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Board games on the shelf in the library

Board Games

We have a collection of board games available for use in the library, which we are planning to expand on! Have fun playing and try a game before you purchase it. All game rules and descriptions were obtained from boardgamegeek.com

Uno

Players race to empty their hands and catch opposing players with cards left in theirs, which score points. In turns, players attempt to play a card by matching its color, number, or word to the topmost card on the discard pile. If unable to play, players draw a card from the draw pile, and if still unable to play, they pass their turn. Wild and special cards spice things up a bit.

UNO is a commercial version of Crazy Eights, a public domain card game played with a standard deck of playing cards.

This entry includes all themed versions of UNO that do not include new cards.

Uno Cards
Description of a game

Trouble

This is the game with the Pop-O-Matic dice roller. It's a simplified Pachisi variant in which only one die is rolled per turn.

The game is abstract, each player has set of pawns of his color. Each turn player rolls a die using the Pop-O-Matic and selects one of his pawns to move. Pawns can enter the track from Home base only on a roll of six. Each pawn needs to travel around the board and finish on the Finish lane. If pawn of another player is bumped, the bumped pawn is returned to home. The goal is to be the first one to get all the pawns to the Finish lane.

For advanced players, we suggest that when a piece gets bumped, it should only be bumped back to its START space, rather than to its HOME. Only when bumped from their START space are pieces sent HOME.

Travel Trouble uses the same mechanisms, but is on a smaller board with fewer spaces, so it plays more quickly.

Trouble Board Game
Description of a game

Mastermind

Guess the color of hidden pegs. A deduction game where each player takes turn making a limited number of guesses, using logic to deduce what pegs the opponent has hidden.

One player secretly puts four colored pegs in the spaces behind a screen at once end of the game board. The other player, the code breaker, makes a series of guesses. After each guess, the code maker uses smaller pegs to tell the code breaker if their guessed pegs are the right color and in the right place, are the right color but the wrong place, or are the wrong color entirely. The code breaker makes another guess in the next row, building upon information from previous guesses, trying to match the pegs the code maker hid at the beginning of the game.

This is a two-player game with 4 holes. For other combinations, please see the Mastermind Family.

Mastermind Board Game
Description of a game

Chutes and Ladders

​Traditional game from ancient India was brought to the UK in 1892 and first commercially published in the USA by Milton Bradley in 1943 (as Chutes and Ladders). Players travel along the squares sometimes using ladders, which represent good acts, that allow the player to come closer to nirvana while the snakes were slides into evil.

Chutes and Ladders Board Game
Description of a game

Wits & Wagers: It's Vegas, Baby!

Wits & Wagers: Vegas

With millions of Wits & Wagers sold and tons and tons of feedback from you, our fans, we’ve created the best version yet of this “evergreen” game.

  • All new questions: Thanks to the help of trivia expert Brent Povis (Jeopardy contestant, winner of The Weakest Link, and designer of the beloved game Morels), the new Wits & Wagers questions are some of the funniest and most surprising we've made. For example, do you know how many Moose cause car accidents in Alaska each year?

  • More places to bet: Bet on Red or Black to cover three different guesses. Like in Vegas, you can bet on a group of guesses to take a less risky bet, allowing you to grow your chip stack even when you don't know the best answer.

  • The art and components enhance the experience.

  • You won't run out of money chips anymore: We are providing more chips.

Wits and Wagers Board Game
Description of a game

Taboo

5-Minute Mystery is a high-intensity, deductive, mystery game in which players work together to find a culprit hidden in a line-up of suspects.

Just moments before the Museum of Everything was set to unveil its newest exhibit, the priceless MacGuffin, some criminal snuck in and stole it! Now it's up to you, a team of detectives, to crack the case, find the culprit, and recover the missing MacGuffin.

Start by searching for hidden symbols in each room of the museum and find the matching symbols on the codex. Once you've found all of the symbols in the room, you’ll unlock a clue about the culprit.

Match the barcode of the clue tile against the culprit tile to discover valuable information about the crook. Does the miscreant have an umbrella? No? Well, that eliminates the shifty Mr. Braxton, doesn’t it? Quickly sort through the suspect cards in your hand to narrow down who the criminal can be.

You’ll have to make it through as many rooms as it takes to figure out exactly who is responsible for stealing the MacGuffin, but remember, time is not on your side!

