Last weekend, Siobhan and I had a very board game-filled couple of days with the family, and honestly, it was so much fun.
Friday night and Saturday were all about games with Mum, Dad, Lexi, Alastair and Nikola, before Sunday turned into a full day of strategy games for just the two of us.
One thing we’ve always struggled with as a family is finding games that everyone wants to play and that won’t end in arguments or someone getting a little too competitive. So when we asked Alastair what he’d actually be keen to play with us, he requested Castle Panic and Small World.
🏰 Defending the Castle in Castle Panic
First up was Castle Panic, which can be played either as 1v5 or everyone versus the game. In the past we have played Overlord mode and not played again because...siblings 😅
It is a great co-op game and is so much fun working together against the game. We thought we were doing really well until someone jinxed us and proceeded to flip 12 monster cards in one turn.
And we came very close to losing.
The orcs were closing in, our castle was slowly being destroyed, and things were looking pretty questionable for a while. Luckily, we managed to work together really well and beat the game.
Sure, we only had two walls left standing by the end of it... but a win is a win!
🔍 Saturday Morning Games with Lexi
Saturday morning started with a few games with our four-year-old niece, Lexi.
We played Spot It! - Lilo and Stitch and Taco Kitten Pizza, and she is getting so good at both of them. The first couple of times we played with her, the rules may have been bent once or twice... or many times... but she’s learning so quickly now and doing really well.
Later, Siobhan and I finally got Small World to the table with Alastair and his partner, Nikola.
Small World is another one of those games that we used to play all the time but probably got put away because someone would have won in some way that upset one or most of us and we didn’t play it again. But playing it this time was really fun and it was cool seeing the different strategies each of us tried to use in order to win.
🍕 A Very Cute Game of Taco Kitten Pizza
One of my favourite moments of the whole weekend wasn’t even from a game I was playing.
While Mum, Siobhan and I were playing Mystic Moon, Dad and Lexi started their own little game of Taco Kitten Pizza nearby.
It was so cute and wholesome listening to the two of them playing together, and honestly, moments like that are one of my favourite things about board games. It’s not always about the game itself. Sometimes it’s just having something that gets everyone sitting down together and having fun.
🌙 Brewing Up Some Chaos in Mystic Moon
While Dad and Lexi played Taco Kitten Pizza, we were learning to play Mystic Moon, an adorable addition to the Unstable Games range from TeeTurtle.
In Mystic Moon, each player chooses a witch hut with its own special bonus and sets out to brew as many potions as possible. Those potions help you build up Star Power, with the witch who has the most by the end of the game claiming the ultimate witch title.
It’s cute, colourful and definitely one I’d been looking forward to trying. There was the usual initial confusion that comes with learning a new game, but by the end of it we were all having so much fun and causing absolute chaos that I’m already excited for the next time we play it.
☕ Coffee Rush On The Go!
We also got Mum to try Coffee Rush: Grab & Go, which I was particularly excited about because we already love the original Coffee Rush, and I love that we now have a version we can take with us anywhere.
Thankfully, the smaller version got mum's tick of approval too!
It was really quick to set up and play while still giving us that Coffee Rush feeling of frantically trying to complete orders. I can definitely see this one being pulled out when we want something quick or don’t have the time (or table space!) for the full game.
One of the other great things about it is that it works really well with two players, but adding more people brings so much more fun and chaos into the mix.
Sunday Strategy Games
Sunday was a completely different kind of game day.
With the family games done, Siobhan and I decided it was time to work our way through some of the newer strategy games we’d been wanting to try.
The other thing we tried was listening to board game playlists on Spotify while we played, and I am now convinced that every board game should have a playlist to go with it.
🫖 Brewing Up a Storm in Tea Witches
I have wanted this game for so long and I loved it as much as I thought I would!
Fair warning, this game takes up a lot of table space. We ended up playing it on our kitchen floor because all the components wouldn’t fit on the table, but honestly, it added so much to the atmosphere of the game that we didn’t mind too much.
In Tea Witches, you have cute little teapups (teapots) that travel around town collecting tea and ingredients for the witches you need to serve from your own personal deck. Each day is split into two phases, starting with the Summoning phase, where you draw witches from your deck, followed by the Serving phase, where you head out to collect everything you need to complete their orders and serve the witches.
It’s like a fun mix of Coffee Rush and Flamecraft all rolled into one very cute game, and I cannot wait to play more of it.
🐰 Building Our Bunny Kingdom
Bunny Kingdom Town is a two-player version of the original Bunny Kingdom, which was released in 2017.
It’s a cute little territory-building game where you’re both working to build neighbourhoods while choosing cards that can help you score end-game bonuses.
We both really enjoyed the actual gameplay, but found the scoring at the end a little tedious because we hadn’t been keeping track of points as we went. It didn’t detract from the game too much, but it definitely left us a little confused by the end!
All in all, I think this is one we’ll keep pulling out when we want a game specifically designed for two players. I also love that there’s enough variety in the setup to make each game feel a little different.
🐾 Cooking Up Chaos in Critter Kitchen
Critter Kitchen features artwork by the same artist as Flamecraft and Tea Witches, Sandara Tang, and I have to say, I love her art style so much that it’s half of what draws me to these games in the first place.
The game itself is a worker-placement game where you send three chefs out to gather ingredients to satisfy different challenges. Then, in every third round, you present your plates to be scored based on the quality of the ingredients your chefs have gathered.
We were having a great time right up until the very end, when we realised we had used all of our best ingredients on the challenges when we really should have been saving some of them for the final critic's plate!
It was hilarious, and we definitely ended up laughing at how bad we apparently are at reading the rules. But messing it up was also part of the fun, and now we know exactly what not to do next time.
By Sunday night, we’d managed to play everything from four-year-old-friendly card games to cooperative castle defence and strategy games, which feels like a pretty successful weekend to me.
More importantly, though, it was one of those weekends that reminded me why I love board games so much. We got Mum and Dad playing, found games Alastair was excited to join us for, watched Dad and Lexi have their own little game together, and then spent Sunday happily competing against each other.
With all the new releases we have landing, I already have a growing list of games I want everyone to try next time!