes, which is a bit like Comic Book Men and Celebrity Poker, but far, far better than both of those shows.  In fact, the introduction, production values, and content should get some network exec to take notice.  This is the first online-only series we’ve taken note of here at borg.com that we think is worthy of another look and we think a wider audience is out there for this show.

Tabletop has host Wheaton playing a few board or dice games with some friends, including explaining quickly and clearly the game’s rules, and just chatting it up around the table with people like Rod Roddenberry, Felicia Day (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Monk, House, M.D., Eureka), Colin Ferguson (Eureka),  Grant Imahara (Mythbusters), James Kyson (Heroes, Hawaii 5-0), and Neil Grayston (Eureka).  I think it would be an interesting twist to add in other celebrities, maybe genre actors or legends Wheaton himself is a fan of, but may not previously know personally.  I’d love to see someone like Billy Mumy do an episode and see what these guys would talk about while playing Apples to Apples, or pull some obscure old games out of the game closet that are long forgotten but still fun, like Bionic Crisis or the Star Wars board game.

Which brings us to the episode with Rod Roddenberry, where they covered a few games including Tsuro.  The episode intrigued me enough that I wandered past a game shop this weekend while hanging out with family and I bought it.  We were able to pull out the board and playing pieces and start playing at a local coffee shop in minutes.  Just as I had discovered watching the players in the episode of Tabletop, Tsuro is a blast.  In a nutshell, you have 35 cardboard tiles that players lay out one by one, in turn, and each tile has a different set of paths, some straight, some crisscrossed, some coming back at you.  The goal is to create a path for yourself and maybe even knock others off the board and be last player on the board.  Even the barista stopped by and commented how awesome the game looks (it has the beautiful Chinese red dragon board, parchment divider page, and cool rune playing tokens) and I passed along Wheaton’s show and the game shop across the street that had one more copy in stock.

We’ve played it three times so far and I can’t wait to play Tsuro again.  Thanks, Wil Wheaton!

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Tabletop, Geeks, Games and Me

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Jackie

 

 Tsuro (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I realized recently that I may have been wrong about myself, and where I fall on the geek spectrum.

See, I don’t feel like I have many of the biggest markers of true geekdom. I have never been a comic book fan, and I’ve never been to a convention. I’ve never played a RPG or LARP, but I know what the initials mean (I think) and I certainly have gamer friends. I’ve never managed to finish the entire LOTR series of books, and even the movies leave me a little cold. I’ve never dismantled a computer (but I know people who have), and my coding knowledge stops at basic HTML. I find video games fairly boring.

But–I did read the entire Shannara series, by Terry Brooks, in fifth and sixth grades, not to mention the Harry Potter series as an adult. I did play on my high school quiz team, my high school sweetheart was a Mathlete, and I did score a perfect score on my (verbal) SAT. I did teach myself HTML back in 1998 to put up my first webpage, and I remember the sheer thrill of figuring out how to make images become links. I’ve been blogging for about nine years, and I remember playing video games that were all text (“You go into a room. In the room, you find an Orc”). I’m obsessed with Game of Thrones and have read the first four books of the Song of Fire and Ice series.

My husband is a little easier to peg, I think. He played Dungeons and Dragons in his youth, treasures his battered copies of the Dragonlance novels, and can tell you more than you want to know about X-Men and the Avengers (before the movies came out, of course). He can also tell you lots about techno music and the impending zombie apocalypse, introduced me to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and enjoys Chemistry Cat a little too much. As a result, my girls already have opinions about their favorite superheroes and are waiting to be old enough to love Buffy.

So Are we geeks, or are we nerds? Does even posing the question also provide the answer?

I don’t remember the first time I read Wil Wheaton’s blog, but it’s been a regular read for me for at least the past year, and slowly but surely, I’ve become intrigued with gaming. Wil’s new webseries Tabletop got me hooked; I’ve seen every episode, but the real kicker came when my girls caught me watching an episode and wanted to see what was making me laugh. It was the Ticket to Ride episode, and they were instantly hooked! They have seen every episode now, and their favorite is the episode featuring casual games. So for their birthday, I bought Tsuro, and we have really enjoyed playing it! Lucy even likes to say, “Stop getting up in my dragon grill,” because one of the Tabletop guys said while they were playing. I think sometime this summer, we will end up owning both Zombie Dice and Get Bit, and then we’ll decide on a bigger game to purchase that we’ve seen on Tabletop, probably Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride, once we feel ready.

