Why the Mario Party Series is Our Favorite

Emery

Since video games became popular in the 1980s, my wife and I have played countless games such as Fortnites that also featured today’s Fortnite item shop. Technology advancements make games so much more action-packed and realistic now than back then. However, we now prefer more laid-back family-oriented games. Nintendo’s Mario Party suits us perfectly, and it has become our favorite video game series.

Family game

Mario Party is a family-friendly series of which we approve for our pre-teen son. We look for games that have an ESRB rating of E10 or lower. Mario Party games are rated E. We have never seen anything that we deem inappropriate in any of the seven Mario Party games that we have played since 2006.

Gameplay

Characters race in board-game fashion obtaining gold stars. The player who obtains the most wins. Collecting stars takes both luck and skill. Dice rolls determine the number of spaces to move, and where the road splits, players must choose the correct path to the star. Players must have enough coins – usually twenty — to purchase the stars. To get the coins, players can win minigames between turns, land on special coin bonus spaces, or take them from other players. Players can lose coins by losing duels, landing on certain spaces, buying stars and power orbs, or having the evil dragon Bowser take them.

Minigames

Players roll the dice and move toward the stars. After all four players roll and move, they compete in minigames for coins. The minigames feature many different types of competition: races, memory, sports, chance, fights, and more. The winner gets ten coins in most cases, but variations occur. We each have a specialty. I normally win the quick reaction games, my wife is best with the fighting games, and our son almost always wins the skill games. We never know which will pop up, so we cannot predict the winner in advance.

Equal chances of winning

Our son will completely destroy us at most fast-paced games, but we can compete with him at any Mario Party game. The games mix fast-paced minigames with slow-moving turns. Winning or losing every time makes a game tedious for us, but since any of us can win Mario Party, we stay interested. Success can turn sour quickly, and special chance spaces can cause players to exchange fortunes at any time. We have all had our low star count turn high – and high to low – by landing on a chance space within the last few turns of a game.

Time together

One final quality makes the Mario Party series our favorite. We can visit as a family while we play. We can talk casually about our day or our son’s last baseball game, or we can discuss more serious issues such as bills due, family concerns, or important upcoming tasks and events. We will even bring our Nintendo Gamecube with us on vacations so we can play Mario Party 4 through 7 in our resort rooms.

Looking for more

We really enjoy the Mario Party series. The games allow us to spend time together, and we all have an equal chance of winning. We own seven of the nine versions available, and if/when versions 1 and 3 become downloadable for Wii, we will get them. We always look forward to the next version, and we hope that Nintendo will put out Mario Party 10 before too long.

A Guide On Faster Progression In The Rise of Kingdoms

Emery

If you have just started playing Rise of Kingdoms for Android or iOS and would appreciate a few tips and tricks on how to efficiently play the game, we got your covered. Below is our riseofkingdoms.guide that you will surely find useful regardless of your experience level with the game. Without further ado, let’s start:

  1. Be sure to complete the daily missions

Completing the daily missions every day is a fast method to accumulate a number of resources, boosts as well as other extras. The more daily missions you accomplish, the more resources and boosts you get. You will also get better rewards if you complete more missions. What’s even better is that the daily missions are not that hard to do, so doing all of them every day should be a breeze.

  1. Concentrate on the main missions

There are a great number of primary and side quests that you’re going to easily finish by just actively playing Rise of Kingdoms. However, be sure to focus on the main missions. They are more important since these missions provide you with the means to go through the different ages of the game, allowing you to further improve your chosen kingdom.

Having said that you must only level up the City Hall on the most fortunate time and be sure to keep your other buildings upgraded, or else you will be left with an advanced City Hall but lower-level buildings.

  1. Do not claim the rewards from side missions if you aren’t going to use them immediately

It is not recommended for you to get the rewards from the side missions especially if you have no use for them at the moment. It is better to keep them safe and unclaimed, since as soon as you claim them, other players will be able to loot them from you. Try to collect only the boost and item rewards, and refrain from claiming the resources until you really require them.

