Anitra Smith is the managing editor of The Family Gamers, and co-host of The Family Gamers Podcast.
Explore the reviews and podcasts she has contributed to.
Mmm! is a favorite game to play with children. Reiner Knizia has created a puzzle that is neither too easy for adults nor too hard for preschoolers.
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Do you enjoy speed games like SlapJack, Spit, or Slamwich? Then you should listen to our review of Super Kitty Bug Slap, from Steve Jackson Games.
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Sumer is a unique game. Neither fully a video game nor fully a board game, it meshes the best aspects of both for an engaging experience.
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A unique dexterity game from Blue Orange Games. We’ll tell you about both modes of play for this speedy puzzle game
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At its core, the Card Caddy is a hard-sided box to hold a deck of cards. Once open, you can re-attach the two sides to create a draw/discard tray. Useful and extremely durable. (You could probably run it over with a truck. We talked to Chris Nichols, the designer of the Card Caddy, on episode 55 of the podcast –
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A band of hearty explorers sets off on an adventure. Will they return victorious, with treasure to spend, or will they crawl back in defeat? Sounds like a video game RPG, but this is the concept behind MegaLand by Ryan and Malorie Laukat, the forces behind Red Raven Games.
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POW! is a press-your luck game of comic book character drafting, from Reiner Knizia and Gigamic. Your goal: build a cast of characters for your comic book. Collect both superheroes and supervillians, to create a balanced comic. Listen to our SNAP review of POW! in 5 minutes, or read on below. Gameplay Setup by randomizing the superheroes (blue/teal) and supervillians
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Think ‘N Sync, a party game from Gamewright, is a icebreaker type game for a group. Can you and your teammate think in sync?
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Who doesn’t love ice cream? If I was serving up sundaes for the family, I would try to hold back some favorites for myself. But what if everyone else gets to choose their sundae first? How do I keep the family away from “my” favorites? That’s the concept behind Sundae Split.
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The Tea Dragon Society now has meetings in board game land! Does the game hold up to the tone and message of the comic? Is it still fun to play if you’ve never read the comic? Yes to both!
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Anomia is a word from a Latin root and means “without name”. It’s the term for being unable to come up with the name of an object. Anomia is also a game (from Anomia Press), in which players race to come up with a word that fits a certain category, ranging from “color” to “rock opera” to “shampoo brand”.
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But have you noticed that simply holding a pencil encourages nearly everyone to doodle? Why not make it a game?
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What’s a word that starts with A and contains a P and then an L? Maybe you thought “apple”, but how about “application” or “anthropology”?
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The bakers in Sprinkleton have a big problem – monsters keep stealing all their donuts! Can you pick out the suspects and help the bakers recover their donuts? Monster Match is a new collaboration from the team that brought us Happy Salmon – designers Ken Gruhl & Quentin Weir, with art by Linda DeSantis. As with Happy Salmon, Monster Match
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Robot waiters gather food and bring it to customers. But can you deliver the food combinations your customers need?
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“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” – William Shakespeare In Fairy Tile, you create the map of the kingdom and move the fairy tale characters through their story. Use the Pages in your Book to recount the adventure of the princess, the knight, and the dragon.
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Button Shy is a micro-publisher dealing exclusively in micro-games. All of their games are small enough to fit in a wallet. Although some of these games are quite involved despite the small number of cards, we’ll be looking at two of their lightest games: a travel game and a fast deduction party game. Cow, Tiger, Santa Claus As a child,
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Sometimes, you just want a simple game to pass the time. It’s even better if you can learn a little bit while you’re playing. For decades, Top Trumps has been doing its part to fill this need in the UK, but after being acquired by Winning Moves, they are now available in the US. With hundreds of different decks, did
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We’ve all had that friend. The one who bellyaches about how poorly he’s doing in a game. In adults, this behavior can be amusing, and even if it’s not, we can choose to exclude a sore loser from our gaming circle. But what about our kids? Learning to put up with disappointment is part of growing up.
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