Roll / Spin and Move

(from publisher)
Egypt 1926. The Valley of the Pharaohs holds many secrets, but none so great as the Scepter of Amun-Ra. In this grand adventure you play a character tasked with collecting the legendary Scepter. As you make your way to the Valley of the Pharaohs you will face desert bandits, blinding sandstorms and the ill wishes of your fellow players. But safe haven and good fortune can be found within the oasis of the friendly Bedouin. If you’re feeling lucky you can spin the Wheel of Fate. Collect resources to overcome obstacles or lay obstacles to hinder your opponents. Roll doubles and you control the mummy, but beware no one masters the mummy for long. Valley of the Pharaohs comes packaged in an authentic wooden book-box and is played on a beautifully illustrated map of Egypt. Cast metal playing pieces, metal coins and individual character cards provide rich context and detail to this exciting game of fortune and peril.

User review: One player has twelve red frogs; the other player has twelve purple frogs. There is a yellow frog that can be moved by either player. The gameboard is a six-by-six grid. The perimeter squares are called the Outer Path. The Outer Path surrounds the squares called the Inner Path. The center four squares have been merged into the Pond, which is the goal area. Players roll both dice on their turn with the goal of getting one’s own frogs into the pond to win. The frogs may be stacked but an opponent whose frog rests on top of the stack can freeze a stack of two. An opponent can not freeze a stack of three. The stacking limit is five (except for the root and pond, which have none).

Playing Pictionary may remind you of Charades, but with drawing on paper instead of acting out the answers. In Pictionary, though, both teams' (or even all three teams') clue givers may be drawing at the same time as players strive to be the first to guess the correct answer. When the answer is not designated "All Play," one team simply tries to come up with the answer before the timer runs out, which is usually but not always possible thanks to the varying difficulty levels of the answers. No great drawing talent is required; instead, players gain an edge if they have a good imagination when guessing, empathy for their team mates, and/or a general ability to communicate in restricted circumstances. A board is provided, just to keep score on, which focuses the competition. Pictionary was a big hit when it first appeared and has been a classic on the party game scene ever since.

Microbadges related:
- Pictionary fan
- Pictionary Man fan

Slide Pursuit Game

Race your four game pieces from Start around the board to your Home in this Pachisi type game. By turning over a card from the draw deck and following its instructions, players move their pieces around the game board, switch places with players, and knock opponents' pieces off the track and back to their Start position.

Slides are located at various places around the game board. When a player's piece lands at the beginning of one of these slides not of its own color, it automatically advances to the end, removing any opponent's piece on the slide and sending it back to Start.

Game moves are directed exclusively by cards from the play-action deck. If one plays the normal version in which one card is drawn from the deck each turn, the outcome has a huge element of luck. Sorry can be made more of a strategic game (and more appealing to adults) by dealing five cards to each player at the start of the game and allowing the player to choose which card he/she will play each turn. In this version, at the end of each turn, a new card is drawn from the deck to replace the card that was played, so that each player is always working from five cards.

A player's fortunes can change dramatically in one or two rounds of play through the use of Sorry cards, the "11" cards (which give the player the option of trading places with an opponent's piece on the track), and the fact that it is possible to move from Start to Home without circumnavigating the full board by making judicious use of the "backward 4" cards.

The classic detective game! In Clue, players move from room to room in a mansion to solve the mystery of: who done it, with what, and where? Players are dealt character, weapon, and location cards after the top card from each card type is secretly placed in the confidential file in the middle of the board. Players must move to a room and then make an accusation against a character saying they did it in that room with a specific weapon. The player to the left must show one of any cards accused to the accuser if in that player's hand. Through deductive reasoning each player must figure out which character, weapon, and location are in the secret file. To do this, each player must uncover what cards are in other players hands by making more and more accusations. Once a player knows what cards the other players are holding they will know what cards are in the secret file. A great game for those who enjoy reasoning and thinking things out.