Games Night - 1 of ____ for 2011

There's nothing like getting together with some friends in for a night of eats and games, when it's cold out and the 12% HST hangs over our heads.  We began the night with a homemade meal, and sadly I forgot to bring my camera, so no pictures.  

We had a Singaporean noodle soup which was super yummy, though a little on the spicy side. I'm not sure exactly what's in the recipe, but the assembly goes like this:  Rice vermicelli, sliced boiled eggs, tofu puffs, bean sprouts, and the soup base, topped off with sliced orange limes for taste.  There was also smoked salmon, a cheese plate, chips & salsa plus several desserts to boot, including yummy cake and an apple crumble pie.  Needless to say, the table was covered with plates, but luckily our first game didn't require much room - APPLES TO APPLES.

It was a regular favorite, and for those of you who don't know it, it's lots of fun, and generates great conversation.  There are two sets of cards, topic cards and answer cards.  Each player takes a turn to read a topic card (only 1 per person can do this per round). Everyone else selects from the answer cards in the hand the answer that they think best suits the topic card - or rather the card they think the person who read the card will pick.  The chosen answer cards are laid down and mixed up before the topic card player reads them and makes their decision.  The player whose card is chosen gets to keep the topic card as a point.  Depending on how many players, the number of points needed to win differs.  

Onwards then to Saboteur, a card game, that required us to clear space for playing surface. The object of the game is to find the gold nugget card.  There are 3 nugget cards that are faced down and mixed up.  Players then need to use cards in their hand to build a path from the starting card to what they think is the gold nugget.  Of course it would be no fun if everyone is on the same side, so randomly and secretly players are split into miners and saboteurs, with the saboteurs' goal behind to stop the miners from getting to the gold.  There are a few more rules but I won't get into it here.  Was a saboteur for the 1st and 3rd round.  The first we were just getting warmed up, but alas, the 3rd round was lots of fun - though it's rare for a saboteur to win.  Did I you ask? Nope, 1 against 5 --- I was close though, just needed one more card or rather if someone hadn't had a certain card.  Alas, next time =)

Those candy looking like objects are NOT candies.  Don't eat them, they're "gold"

Last of the night, we hit up Citadels, another card game.  This was new for most of us, but sounded like a lot of fun.  Players take turns being Assasins, Thieves, Magicians, Kings, Bishops, Merchants, Architects, and Warlords (note only one of each is available).  The goal of the game is to build 8 districts. Be careful though, just because you build 8 first doesn't mean you'll win as each district is worth different points with additional bonus points overall.  The roles change every round, and each character card has a different special ability including that to switch cards with another player, to "kill" them and thus skip their turn, to steal their gold or even yes, destroy another player's district, preventing them from winning.

All in all a great fun filled night =) If these sound appealing to you, pick one one up and give it a shot.  Apples to Apples is good with especially larger groups, while the remaining have limits on number of players.