Are we raising geeky/nerdy children? I can only hope so, as one of the great accomplishments of my adulthood has been embracing the idea of being a geek or a nerd: a highly intelligent and passionate person who dives deep in each enthusiasm and is inherently curious and engaged in the world, someone who wants to share those passions with anyone who might be interested, and someone who always has a new fact or opinion to bring to every conversation. What’s not to like about that?

Related articles

• Episode 1 of Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day’s “Tabletop,” a net-show about tabletop gaming sessions (boingboing.net)
• Review: Table Top Episode Three: Zombie Dice, Get Bit! & Tsuro (comicbooked.com)
• Stab Your Buddy! This Week’s Tabletop Features Munchkin, and Steve Jackson Himself (wired.com)
• [Crimson Bastards] Youtube show, TableTop, starring Wil Wheaton review (crimsonbastards.com)

Tsuro is one of my favorite casual games in history!

Tsuro is one of my favorite casual games in history, and one of the most popular games we’ve played on Tabletop.

When I found out the game’s designer was Kickstarting a new version called Tsuro of the Seas, I backed it immediately.
There are 24 days to go, and right now, they are just 800 bucks short of funding… so if you want to make this happen, you know what to do.
(via Tsuro of the Seas… A game of treacherous waters. by Ray Wehrs — Kickstarter)

Kickstarter Alert: Tsuro of the Seas

• By Jonathan H. Liu
• Email Author
• May 29, 2012   |   3:00 am   |   Categories: Board Games

Overview: The original Tsuro is a wonderful tile-laying game which is easy to learn, fits up to 8 players, and offers some excellent opportunity for strategy. Calliope Games now has a Kickstarter campaign for the sequel. Tsuro of the Seas still keeps the same basic mechanic, but throws in an additional element of luck and danger: daikaiju — giant monsters — roaming the sea that will devour your ship!

Players: 2 to 8

Ages: 8 and up (though younger children can learn the basics)

Playing Time: 20 to 40 minutes

Retail: $40 on Kickstarter, plus other options for extra rewards

Rating: A superb new twist on an already-fantastic game.

Who Will Like It? If you like the original, you’ll definitely want to take a look. The artwork in Tsuro of the Seas is of the same caliber, and you can even get some prints of the artwork as Kickstarter rewards. The game does throw in a much higher degree of luck, but the seafaring theme and possibility of being eaten by a daikaiju are both a lot of fun.

Theme:

You are captains of an Imperial Red Seal ship, braving the treacherous seas to spread the word of the Emperor. But there are daikaiju out there, so not only do you need to beware of hitting the wrong path, but you’ll also need to steer clear of these ship-destroying beasts. The artwork is all done in a Japanese style that fits the theme, and the tiles are made to look like wakes in the sea.

Components:

• 1 game board
• 56 wake tiles
• 10 daikaiju tiles
• 8 ship pawns
• 2 dice (1 gold, 1 blue)

I saw a pre-production prototype at GameStorm so I’ve seen the artwork and a sample of the red ship, but haven’t gotten to see final quality components in person. However, based on the original Tsuro, I would except Calliope Games to use the same quality board and tiles, which were made of a heavy cardboard with rounded corners. The artwork (as you can see from the photos here and on the Kickstarter page) is gorgeous and the little ships look really great.

The Tsuro of the Seas board is a 7×7 grid, larger than the original 6×6 grid. Each daikaiju tile has 5 numbers on it, corresponding to the four cardinal directions and a rotation, which are used for movement. The wake tiles have paths on them that connect to two points on each edge of the tile. Unlike the original, there are some repeated tiles in this batch.

Gameplay:

The wake tiles are shuffled and each player draws a hand of three. Then a number of daikaiju (based on the number of players) is placed face-down on the board, using the dice to determine where they are placed. The coordinates do not appear on the outside ring of squares, so no monsters will appear at the edges of the board, though they may travel there later. Once the daikaiju are placed, each player chooses a starting spot for their ship.

