We love board games.  When we visited Seattle, Jason and I didn’t want to bring the boys trinkets or other things that would take up space in the toy drawers or – more likely – on the floor in their room.  When we saw a game shop, the idea of bringing home a new family game seemed like the perfect solution.

Game shops have been disappearing in our area.  In fact, we’d have to look up whether there are still any around here at all.  Apparently, they still abound in Seattle, though, and we happened upon one at the mall.  Asking the girl (young woman?  She was younger than I – whatevever!) for recommendations that would keep everyone from a five-year-old boy to sick-of-Mousetrap adults interested, she came forward with two suggestions.

The one we decided on was also highly recommended by our hosts, and for good reason.  Blokus is the mostly highly-awarded board game of the twenty-first century.  It’s a simple concept – place your colored pieces corner-to-corner (no sides touching!), and try to get as many on the board as possible, while preventing the other players from achieving the same goal.

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At first glance, the board reminds me of Tetris, which can only be a good thing.  However, it requires more strategy than Tetris (also good, since I tend to zone out as my fingers respond automatically to those little blocks falling from nothingness).  Nicky loves it.  Kalen loved it for the first two games and now only likes to watch (we’ll give him a few more years – he is a very active five-year-old, after all).  Jason and I like to play after the boys are in bed.  My mom highly enjoyed it when I introduced her to it.

Blokus also comes in a three-player form (although you can play three-player with the original version, contrary to the information given us by Game Shop Girl), travel form, and the new 3D form.  I’m pretty sure we’ll end up with the travel and 3D versions eventually.

…and now I’ve been zoning, staring at this post for five minutes, attempting to come up with a witty way to end it.  Not gonna happen – I’d better hit the hay.  G’night!