3 great games for older families
| Game Name: |
The Settlers of Catan |
| Picture: |
 |
| Designer: |
Klaus Teuber |
| Publisher: |
Kosmos / Mayfair (English language edition) |
| Players: |
3 or 4 (2 to 6 using an optional expansion) |
| Playing time: |
60 minutes |
| Suitable for: |
Families (ages 10 and up); adults |
| You’ll love it because: |
An extraordinarily popular game with more than 10 million Catan games sold worldwide, and as soon as you have played you will know why! You are colonising an island and have to build a network of villages, roads and towns. All this construction needs raw materials such as lumber, bricks or wool, but your villages will be situated in areas that produce only a few of the needed materials. This means that you must trade with other players whose villages can produce the needed materials. Each game starts by building a new island of Catan, and the ability to set up good trades and cleverly carve out your section of the island are needed to emerge the best settler of Catan. |
| Game Name: |
Carcassonne |
| Picture: |
 |
| Designer: |
Klaus-Jürgen Wrede |
| Publisher: |
Hans im Glück / Rio Grande (English language edition) / Ventura (English language edition) |
| Players: |
2 to 5 |
| Playing time: |
60 minutes |
| Suitable for: |
Families (ages 10 and up); adults |
| You’ll love it because: |
The game is set in medieval France around the town of Carcassonne. Each turn you place a tile that shows sections of towns, fields and roads to build up a map of the countryside which acts as the game board. Place a worker to gain control of a town, road or field and then try and maximise the size of the areas you control by clever placement of tiles. Every game will end with a new and attractive layout and offer you interesting challenges as you try to score the most points by focussing on farming or perhaps on control of the towns. |
| Game Name: |
Ticket to Ride |
| Picture: |
 |
| Designer: |
Alan Moon |
| Publisher: |
Days of Wonder |
| Players: |
2-5 |
| Playing time: |
60 minutes |
| Suitable for: |
Families (ages 10 and up); adults |
| You’ll love it because: |
Ticket to Ride is about building railways across the U.S. Players collect sets of cards and use these to compete for the best bits of track. To build the link between two towns, you must hand in a set of cards of a particular colour, with the size required determined by the length of the link which also determines the score for making the link. Each player has some secret Destination Tickets that list towns that they must connect by the time the game ends. The tension is excruciating as you save up cards to complete a long link, but hope that no-one sneaks in before you to steal it! Great fun. |