Each turn has the following steps:

1. Roll to see if daikaiju move.
2. Place a wake tile.
3. Move along the wake tile path.
4. Draw a new wake tile.

If a 6, 7, or 8 is rolled, the daikaiju will move. The player then rolls a single die, and checks each daikaiju to see how it moves. (The daikaiju are numbered to indicate the order that they are moved.) Based on the number rolled, each daikaiju will either rotate 90 degrees, move one space, or stay still. Wherever the daikaiju moves, anything it covers — a wake tile, another daikaiju, a ship — is removed from the game.

Also, there should always be three daikaiju on the board. If any are removed (either by going off the board or by being devoured by other monsters) then a new one is placed when the 6, 7, or 8 is rolled next. (But when the new monster is placed, none of them move that turn.)

If you’re still alive after the daikaiju move, then you place a wake tile in front of your own ship, and then follow the path to its end. If the tile extends the path of any of the other ships on the board, they move as well until they reach the end of their respective paths. Any ship that goes off the edge of the board or moves into the space with a daikaiju is eliminated from the game.

Finally, if after all of that you’re still alive, then you draw a new tile and play passes to the next player.

You win the game if you’re the last player remaining on the board. If two or more players exit the board on the last turn of the game, they share the victory.

Optionally, you can play Tsuro of the Seas without the daikaiju — it’s not exactly the same as the original Tsuro because of the larger board and some repeated tiles, but it would be a fairly similar experience.

Conclusion:

As I mentioned earlier, I got to play a prototype of Tsuro of the Seas at GameStorm this year, and I’m really excited for its release. The original was on our Best Board Games of 2011 list, and you may have seen it on Wil Wheaton’s TableTop as well.

The addition of the daikaiju makes for some interesting changes to the game. For one, there’s just the random luck element as you move around — you don’t know whether any nearby monsters might move toward you before you get another turn, so you have to take your chances to pick a direction. But another significant effect which you may have missed just from a read-through of the rules is that because the daikaiju eliminate wake tiles, they clear more room for movement.

In the original, if two players run into each other, they are both eliminated — because if you follow the paths, they’ll both end up off the board where the other player started. In Tsuro of the Seas, this may not be the case. Following the path somebody came from may put you in the middle of the board somewhere because the paths can get broken up by the daikaiju.

There definitely is a higher luck factor in Tsuro of the Seas, but it can make for a very fun experience, not knowing where the monsters are going to move next. You do need to check the rules carefully about when players are eliminated by monsters, but it is still very easy to pick up and play, and you can quickly teach new players.

I also love that it’s a game that fits up to 8 players, because there aren’t many quick-playing games that can handle that many players at once.

Tsuro of the Seas is slated to be launched in August this year at GenCon, but Calliope Games is hoping to use Kickstarter to build up buzz and convince retailers to stock the game once it’s released. If you back it now, you’ll find a lot of cool swag (including prints of the artwork from the game). Whether you kick in for a copy now or wait for its release, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Tsuro of the Seas.

Wired: Giant monsters, cool Japanese ship pawns, beautiful artwork — not to mention a fun game.

Tired: Not all players will like the luck factor, but they can play without the monsters.

Tsuro Of The Seas Awarded Springboard Seal Of Quality!

May 26, 2012 By Lt. Renee Masson Leave a Comment

Game Salute is pleased to award the Springboard Seal of Quality, Tsuro of the Seas the Springboard! Just launched on Kickstarter by Calliope Games, Tsuro of the Seas takes the classic game of path (Tsuro) to a new level in the treacherous seas.

From the Tsuro of the Seas Kickstarter page:

“Tsuro was designed by an incredible mathematician, Tom McMurchie. It’s a very beautiful and elegant playing game that utilizes a unique tile laying system that’s very easy to learn but provides for a challenging and strategic game.

The objective is to simply keep your pawn on the board. On your turn you will place a tile in front of your own pawn and then move it to the end of the path. At some point during the game pawns will start to interact with one another. At that time you will try to push your opponent to the outside edge of the board while you proceed to safer territories. The last pawn remaining on the board will win the game.

We love Tsuro so much, that we want to extend its legacy with our new game, Tsuro of the Seas.