  1. Constantly train troops

Be sure to always train troops so that you will always have your army ready. Training troops will take some time before they are ready, and conflicts demands for massive armies to become victorious. As such, you must also make sure to upgrade your buildings that are responsible for training your troops. By doing so, you will gain access to better units.

  1. Always conduct a research at all times

Training troops are important, and research is equally essential to your game since it allows you to gain access to far better troops and generate resources with more efficiency. Research will also provide you with boosts that you can use to become more efficient in certain aspects of the game.

It is recommended that you fully upgrade the military technologies first because the boosts that will be provided to the troops will be very effective in your war efforts. You should also upgrade your economic technologies since they will provide you with boosts to resources and other areas of the game.

  1. Become a member of an extremely active alliance

There are many benefits to being a member of an active alliance. You will be able to ask fellow members for boosts, allowing them to get resource generation and research speed increases for free. However, the main reason for going in an active alliance is going for an alliance war. There are many rewards that every alliance member will get by winning an alliance war, and as such, you will be able to play the game more efficiently by being a member of an active alliance.

  1. Finish the barbarian as well as the resource spots mission early in the game

Attacking barbarians with your troops will just wound your troops, but not kill them. As such, attacking barbarians and resource spots is a great way to obtain resources and boosts early in the game. The sooner you can get the resources and the boosts, the better your early game will be. You will also be able to upgrade your building and conduct research with the help of the resources. Lastly, completing these missions will allow you to get familiar with how to deploy your troops.

Vintage Game Board Tray Project

Emery

This is a fun craft project that you can use to add to the vintage décor in your home. It is perfect for hosting a poker night or even a little friendly game of rummy. Use the game board tray to carry cocktails on and you will really set a fun and festive game night mood. This entire vintage game board tray craft project should cost you less than $25. You can probably make the entire project in one day. Just a lot some time for the paint to dry.

To Make a Vintage Game board Tray Craft Project You Will Need:

Sheet of Plywood (Cut To You Game’s Size and Shape)
Acrylic Paint
Primer
Paint Brushes
Painters Tape
2 Drawer Pulls
Screws
Screw Driver
Sand Paper
Wood Stain
Rubber picture stoppers
Black Paint pen or White Paint pen

To start you have to decide what kind of vintage game board you want to copy. Chinese checker, backgammon, checkers, Candy Land, Monopoly, or what ever you want it fine. I made mine to look like a Chinese checkerboard.

Cut your tray to size. You can have the home improvement store make the cuts for you of you do not own a saw.

Sand the rough edges of the game board tray. Then apply a coat of primer.

Once the coat of primer has dried you can paint your game onto the board. I recommend stepping back and looking at your vintage game and seeing what is the main color of your inspiration game board. Paint your entire wooden tray that color. Once this paint has dried you can start drawing off other shapes or taping them off.

Games like backgammon and monopoly work great because they have so many straight lines.

Once the initial colors have been applied and are dry use a black or white paint pen to outline and add words and other details.

To age your vintage game board lightly rubs it with a fine grit sand paper. Use wood gel stain to rub into the board and make it darken and appear older.

Allow all paint to dry and then paint and entire clear coat of polyurethane on your game aboard. This will protect it form condensation and other water.

You can also use a tinted wood was to get the same effect as the stain, but do not paint the vintage game board tray with polyurethane. It will not stick to the wax.

Now, apply the handles. I like the measure out where the holes need to be, put a small dot with a pencil and then predrilled the hole with the drill. This will keep you board for splitting when you put the screws into it.

You can find great vintage looking cabinet hardware at almost any home improvement store. Pottery Barn, restoration hardware, Target, and even Wal-Mart all have great old looking hardware. You could also use stainless steel pulls for a modern and clean touch to you old game board tray craft project.

Finally, apply some rubber picture frame stoppers to the bottom of your game board. Put one in each corner. These usually are self-adhesive, so they just stick right onto the bottom of the game board tray.

If you want to add a little more protection to the game board you could have a piece of plexi glass cut to the same size as your tray. Drill holes where the handle goes. Lay the plexi glass on your tray then apply the handles a normal.

You can make this craft project out of a real vintage game board if you what to. Just add the plexi glass to protect the surface and screw on some handles.

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