Case files change the rules to each time you play, making every game a new challenge.

Do you have what it takes to be the detective to crack the case and solve this five-minute mystery? Only time will tell!

5-Minute Mystery Board Game
Description of a game

Catch Phrase!

Quick, rattle off as many clues until somebody on your team yells the word or phrase you want to hear. Get as physical as you want. Gesture. Say anything you want. Just keep talking. And keep passing. 'Cause if the buzzer goes off while you're holding the disk, the other guys get the point in CATCH PHRASE... the fast-passing, fast-talking game.

Catch Phrase Board Game
Description of a game

Exploding Kittens

Exploding Kittens is a kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette. Players take turns drawing cards until someone draws an exploding kitten and loses the game. The deck is made up of cards that let you avoid exploding by peeking at cards before you draw, forcing your opponent to draw multiple cards, or shuffling the deck.

The game gets more and more intense with each card you draw because fewer cards left in the deck means a greater chance of drawing the kitten and exploding in a fiery ball of feline hyperbole.

Exploding kittens board game
Description of a game

Connect Four

Connect 4 is a well known vertical game played with "checkers" game pieces, although it is more akin to Tic-Tac-Toe or Go Moku.

The board is placed in the stand to hold it vertically and the players drop game pieces into one of the seven slots, each of which holds up to six game pieces, until one player succeeds in getting four in a row, whether horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

The game is non-proprietary. More elegant, wooden versions can be found under the name The Captain's Mistress.

Connect 4 board game
Description of a game

Pete the Cat Pizza Pie Game

Based on the New York Times Best-seller Pete the Cat

Cooperative game using a spin-and-move mechanic. Move the number of spaces resulting on the spinner. Land on a green space and collect that many pizza toppings. Land on a red space and give back that many. Land on a pizza+ space, take two toppings and give them to any other player.

When one person collects five toppings, they are allowed to place them on the pizza. The game ends when all toppings are successfully collected from the box and placed on the pizza!

Pete the Cat game
Description of a game

Candy Land

Created by Eleanor Abbott in the early 1940's to entertain children recovering from polio and first published by Milton Bradley (now Hasbro) in 1949, Candy Land encourages young players to socialize, exercise patience, recognize colors, learn rules, and follow directions.

Players race down a rainbow-colored track to be the first to find the lost King Kandy at Candy Castle, but watch out for obstacles like the sticky Molasses Swamp! Start by placing your plastic Gingerbread Man (or other character marker) at the beginning of the track. Each turn, players draw a simple card and move by matching the color on the card to the next color on the track. Some cards show a named location on the board; players who draw these cards move forward or backward on the track to the named location. The game ends when the first player arrives at Candy Castle by reaching or moving beyond the last square on the track.

In the 2004 version, younger players are not required to remove backward on the track if they draw a named card, and the last square of the track was changed from a Violet Square to a Rainbow Square, resolving a 55-year dispute over whether a player needs to land on the Violet Square or move beyond the Violet Square to win.

Prior to the 2006 version, three colored spaces on the track (one in Molasses Swamp and two "Cherry Pitfalls") were marked with a dot. Players who landed on a dot were "stuck," and were unable to move from the spot until they drew a card that matched the color of the square they were on. The 2006 version replaced gum drops with licorice spaces; players who land on a licorice space only lose their next turn.

“The Legend of the Lost Candy Castle” is printed inside the box and can be read out loud. The game parts can be stored below it. The game board is colorful and has lots of yummy candy references.

CandyLand Board Game
Description of a game

Taboo

In the party game Taboo, you're trying to give clues to your teammates so that they'll guess a particular word, but you can't say just anything you like. Some clues are off limits!

When you're the active player, hold the deck of cards so that you and the opposing team can see the top card. At the top of the card is the word your teammate must say to score the card, and you can anything you want to help them figure out what to guess other than the word itself (duh!) or the five words/phrases listed on the bottom of the card.

For example, can you get your teammates to say "bacon" without saying "pig", "eggs", "breakfast", "sausage", or "eat"? If you do, you score the card, then move on to the next card, trying to guess as many cards as possible before time runs out. However, if you say a taboo word (or make gestures), the opposing team will buzz a buzzer and score the card themselves.

How well can you describe things without breaking the taboo?