In Tsuro of the Seas you will sail the treacherous waters of the Mystic Seas in an engaging game of adventure and suspense! Not only will you compete against each other, you’ll compete against the game board!”

The game of path gets even more difficult to navigate by ship, with sea monsters and other similar obstacles along the way. Will your ship be the last one standing in Tsuro of the Seas?

Pledge your support for Tsuro of the Seas today! Calliope Games plans to release this exciting strategy game in August 2012.

Double Double Dominoes

Filed Under (Family Games) by Major Fun on May 28, 2012

Think of it as Scrabble with dominoes. Not Scrabble, because it has nothing to do with words, but Scrabble-like, because you play it on a board, and there are places on the board that give you extra score. Not dominoes, because you find yourself doing a lot more thinking than you’d be doing in your basic domino game, but domino-like, because it uses domino tiles, and luck is still a major factor. Better yet, think of it as an invitation to many hours of gentle, mildly competitive, genuinely absorbing family fun.

It’s easy to learn. There’s only one sheet of rules (though the rules come in a booklet, that’s because they are translated into several different languages). The only problem you might have would be if you think of the game as a variation of dominoes. It’s something quite different, and, if you enjoy thinking, much more engaging.

Note the red tiles (I decided not to call them dominoes). They’re the ones that are placed incorrectly. If we were thinking of them as dominoes, then we’d also think that the red tiles were perfectly acceptable. But as tiles, as used in the game of Double Double Dominoes,  the end of one tile can only touch one other tile.

So many choices to think about, so many places you can put your domino-like tiles, that you find yourself thinking and thinking, even when it’s not your turn.

And then there’s the track that you use to keep score. Which also keeps you thinking even when it’s not your turn. Because if anyone plays a tile that has a number that matches the number your scoring piece is currently covering, you get bonus points!

And then there’s the strategic value of covering the high-scoring spaces. And the extra strategic value of covering a high-scoring space with a “double” (a tile where both numbers are the same), because you get double the score. And an extra turn. And, speaking of doubledness, you might notice that there you play with two complete domino sets (56). How doubled is that?

Your beyond school-age folk will find it a sweet filler-type game – nothing to get too serious about, but interesting enough to keep your attention all the way to the end. Your kid-like people will have just as much fun. Racing around a track will keep them focused, raking in bonus points will keep them smug, while you can concentrate your superior powers on the hunt for the highest possible score in a single play.

Double Double Dominoes is recommended for 2-4 players (with the optional purchase of an expansion set, you can play with up to 6 players) 8 and above and takes less than an hour to play. Designed by Seth Johnson an Jordan Weisman, distributed by Calliope Games, Double Double Dominoes is Major Fun.

Double Double Dominoes: A Strategic Spin on the Traditional Game

 

By Jonathan H. Liu    May 8, 2012  | 4:59 am |  Categories: Board Games

Playing Double Double Dominoes with my daughter and some friends.
Photo: Jonathan Liu

 

Overview: Double Double Dominoes is like a hybrid of regular dominoes with Scrabble. If you can play a domino that covers a scoring space on the board, you get points — but this game has some other tricks up its sleeves, too.

Players: 2 to 4

Ages: 8 and up

Playing Time: 50 minutes (usually less)

Retail: $30

Rating: Excellent Excellent.

Who Will Like It? Double Double Dominoes is a great family game: it’s simple enough for kids to learn (even kids younger than 8, I would guess) but can also offer a deeper strategic game for adults. It’s not a Euro-game with lots of wooden bits and a strong theme, but it’s a very solid game that can have broad appeal, and may be a good one to rope in a few non-gamers while you’re at it.

Components:

The components are straightforward: the game board, 56 dominoes, and 4 scoring pawns. The board itself is what makes the game: it’s a grid that has numbered diamonds on some of the squares, and the scoring track around the border looks like a series of dominoes. The dominoes are standard-sized bone-colored tiles, and the scoring pawns are small translucent plastic discs.

