Bring on the Cheese!

by Angie



The nice folks over at Pressman Toy sent us their new game Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Cheese Touch Game to check out, and I really had no idea what to expect. I’ve looked the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books before and thought they were cute, and have even heard good things about them from my kid friends, but they aren’t something we’ve read… yet. The graphics and style of this game has all the cuteness and fun flavor of the book series, and I’m sure fans will have a lot to identify with. As an outsider to the series, we found the characters and art to be interesting and it definitely piqued our interest in the stories behind them... but you don't need to read the books to enjoy this game. After looking it over for a few minutes I was super excited to give this game a try because it looked like a simple, streamlined, and clever party-style game (Cranium-esq) that is playable by all ages. Sweet! This game did not disappoint. Bottom line is we’ve had a lot of fun playing it, and it’s one that will definitely see a lot of table time in the future.  



Quirkly style, simple rules

The basic game play consists of rolling a die, moving your piece, and drawing a card of the appropriate type based on where you land. The card varieties each offer a different type of challenge, ranging from guessing what other people will answer to acting out requested tasks in a specific way, with some random elements thrown in.  Success on the challenge usually results in moving forward on the board, while failure results in obtaining “the Cheese Touch” (which I think is supposed to be equivalent to “cooties” or something??). First one to the finish line wins, with the kicker that you can’t win if you have the Cheese Touch. The pacing seems just about right, you are usually moving forward pretty quickly, the track isn’t too long, and there are lots of ways for the Cheese Touch to be passed around. The thing I enjoyed best about this game is that it encourages you to get to know each other better through clever questions, without being too complicated, long, or “boring” for young kids.

Random hugs are part of this game! Seriously!

Our first play through included me, Randy, Katie, and a couple of adult friends that were over visiting. When friends come over Katie often wants to be included in gaming, but finding a game that offers a fun experience for a bunch of adults and one little kid isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Our lovely friends have indulged Katie and played many games of Candyland, Disney Yahtzee, and other kid favorites over the years; but I’ve never seen the adults enjoying themselves as much as we all did playing Cheese Touch. Laughter, good conversation, and full engagement from Katie AND the grownups were hallmarks of this game. Favorite questions involved trying to figure out who Katie would think was the most likely to survive in the wilderness, admitting the longest we'd each gone without a bath, guessing which pet peeve belonged to which grown-up, and trying to act out swimming and eating "incorrectly".  We had fun and enjoyed the experience, all while learning a little more about each other. We highly recommend this game for a fun family experience; it’s simple, light-hearted, and offers a solid party game experience in a cute little package.

An insta-hit, loved by Katie and the grown-ups!

Castaways of Deadman’s Bay

by Katie

We played a new game, Castaway's of Deadman's Bay. It’s a battlers game about pushing people off the plank, striking them, or insulting their crew. The battlers are pirate captains! It’s awesome, AWE-some! Mom and I play “Kate” and daddy plays the one named “Jack”. Because the characters are named Kate and Jack like me and my brother that just makes the game so special!

How You Play: You play a card and try to trick your dad by playing a card and mindreading like I do. You pick a card and if it’s the right one KABOOM, BAM, and then BABABOOM to win! Power ups are the cards you can play to make your moves better so they do more damage.

What is easy: This game is easy, really easy. The reading parts are OK because I can show my mom since we’re on a team. My mom read me the cards and since I heard them a bunch of times I know what they say. I can tell them apart by the colors. The cards that, like, power up a move match the color of the move and that makes it easy to tell what they are.

What is hard: None of it was hard actually

Insult for the win!!

What I like best: My favorite part is that we are so good at pushing him off! I like that we got to knock him straight off the plank! We won by figuring out what daddy was going to do… he thought we were going to charge because we had the most charge power-ups but I knew he was going to think that so I just threw down an insult and that won the game! I love the thinky parts of the game where you try to guess what they are going to try to do!

What I like least: That Jack is too little to play, but I anyway had fun with it.

How much I like it: I like it two-hundred and forty-four. 2-4-4. That means I really like it and it’s one of my top favorites. I want to play it again and again!

This is what my mom wants to say:

"I really liked the fact that the emphasis on this game was on thinking through what your opponent might do and trying to outguess them. The game was simple, but provided a good skill building opportunity for the younger gamers in your family while still remaining interesting enough for parents to have fun playing. Plus, it’s pirates!

This is the first game of this type we’ve played with Katie in which I think she really got that element of trying to read your opponent and use deductive reasoning to figure out the best move. It’s a great gateway into a whole range of strategy games in which it is important to try to predict what your opponent is going to do… Race For The Galaxy, Yomi, and Agricola to name a few. It’s definitely a game I can see playing “again and again” with our little pirate captains."

This is what my dad wants to say about it:

"Let me start by  saying a big hearty "Thank you!" to Ian Volkwein, the designer of this game, for providing a review copy of this game. We really enjoyed this game, and Katie is excited to play it more. I like the bluffing mechanic. This game is a great introduction to games that include anticipating your opponents moves, and those that use "Rock-Paper-Scissors" mechanics. In this one, you want to match your opponent when defending and choose differently when attacking. The powerups and action cards keep it fun and exciting. I definitely recommend this for younger gamers. There is card text, so it's best for those kids who also read. You can read more about this one at Ponderzombie Games. Yarrr!"

 That's all...

I didn’t want my mom and dad to say anything on this blog post because it’s MY blog post and they can just write their own, but they really wanted to so I just let them do it. Then what they wrote was cool, so I’m kinda OK with it now. I just didn’t want you readers to think their words were my words. That’s all. Thanks for reading my blog!

Quick Review: Sonic Colors

I am writing a short blog post this time because some games don't involve as much. They're easier to explain. We'll call these writings Quick Reviews because I'm giving you my opinion fast and they aren't so long.

Sonic Colors is a great game for the Wii. Mommy was playing it and it made her head hurt so I got to play it instead of her. I actually like this game because it's all about a guy who jumps and runs really fast. It's really cool because there are all these circles everywhere and all these mystery things and I get to collect them. These important things along the way have a little voice that tells me what I can do, so that's how I learned to play. I like it because it's so fast and I'm good at it.

I love it, I want to play again. It's awesome. And it doesn't make my head hurt like it does to my mom, so that's good. Everybody who likes games where you go really fast should try this game. That's all, thanks for reading!