Games Galore

Posted on by Thor

Over the Christmas Holidays there wasn’t much need to go outside in the cold in Iowa. Instead we played endless card and board games. This sketch is of a late night game of Quelf which is an unpredictable party game that gives random a new name! You might be asked to answer hilarious trivia, perform ridiculous stunts, or obey silly rules. The game inspires creativity, wit and sense of humor in ways you’ve never imagined. Pam had to answer questions using nothing but song lyrics. Destiny at one point was crawling on the floor. Some questions had to be answered within 30 seconds which was timed with an hourglass.

Card games were also predominate. Euchre and Canasta seem to be the games of choice. I started to catch on to the rules of Canasta, but euchre is very fast paced and I never caught on to all the rules or strategies. Another board game we played quite a bit was Parcheesi. In this game you move your players, (bulls, bears, camels or elephants), around the board and try to be the first to get all your players home. There is some strategy with blocking and knocking other players back. It was fun to play. I won my first game but lost the other two.

Board Games over the Christmas Holdiay.

Posted on by Thor

The Schwartz family has a beautiful farmhouse and land in Maquoketa, Iowa. Overnight, the entire landscape was dusted with an inch or so of snow.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all delicious home cooked meals.  The temperatures outside dropped to negative nine degrees by the end of the week.  With temperatures so low, we all stayed in all day either relaxing under a quilt on the couch or playing games on the dining room table.  Board and card games were played as the little ones ran around playing their own imaginary games.  The youngest had gotten an electronic ice cream cart that had a recorded track that taught numbers by requesting certain numbers of scoops and syrups.  The little sisters fought over that cart relentlessly until they discovered that the large cardboard box that the present came in was a much more interesting toy to crawl in and out of.  It could be a car, tunnel or time machine, the possibilities were endless.

By the end of the day, I had my fill of board games, and I settled in on the living room couch to sketch the Schwartz family playing a game called “Watch Ya Mouth” which was hilarious to watch. The game involves putting a plastic guard in your moth which spreads your lips wide making it impossible to pronounce Ps, Bs, and Ms.  The goal is for one player to say a phrase on a card and for their teammate to guess what is being said.  If you have a small mouth you are at a disadvantage.  Pam and I had played before and we were pretty good at understanding each other.  What happens for most players is that they laugh so much that they never even get the phrase out.

Another board game that we played was “Quelf.”  It involved answering hilarious trivia, performing ridiculous stunts, or obeying silly rules. Players had to use creativity, wit, and sense of humor to progress around the board. One stunt I had to perform involved recreating as many yoga poses as I could in 30 seconds.  Since I had done yoga in the past, I had an advantage.  Another stunt involved me becoming a boomerang and saying, “wha, wha” as I walked around the home and back to the board.  Players could request that I perform the stunt again, and wouldn’t you know, every player insisted I perform that stunt again and again.  I was exhausted from laughing so had.  I should have taken the penalty points.  The most popular game was a card game called “Euchre.” It uses a regular deck of playing cards with only the cards from nine and up used.  Jacks are the most powerful cards and could change suite.  The rules are pretty complex, but I started to catch on over the course of the holiday.   Games began shortly after breakfast and went on all day, sometimes until 3 AM.  Needless to say, Christmas at the Schwartz homestead is an adventure. 

Board Games in Iowa.

Posted on by Thor

After the Thanksgiving Turkey Dinnr, the Schwartz family plays board games for the rest of the day into the night This game called “Quelf” was rather strange. The board has characters that move around a rainbow brick road using a die to set the number of moves. Different spots would have players pick up cards much like in a game of Monopoly. Some cards in the deck insist that a player perform an action throughout the length of the game, “Roolz Cards.” For instance, Pam Schwartz had to say “Wacka Wacka” any time another player laughed. Of course when she said “Wacka Wacka” we would all laugh again. Another card had Pam shout out commands like a drill Sargent, which she did with some gusto.

I pulled a card that said I must pinch the flesh around my belly button to manipulate it like a mouth to say something like, “Well this is awkward.” I thought long and hard before performing that task, but ended up doing so to avoid paying a penalty. Another card insisted that I must stand in slow motion and point at the player to my left and say, “You have sabotaged my plans for the last time, en guard!” The simple goal of the game was to get to the end of the rainbow paved rainbow first. I didn’t win.

Another board game called “Baker Street,” based on the Sherlock Holmes books, had four players trying to solve a murder on the streets of London. Once again, a die set the pace of game play. I thought I was being clever by bypassing many possible clues to get to the scene of the crime first. The clue at the scene was no better than any other spot on the board so I had to backtrack to learn what the other players already knew. I knew that the crime had to do with the value of a bible. So I had my suspicions about the murderer and his motive, but I wasn’t able to find the weapon used in time. Each player was on their own private quest and didn’t have any reason to interact. After the  boisterous insanity of Quelf, this seemed far too tame a prospect.