Gameplay:

Each player starts with a hand of three dominoes, and the rest are placed face-down in a pile called the boneyard. On each turn, the player draws one domino from the boneyard and then plays one onto the board. The first domino has to cover the center of the board, and from then each domino played must match the end of a domino already on the board, just as in regular dominoes. There are some specific rules about how dominoes can and can’t be played — for instance, they cannot be placed parallel to a line of dominoes, even if they match on both ends, and they cannot be put into a corner where two other dominoes form an L-shape.

The scoring comes in when you over up one of the diamonds on the board, which are numbered from 1 to 5 — the farther they are from the center of the board, the more points they’re worth. If your domino covers a diamond, then you score that many points.

If you have a double domino (same number on both ends), then you get double the point value for playing it — plus, you can play a bonus domino from your hand as long as it can connect to the double you just played.

There’s one other way to score points, too. The scoring track is made up of dominoes, so once you’ve scored some points your pawn will be on a number between 0 and 6. Whenever any player plays a domino with your number on it, you get 3 points. (If they play a double you still just score 3 points, not 6.)

The game goes to 100 points for a 2 player game, 75 points for a 3 player game, or 50 points for a 4 player game.

Conclusion:

I haven’t actually played a lot of dominoes, really. Generally when I do have a set of dominoes I’ve had more fun trying to set up a chain of them to knock down rather than actually playing the tile-laying game. However, the Double Double Dominoes board adds some new dimensions that I really like. First, because you have to get to the diamonds to score, you’ll want to play diamonds that lead to that area — but you also don’t want to make a path to the high-scoring diamonds for your opponents. That tension makes for some fun moments, particularly because you don’t know who has a double domino.

What I really love, though, is the scoring track. Since you can get points on somebody else’s turn, that can affect what other people play. If you pay attention to what numbers you and your opponents are sitting on, you can force others to make difficult decisions. For instance, you could play a tile that makes the 4 or 5 diamond accessible to the next player — but only if they give you three points. Between that and the extra move for playing a double domino, I’ve seen scores rapidly shift in a single turn.

Calliope Games has a planned expansion that will allow you to play up to 6 players, which I think would be a lot of fun, too.

The game isn’t tremendously deep and there isn’t any theme to speak of, but it’s a game that I think will be easy to play with a wide range of gamer types (and non-gamers) because it’s so easy to pick up and has a familiar feel to it. Now, if there were just some way to work zombies into it …

You can find out more about Double Double Dominoes and purchase it at Calliope’s website, look for it at your local game shop, or order it from Amazon.

Wired: Easy to learn; great for non-gamers; scoring track adds a great twist.

Tired: Won’t satisfy your heavy-strategy cravings.

Disclosure: GeekDad received a review copy of this game.

Zombie Dice, Get Bit! & Tsuro: Ryan Higa, Freddie Wong, Rod Roddenberry. TableTop Ep 3

Wil Wheaton and guests Ryan Higa (creator and star of the YouTube channel “Nigahiga”), Rod Roddenberry (Producer and CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment), and Freddie Wong (creator and star of the YouTube channel “freddiew”) play Zombie Dice, Get Bit and Tsuro!

WIN Calliope Games Tsuro The Game of Path Review | GIVEAWAY | US & Canada

by Missy on March 9, 2012

Tsuro The game of Path by Calliope games

  
About the game Tsuro:  Create your own journey with Tsuro…the Game of the Path. Place a tile and slide your stone along the path created, but take care! Other players’ paths can lead you in the wrong direction—or off the board entirely!
Find your way wisely to succeed.
The rules are simple: you place a tile to build the next step for your stone to follow. Paths will cross and connect, and the choices you make affect all the journey across the board.
Stay the path—your journey begins here. 

*****

From the Calliope website:  Life is moving at hyper speed these days—it’s going faster and getting tougher to navigate every year. The economy, the workplace, and technology all add unbelievable stress to our daily lives. Calliope Games believes we can relieve that stress by engaging our families and friends in fun, face-to-face entertainment. Tabletop games, like the ones we make, offer the opportunity to connect with and enjoy each other within a personal context that inspires socialization, creative expression, and cognitive challenge.
At Calliope Games we are focused exclusively on creating affordable tabletop games that will bring your family and friends together time after time for SUPERSIZED Family Fun!
 
*****
 
My family loves playing games together & we love learning new games.  We were given Tsuro to review & we couldn’t wait to have a free night to try it!
 
