A few months ago I wrote about our family’s recent interest in board games. I had intended to write another post a short time later but that somehow never happened.

The family was so enamored of the new games that I ordered more games from the supplier on the east coast. They’d had a sale on for all of January and I think I ordered a second time right at the end of the month. New games this time around were Puerto Rico, Blokus Duo and the card game Fluxx. It was a bit like Christmas again when the package arrived quite promptly within a couple of days of ordering. Not only were the prices cheaper than anything local but they offered free one day shipping.

I think Puerto Rico is one of my favorite games now. It seemed incredibly complicated when we first started but once we got going, we all enjoyed it. And once you know the basic play, it sort of falls into place. We’ve played this quite a few times since we got it and it never fails to be a couple hours of fun for us. I somehow managed to win my first game against Lego Lover and the Scientist when we played this weekend. Lego Lover was doing quite well so it was something of a surprise when he was a couple points under me at the end.

Blokus Duo is just a two player version of Blokus. It’s a smaller board and players don’t start from the corner as in the original game. It’s far more competitive for two players. This works really well when we aren’t playing as a family. Unfortunately we are kind of stuck when we have three players, as has happened recently. The original game board is a bit too easy with three players. When we played over the weekend, we all finished equally in one game. In the other one, the only difference between winner and loser was the fact one had played the single tile last. It would be good if there was a travel version available here because it would be a good game to place with Lego Lover on the plane. It has been released on the iPhone/iPod Touch but it takes up 95mb and I don’t want to use up so much space on my iPod.

I bought the card game, Fluxx, on a whim when I placed the last order. The game is incredibly easy to play because there is a very simple basic rule to start and the cards provide new rules as you go. The new rules can get pretty silly and strange at times but it’s definitely never dull.

More recently, I found a Lord of the Rings board game at a Salvos (Salvation army) secondhand shop for just eight dollars. It normally would sell for over $70 new. It is missing one piece, but it’s just a marker and is no loss to game play. We haven’t played this one so I can’t say anything about it just yet.

The next games on my to-buy list are Agricola and Ticket to Ride.