Games I Tried to Play

Although I enjoyed my recent train trip, I had trouble sleeping. While everyone was snoozing away, I took that opportunity to try a couple games that have been sitting on my laptop for a while. I may not play these games in their entirety, but I definitely learned something about my preferences.

First up was the demo for Rooms: The Main Building. It is available at Big Fish Games. Although casual games tend to feel repetitive to me, I don't mind playing them in small doses. Usually the graphics are pretty and if you need a match-3 or a hidden-objects fix, casual games are perfect for that. However, I didn't get much enjoyment from this game. Rooms: The Main Building is a category of casual games that I hadn't tried yet -- the sliding puzzle. The instructions for this particular one were confusing and even after I figured them out, I didn't feel that there was much game for me to play. Basically, the player has to rearrange blocks so that the online character can walk through the rooms in the correct order. If this is the best example of it, I may never try another one.

Next, I attempted a spin on an old adventure game classic. Remember Sam and Max? I didn't read the comic book or play the computer game when it was released in 1993. In fact, I never even heard of the characters until last year when I saw that they had been revived in episodic game form on GameTap. I downloaded episode 201 to give it a whirl. It was more entertaining than Rooms, but I was stumped in no time. My ability to work through the puzzles in adventure games hasn't improved with age. Give me a good walkthrough to help me when I get stuck. Either that, or a 10-year-old. It took my son DJ five minutes to solve the puzzle that stumped me for 20. If nothing else, Sam and Max reminds me that my kids have creative thinking skills.

Popular Games for Playing on the Train

Well, I am back from my family trip. As usual, I had high hopes for playing games with my family, but the cards barely came out. We didn't play anything until the train trip back home. The kids and adults had separate sessions of Landlord!, and the boys gave Ghoulash a try.

The lounge car on the train was a perfect place to play. Even when the tracks got really bumpy, the cards stayed put on the table. There was enough space on the table top for four players to play Landlord! comfortably. I think we could even play Pounce. It was definitely more fun than traveling by plane.

And . . . we're off!

Tomorrow is the day! We're off on our big family trip. I still haven't quite decided what games to pack, but I work well under pressure :-). Hopefully, I'll have plenty of material for the blog when I come back since we should have several opportunities to play cards. In the meantime, the blog will be quiet unless I get a chance to post from the hotel on Wednesday. See you soon!