Many times when trying to learn a new game, it takes forever to read the instructions and everyone gets frustrated before the game has even begun.  So, this time, before inviting the kids to the table, I read the instructions & was surprised at how quickly I understood how to play.  Within 5 minutes I had the game set up & we called the kids. 

 
Right away everyone caught on & we were able to play without any stress.    It only took about 15 minutes to play the game which was great considering our youngest was getting tired & needed to go to bed.
 
We played with our 9 & 12 year old and they learned the game very quickly and didn’t need any help to play.  I think our youngest (age 4 1/2) could play with help, but certainly not on her own.  I’m guessing in the next year or so she’ll be able to play without much help. 

 
I like this game because it is quick, fun, easy & makes you think.  It’s a brain-teaser type game, but not so much that you get frustrated (even though everyone looks a little crazed in the photo!  Ha!).
 
Tsuro received a Preferred Choice award from Creative Child Magazine in 2009 and I can see why.  I highly recommend Tsuro & will check out Calliope’s other games for us to try.

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Calliope Games Announces Tsuro Of The Seas!

March 17, 2012 By Lt. Renee Masson

Calliope Games announces Tsuro of the Seas, a sequel to the classic strategy game Tsuro. In Tsuro of the Seas, players will navigate the seas with sailing ships, versus the classic stones found in Tsuro. In addition to attempting to avoid getting pushed off the edge of the board, players will need to avoid sea monster and dragon tiles! These sea monsters and dragons start on the board at the very beginning and move accordingly on the roll of a die. Do you have the strategy needed to navigate the more difficult path of the seas?

Stay tuned for more details on Tsuro of the Seas as we receive them.

Sneak Peek at Tsuro of the Seas from Calliope Games

Posted by David Miller as Modern Board Games

Tsuro of the Seas will be a sequel to Calliope’s Tsuro game and will have a little bit more thematic content. This time navigating the mystic seas, players’ pieces will be miniature sailing ships. Also, four tiles representing sea monsters and dragons start on the board. In addition to placing the standard Tsuro path tiles to keep their ships from being moved off the edge, players must avoid the monsters, which move independently and in random directions based on the roll of a die.

Though what I saw was mostly a preliminary prototype, the new board, with a large Asian-style dragon in blues, was gorgeous!

Tsuro ( A Video Review)

 

 Calliope Games

A beautiful and beautifully simple game of laying a tile before your own token to continue its path on each turn. The goal is to keep your token on the board longer than anyone else’s, but as the board fills up this becomes harder because there are fewer empty spaces left… and another player’s tile may also extend your own path in a direction you’d rather not go. Easy to introduce to new players, Tsuro lasts a mere 15 minutes and actually does work for any number from 2 to 8.

Tsuro The Game of the Path Review & Giveaway

 

Link to New Age Mama Blog

My family and I love games of strategy. They are a great way to exercise your mind and have a great time in the process.  Tsuro, available from Calliope Games, is just that kind of game. In Tsuro, you will compete with up to eight other players in a journey across the board. But be careful, because if you stray too far and reach the end of the board, the game will be over. You can play with up to eight players, but only the last one standing will be the winner.



My family and I received a copy of Tsuro to review, and it was a big hit in our household. Before we even started to play, I had to admire the beautiful red dragon design on the board. Once we got down to business, it was even more exciting. Each player gets one marker and three tiles. The object of the game is to lay down the tiles and create a path that your marker can travel without touching the edge of the board. It sounds easy, but you never know what will happen or where another player's strategy will lead you.


There are hundreds of possibilities making this a game that never gets boring. Tsuro is only one of the exciting games you can find at Calliope Games. To see their full selection, be sure to visit their website.  You can check their store locator for a location near you that sells these fun games or you can find them online at Amazon.  Also be sure to check out their fun stuff section to be able to play Tsuro and lots of other fun games online. You can battle players from all the world for a  small fee or try the single person experience for free.

One lucky winner is going to receive the Tsuro game to play with their own family. To enter, just fill in the Rafflecopter form below. This giveaway will end on 2/25/12. The winner will be notified via email and will have 48 hours to reply. Thanks again to Calliope Games for offering this fantastic prize.

