Category: Card Games

I first wrote about this game about a year ago.  It was a Kickstarter project that intrigued me.  So with my whopping $12 investment, I waited a long time to see this.  I knew that my oldest son would love this game.  The box arrived, we opened it together–and what was his first reaction?  “This is a girl’s game!”

The artwork is what grabbed his attention.  Indeed, it’s unique.  And pictures of fairies don’t usually inspire my Lego-addicted son.  But he agreed to try it out.

We played it three times that night.

In fact, that was 11 days ago–and we’ve played 2-3 games EVERY NIGHT since.  He asks me to play with him.  And that made my $12 worth every penny and then some.

In a nutshell, all cards have two sides–a goblin side and a fairy side.  Each side has a character’s name–which makes us laugh every time we read them.  And you have to read them, because part of the game is matching cards by rhyming.  The goal is to get rid of your goblins and collect fairies.  The actual directions are beyond what I want to document–but I can say that most of our games are about 15-20 minutes—perfect for his attention span.

The game is available for sale as of today at Game Salute for $15.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been playing “Uno.”  The classic, 1970’s-era card game–not the latest incarnations with electronic gizmos (although we have one or two of those versions around as well!).  Holding 7 (or more!) cards isn’t easy for Greg and his small hands–so we just lay his on the table.  This makes it easier for him, and easier for us to help him.  Of course, he picked up on this game quickly, so we were off and running!

The first time we played was with his grandparents (Abuelita and Granddad).  We were all looking for something to do on a quiet Sunday afternoon.  Ben was napping, so this was a perfect opportunity for some QT (quality time!).  The special cards were a huge hit–the Draw Two, Skip, Reverse, and, of course, the Draw Four all become fun ways to antagonize each other.  I think we played non-stop for almost two hours…

We love this game.  We match numbers and/or colors, we take turns, and we get to tease each other–and laugh about it too.

Special modifications:  Greg will sometimes ask me to play with him–just the two of us.  Uno really is meant for three or more players–the Reverse card changes the direction of play.  Well, when it’s just the two of us, we use Reverse as another kind of Skip card.  We figure that if one player plays a Reverse, the normal flow of play would be to the other person–the Reverse changes that, so play resumes with the original player (i.e. play skips the second player).