Taboo Board Game
Description of a game

Five Nights at Freddy's: Survive Til' 6 AM

You are the night shift security guard for a Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, and it is your duty to check the security cameras and keep the equipment in good, working order.... and beware the animatronics that activate on their own at night! Each turn you’ll check the cameras and react to the movements in the dark. Choose to turn on the lights or close doors to protect yourself—but watch out! Each reaction depletes your limited power. Keep Freddy and his friends out of your office until you can clock off at 6:00 am!

Five Nights at Freddy's Board Game
Description of a game

Clue

In this new edition of Clue, you will solve the mystery with the help of the ghost of Mrs. White by using Amazon Alexa.

Which suspect is responsible for the murder of Mr. Boddy in his mansion? Investigate who did it, which item they used, and the room where they committed the crime. Players have the option to summon the ghost of Mrs. White. If she's in a pleasant mood, she might help solve the case. If she's not… watch out!

Roll doubles to summon the ghost of Mrs. White. Just say, "Alexa, ask Mrs. White." If she's in a good mood she might help you advance in the game. But if she's not, she could very well say, "Hah! You thought your day was going well, but that's over now," and will give help to another player instead.

Clue Board Game
Description of a game

Apples to Apples

The party game Apples to Apples consists of two decks of cards: Things and Descriptions. Each round, the active player draws a Description card (which features an adjective like "Hairy" or "Smarmy") from the deck, then the other players each secretly choose the Thing card in hand that best matches that description and plays it face-down on the table. The active player then reveals these cards and chooses the Thing card that, in his opinion, best matches the Description card, which he awards to whoever played that Thing card. This player becomes the new active player for the next round.

Once a player has won a pre-determined number of Description cards, that player wins.

Apples to Apples Board Game
Description of a game

Scattergories

"The Game of Scattergories," published in 1988 by Milton Bradley, is a great game for any group to play. In the game each player fills out a category list 'with answers that begin with the same letter.' If no other player matches your answers, you score points. The game is played in rounds. After 3 rounds a winner is declared, and a new game can be begun.

Scattergories is a commercial version of an old parlour game known as Categories or Guggenheim.

Scattergories board game
Description of a game

Spot It

Spot it!, a.k.a. Dobble, is a simple pattern recognition game in which players try to find an image shown on two cards.

Each card in original Spot it! features eight different symbols, with the symbols varying in size from one card to the next. Any two cards have exactly one symbol in common. For the basic Spot it! game, reveal one card, then another. Whoever spots the symbol in common on both cards claims the first card, then another card is revealed for players to search, and so on. Whoever has collected the most cards when the 55-card deck runs out wins!

Rules for different games – each an observation game with a speed element – are included with Spot it!, with the first player to find a match either gaining or getting rid of a card. Multiple versions of Spot it! have been published, with images in each version ranging from Halloween to hockey to baseball to San Francisco.

The game is sold as Spot it! in the USA and Dobble in Europe, with slight differences between the two editions.

Spot It board game
Description of a game

Sorry

Slide Pursuit Game

Race your four game pieces from Start around the board to your Home in this Pachisi type game. By turning over a card from the draw deck and following its instructions, players move their pieces around the game board, switch places with players, and knock opponents' pieces off the track and back to their Start position.

Slides are located at various places around the game board. When a player's piece lands at the beginning of one of these slides not of its own color, it automatically advances to the end, removing any piece on the slide and sending it back to Start.

Game moves are directed exclusively by cards from the play-action deck. If one plays the normal version in which one card is drawn from the deck each turn, the outcome has a huge element of luck. Sorry can be made more of a strategic game (and more appealing to adults) by dealing five cards to each player at the start of the game and allowing the player to choose which card he/she will play each turn. In this version, at the end of each turn, a new card is drawn from the deck to replace the card that was played, so that each player is always working from five cards.

A player's fortunes can change dramatically in one or two rounds of play through the use of Sorry cards, the "11" cards (which give the player the option of trading places with an opponent's piece on the track), and the fact that it is possible to move from Start to Home without circumnavigating the full board by making judicious use of the "backward 4" cards.

Sorry Board Game
Description of a game

Little's Games, Toys and Puzzles

We have a rotating collection of games and activities on our tables, as well as tons of toys to play with, youth computers, and AWE learning computers!

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