Calliope Games- Got'Em Giveaway

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I can remember as a kid many many Saturday evenings our family would get together and play various games. We didn’t watch a lot of TV so my parents bought lots of games for us kids to amuse ourselves.  As an adult I still love to play board games and have my own assorted collection. Winter evenings are a good time to get our family together and challenge each other with our cunning tactics, acute slick moves and overall  board games savyness! Game On!!!  Calliope carries a few games designed to involve your whole family.  I got to try out their game Got Em.

Got Em is  a delightful way to” Corner Your Friends! Trap their pawns in one of two games of escape and capture. In Bright Got ‘Em!™ you outsmart and corner your opponents through savvy card play, sly movement, and clever placement of blocking walls. In the still-casual but even-trickier Brainy Got ‘Em!™ you toss aside card actions in favor of a purely strategic challenge. Both games share the same goal, the same exciting intrigue, and the same social fun. We had a lot of fun with this game.  The board and the walls are made out of plastic so they going to last a long time and be easy to clean off if necessary.


The board has to sides, one with colored squares where you use walls and the cards to corner your opponent. The other side you just use the walls and try to use strategy to outwit and corner your opponent. You can have up to 4 players and you each get three cards.  You use these cards to strategically corner your opponent. Once you use a card you get another from the deck. Personally I really enjoyed the colored side with the cards, but both are a lot of fun. The game is recommended for 8 yrs and up.

The nice people at Calliope would love to offer the Got Em game to one lucky reader. Thank you Calliope. ARV $28

Got ‘Em! by Calliope Games ~ The Game of Masterful Maneuver and Clever Capture ~ Review

January 23, 2012 By Ashley 14 Comments

I love board games! Since having a son, I’ve started to come more and more a homebody, opting to spend nights in during the week. Lucky for me, I have a niche of friends, and family, who love a good game night too. We are always looking for something different than our normal games of Mexican Train and Left, Center, Right. I was thrilled to learn about Calliope Games and their family-friendly selection.

 

Calliope Games generously sent me one of their games Got ’Em!™  Got ‘Em! is a simple strategy game that contains one game board, but each side is a different game. There is one side with colored squares, which is used for Bright Got ’Em! The side with white squares is used for Brainy Got ’Em! For this review, we played the Bright Got ‘Em! side. You can have up to four players and the game is intended for ages 8 and up. The object is to place walls around the game board trapping your opponents pawns. Last pawn standing wins! Now I love strategy games, but hate the ones that take hours on end and tons of focus to win. Got ‘Em! is so much fun. It challenges the mind, but it won’t take hours to win. Often the game would go by so fast that we were able to play round after round! Brainy Got ‘Em! is purely strategic and does not involve the cards.

To begin, each player receives 3 cards which they can view, but should keep hidden from opponents. You can choose which card of the three you would like to play. The color of the card corresponds with what box you can place your wall on. Follow the instructions on the card. Further instructions on the card will indicate how many spaces you can move your pawn, if you can move through walls, or if you can remove a wall. Your pawn cannot move through a wall unless the card indicates so. After your move, draw a new card. The game moves onto the next player!

Continue the game, with each player taking turns, until a pawn is trapped. If your pawn is trapped in a square with walls on all four sides, you are out. The game continues till all pawns are out, minus one. The player with the last pawn standing wins! In the picture below, you will see that I (Red) have already trapped Green and am getting ready to trap Blue.

We had a lot of fun playing this game! I actually won the first three games and was worried my opponents wouldn’t want to play anymore. However, they were having so much fun, we kept on going. The game can go by quick. Usually around a half hour, or slightly more. We especially loved how straight forward the game is without a bunch of complicated rules. If you are looking for a new fun game for the whole family, check out Got ‘Em!

Don’t forget to connect with Calliope Games on Facebook and Twitter!

Buy It: You can purchase Got ‘Em on Amazon, or you can find a local retailer near you!

Quick video demonstrating how to play Bright Got ‘Em!

I received complimentary product(s) to facilitate this review from the sponsoring company. This is 100% my own honest opinion. No one has influenced me otherwise and I was in no way compensated financially. This review is solely based on my own experience with this product.