Friday, February 25, 2011

SET with new games

SET GameI recently needed to spend a few more bucks to qualify for free shipping on an Amazon order (well, I guess I didn't technically need to, but it would be silly to pay $5 for shipping when if I spent another few bucks, shipping would be free, and I could get something else I could surely use.) So, I added SET to our order. SET is an award winning card game that sounds simple enough, but proved to really get us thinking. It's sort of a matching game, but there's more to it than simple shapes, colors or patterns.


You start with 12 cards and have to find a "set" of three that is either all the same, or all different in the four categories of shape, color, pattern, and number. The thing is, there are countless variations on how to make that happen. A "set" might be all the same color and all the same number, but all different patterns and shapes. Each category has to be all the same, or all different though. If it's all different in every other way, but two of the three cards have the same shape, then it's not a set.

We've spent a good portion of this cold, rainy afternoon in front of a cozy fire bending our brains over making SETs. We haven't yet used the penalty violation for calling out false "sets," which is probably a good thing, as we've all excitedly called out dozens of times, only to realize one thing out of the four was wrong. I'm sure that as soon as husband joins in the game, the actual scoring will start, cause that's just how he plays.

The game is definitely a winner in our house for thinking skills and addictiveness. It's easy enough to understand for a 6 year old to play, but challenging enough to keep bigger kids and grown ups interested as well. We play a lotta games at my house, and the same old things on the game shelf can get old. I'm glad we added this to our collection of low tech family fun.

What are your favorite family games?