Brian was invited to join the Global News Morning Edmonton team to showcase some of this season's most popular stocking stuffer games, kids games, and party games!
Check it out:
Daintre: Well, as we come together with friends and family during the holidays, I'm playing a game of cards or a board game can be a great way to spend time with one another and have a little fun, sometimes a little competition, sometimes things get a little heated, but we always have a lot of fun. And we want to look at some of the best board games for the holidays. We have Brian Flowers in from Table Top Cafe, and you are the expert on all fun things when it comes to board games, because there's just so many out there.
Brian: Absolutely.
Daintre: And really good ones that are coming out too. So tell us about some of the board games that that we can expect that are going to be big hits this year.
Brian: The biggest one for us is actually the big guy, the advent calendar. So it's an escape room advent calendar. So every day, you're opening a little puzzle to go to the next day. And those have been, every year, those keep getting more and more popular. The big one we've been waiting for as well is Scout. I was waiting on the reprint for that one - it's a very good card game where you're just trying to take tricks and the cards, you can't change the order of the cards, in your hand. So you have to stick with where they are and pick the right ones at the right time.
Daintre: Oh, interesting, interesting. Now, with that, of course, it's a great size for stocking stuffers, but we have a couple other smaller ones too, that would be perfect for slipping into a stocking for somebody.
Brian: Absolutely. Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, that little yellow guy has been absurdly popular and it's in the same family of games as Spot It! or a snap game or Dutch Blitz even, where you're just flipping cards and once the same card is flipped as the word you say you have to slap the table and whoever does that last gets all the cards and then there's some little actions. So it's a great game for kids. And Tinderbox is you're building a little fire, little campfire using tweezers and little blocks. So it's kind of reverse Jenga that won't wreck your table.
Daintre: Oh, I kind of like that back one - the Red Flags: the Game of Terrible Dates.
Brian: This one is a very good party game. You, if it's your turn, you're gonna get everyone making a nice date for you out of white cards and then they're all positive things, then everyone has to give them red flags. Like maybe they also want to kill you. But you still have to pick someone to go on a date with.
Daintre: So let's talk about that. It's probably obviously for an older crowd. But what are some really good ones for the younger folks in the family?
Brian: Yeah, a lot of the dexterity ones. So the Fuzzies is extremely popular. It's another Jenga variant, but it's using little cotton balls. So again, using tweezers to pull them out and put them on top. And then it will just suddenly lose its structural integrity and fall over. And Catch the Moon, you're building series of ladders trying to get to the moon, but if you have any of them fall off, you collect little raindrops of sadness, and nobody wants those.
Daintre: Awe. What's the Next Station Tokyo about?
Brian: That one is drawing using pencil crayons, it's in the same family games as Yahtzee. Everyone has their own sheet of paper, and you're going to flip a card, it's going to tell you what type of train station you need to go to. And you just draw a little line to that and you're trying to line that up to get the most points. But then you're going to rotate which pencil crayon you're using. So you have to draw different train lines using those.
Daintre: Now let's talk a little bit about Table Top Cafe and can people play these kinds of games or test out games to see if that's one something that they want to take home and share with the rest of the family?
Brian: Absolutely. We have over 780 board games open for play, including almost everything you see here. It's $10 per person per day to come in and play whatever you like. But we can also teach and recommend, what games you might enjoy. We serve food and coffee and beer. But it is all ages all the time.
Daintre: That's a lot of fun. And where are you located?
Brian: 5716 - 75 Street right beside Lumberjacks is the landmark that we go by, but also just south of the brand new Davies station. So we've been waiting for that for a very long time.
Daintre: A very long time. And what times are you open?
Brian: Weekdays, regular days, we open at noon and close at 11 and weekends are open at 11am and close at 1am.
Daintre: That's perfect. And with all of that too what would you say out of all of the games that are here, I know you did mention this one's the exciting new one, which one do you personally have as a favorite?
Brian: Out of all of these, probably Cascadia so you're building your own little chunk of Alberta just by collecting tiles and then placing animals and their habitats and all the animals get points for how they line up and all the habitats get points for how big they are.
Daintre: I like that alight, well, and people can purchase these at Table Top Cafe, they can try them out and they can get lots of advice on some of the best and the biggest hits when it comes to board games. So you can find them at 57th Avenue 75th Street and for more information as always, you can give them a call or visit them online at tabletopcafe.ca
