Last Letter

Last Letter is a fast-paced twist on a classic game - and we like it!

Players: Multiplayer

Duration: 5 mins +

Recommended Ages: 8+ 

Country of Origin: USA

Created By:

Joe & Dave Herbert

Published By:

ThinkFun 

Distributed By:

Coiledspring

This is another simple Thinkfun game, sent us by Coiledspring to enter in this years Imagination Gaming Family and Education Game Awards.

With 61 convoluted designs, you won't be playing 'Snap'!

In the pack you get 61 clever and intriguing illustrations, printed separately on large cards so you can get a good view of the tons of detail on each. And, along with some other players, that's all you need.

To set up, one card is placed face up in the middle of the table and 5 are dealt to each player face down. Left over cards won't be needed I this round so can be put to one side.

The dealer looks at the face up card and calls out a word that represents something pictured on that card. This could be an object, an action or an emotion  for example but must be clearly visible on the card. The player could not however attribute a something not clearly depicted, such as giving a person a name or using a specific type of object when the picture is more general (eg saying 'ferrari' when a it could be any kind of car).

If the last word was blo'W', this could be 'W'izard...

Then all players can look at their cards. They must race to find somethin pictured on anyone of their cards that begins with the 'last letter' of the word just called out. For instance, if the last word called out was "dragoN", players race to find a word that begins with "N" - like "Nail" or "Nightmare".

As soon as a player has found an acceptable word, they call it out and at the same time play the corresponding card on top of the last one in the middle of the table. If there is a tie, the player that gets their card on top of the pile first wins, and the other player must keep their card. Of course all players can now race to find a card with something beginning with the last letter of the new word and the game continues until one player has got rid of all their cards and is the winner.

... and from wizar'D', to 'D'anger...!

Last Letter is definitely one of those games that we thought would be easier than it was, it was surprising how difficult it often was to find something to use next, even when it was staring us in the face!

The cards are really beautifully designed with a range of different styles of artwork, and could be used in lots of ways. Straight away we can see lots of opportunities to use these cards to stimulate all kinds of literacy based ideas and games, and we'll be putting Last Letter to good use very soon indeed, and happily recommend you try it too!

Last Letter is already available from our online store here...

As with all the games entered for this years awards, don't forget you can come and try them all for free with us at UK Games Expo 2014 in the Family Zone, and vote for your favourite in the Players Choice Award.

Wild Arena

Wild Arena is a card battling game where the rules change every round!

Never work with children or animals, unless they can wrestle!

Players: 2 to 4 

Duration: 15-30mins

Recommended Ages: 8+

Country of Origin: Italy

Created By: Luca Bellini

Published By: Carta Mundi

Distributed By: Raven

We came across Wild Arena at the Essen Game Fayre in 2013. Post Scriptum had taken it along with another great game by Luca Bellini - Fun Farm. Wild Arena had won the Primo Archimede Award and  as a prize Carta Mundi printed 1000 copies.

Fighting like animals!

In Wild Arena each player starts with a team of Wrestler cards numbered 1 to 12, with 4 equal teams to choose from. This means not only can you go head to head, but also have a three or even four way battle.

There are also 12 Referee cards that contain one of five different rules in the game. These are shuffled and dealt equally among the players.There are also 12 Referee cards that contain one of five different rules in the game. These are shuffled and dealt equally among the players.Each player starts with a team of Wrestler cards numbered 1 to 12, with 4 equal teams to choose from. This means not only can you go head to head, but also have a three or even four way battle.

The gameplay itself is simple with the rules stating that the most muscular player should start... that debate alone could start a fight!

The Wild Arena - so dangerous it has a cavernous crack right down the middle...

The first, or active, player plays one of his Referee cards face down in the centre of the Wild Arena (ok, table!), and then one of his wrestlers face up. Then, in a clockwise order, every other player places one of their Wrestlers face down in the arena. Once everyone has played and all wrestlers for that round are flipped face up and the winner is determined based on the rule card which is now revealed...

Referee keeps changing the rules.

Biggest - The player with the highest numbered wrestler wins

Smallest - The lowest wrestler wins.

Threes - The player with the lowest card, higher than 3 wins the round.

Sevens - The player with the highest card, but lower than 7 wins the round.

Twins - The lead player wins if anyone plays the same value wrestler as they did. Otherwise the highest wrestler wins.

As an extra "David versus Goliath" style twist, in a round where the rule is 'biggest' a '1' Wrestler beats the ' 12 '. Vice versa, when the rue is 'smallest', the ''12' beats the '1'

The winner for the round takes the rule card and places face down in their winning pile. Wrestlers used are discarded face down too. This means that players only use each Wrestler once and no-one can see what has been played.

We've played Wild Arena a few times now and think it's one of those games with more to it than at first glance. It takes a couple of goes to get the hang of and start to spot the strategies, but it is a simple game once you get going... just hard to win!

As with all the games entered in the Imagination Gaming Family and Education Game Awards 2014, you will be able to see it for yourself at this years UK Games Expo and tell us what you think in the Family Zone. We hope to see you there.

Tell Tale

As this was the week we celebrated World Book Day, what better game to have a look at than... Tell Tale 

Never judge a book by its cover , it might not even be a book!

Players: 3 to 5,  

Duration: 30-45mins,

Recommended Ages: 8+

Country of Origin: 
United Kingdom, 

Created By: 
Jack Hanauer

Published By:  
Porcupine Press,  

Distributed By: 
Porcupine Press

The gameboard shows the current round of cards available...

 Tell Tale came to us as part of this years Imagination Gaming Awards, and we loved the look of it straight away.
As you can see the box looks like a book, and it opens like one too... so if you are going to stand it like one, just be careful!

Inside you'll find an equally themed gameboard, 100 gold coins (cardboard), and a bidding board, screen and counters in matching colours for up to 5 players... and a huge stack of cards!

The idea of the game is to spend a limited amount of money in 3 rounds of secret bidding to collect the best cards to help you tell a story worth as many points as possible.

Secretly bid on which cards to add to your collection!

To start, all players take a matching screen and bidding board and 20 gold coins. Each player is also dealt 4 story cards only they can see to start their collection with. The game board is placed in the centre of the table and 8 more story cards are randomly dealt and placed into the 8 spaces on the board. The story cards are a mixture of names, places, objects, times and events from one of 5 differently coloured themes in the game - sci-fi / adventure, soap opera, crime, horror / fantasy, history and fairytale.

 Then all players use their concealed bidding areas to try and buy any or all (or none at all!) of the cards in the middle. When everyone has placed their money, the Tell Tale screens are lifted to reveal who has been successful. The player with the most money on each card takes it for their collection and pays the amount bid into the 'bank', money bid that didn't win a card  and money not used in that round is carried over to the next round of bidding. There are 3 rounds of bidding per story, so spend your wealth wisely!

Mixture of cards =  just 1pt each

Once 3 rounds of bidding have been completed it's time to tell your story and score some points. Players can use as many of their cards as they wish to tell their story, but must do strategically to try and gain the following points:

• Stories with cards all the same colour score 3 pts per card used.
• Stories with no more than one card of as many colours as they wish score 2 pts per card.
• Stories of mixed quantities of different colour cards score 1 pt per card.

But whose is the best story?! Each player then secretly votes using coloured counters for the story they enjoyed the most, with the winner scoring a whopping 15 points! Everyone who voted for the best story also earns 5 points.

There is a score board around the edge of the board to keep track throughout the game, and you could play towards any points total you wish.

We've only had Tell Tale a couple of weeks now but have been able to take it to numerous events and it's gone into a couple of our games packs for schools already. We think it's a great game of strategy and imagination that supports literacy and numeracy skills, but most importantly just plain fun!

Tell Tale is now available from our website here and definitely gets our stamp of approval as a fun and innovative family game that we will be using for a long time to come. We think the IG Award judges will love it too.

One of our very first test groups at the Sheffield Day Of Games... and they couldn't leave it alone!