Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics (2020)

Review 15/51

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Renegade (Othello)

So I have a guess as to why Nintendo went with the alternate names they did. Pure conjecture, but my thought is they went with the most popular name that they did not have to pay a licensing fee. So Connect Four? No way, that is Four in a Row. Sternhalma? Well, it is better known by it's racist origin name Chinese Checkers which is probably impossible to trademark, so we're going with that. While Othello stems from the old Shakespeare play, that name was actually trademarked. So Nintendo went with a name that based on my research, they pulled out of their butt.* So if you think the name Renegade stinks, you know why.

But Othello rules! Othello is the board game equivalent of Bruce Lee's martial arts style Jeet Kune Do. In order to succeed, you must be ready, but keep your plans flexible. By flipping pieces, the board can look completely different after each turn. Unless you are an expert visualizer, let yourself roll with the punches or as Bruce Lee says "Be like water." Wait until it is your turn, check all the angles, and adapt.

Similarly, Othello falls into Jeet Kune Do's economy of motion. If your opponent has a big swing, use their energy against them. Often times people will go for their grand move, but not check all the angles. What looked like a killing blow on their turn will look like a Charlie Brown football whiff on yours with a well placed coin.

Othello's only flaw as far as I am concerned comes through its "skip" rule. If you can't capture an opponent's coin, then your turn is skipped. This makes the end of the game a prime time for a far behind scrappy underdog to mount a comeback. Which is fine, I guess. It just sucks when you have a huge lead, but there are no other take-able coins. So you are skipped turn after turn and watch the board completely shift in shade. If there are no other coins to take, just let me put a coin down to stop my opponent from blue shelling me at the finish line.

After all, you don't play Othello. You spar.

• Recreate-ability: 3/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 0/5
• Photo Bomb Family: Y
• Final Score: 4/5

*It's funny. The more I review this game, the more magical I think it is, but I also find myself increasingly frustrated with Nintendo. Now that I've given up caring about Star Wars (the old thing I loved and was ultra critical of), maybe now I can have that same veneration/vitriol with Nintendo!

Review 14/51

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Backgammon

When you really dissect Backgammon, it is just fancy fighting Ludo. You're still rolling for moves. You're still restarting if you get bounced on. You're still trying to put your pieces in their win...hole. But all the little complications make Backgammon a much richer game.

For instance in Backgammon, your pieces move in the opposite direction of your opponents. So confrontations aren't something to flee from; They're inevitable. So you plan out your attack. You can block opponents attacks by stacking pieces. You can even block them from moving forward if you do enough stacking. Losing pieces will almost certainly occur, but you don't need to worry too much about it. Your pieces can jump right back in rather than sitting in prison waiting for the perfect roll. These changes makes combat more fun, more frequent, and less frustrating.

The game speed is much faster too. Not only are you going across a smaller board (24 spaces compared to Ludo's 40), but you are also facing off against one other person instead of three. Chances are your opponent will finish their turn before you can fully analyze the board. In Ludo, you almost always only have one piece active that is driven by chance, so there is nothing to analyze. In Backgammon, you have 15 pieces on the board that can all potentially take 2 moves* adding up to 12 spaces of movement. Your pieces can take 2 moves because you are rolling two dice- another difference that speeds the game up.

All of this leads to interesting decisions. There is a GDC Sid Meier Talk about how interesting decisions are the core of fun. Even if you decide to make the risky move to place a piece on a space by itself, and you get punished for it on your opponent's turn- you made an interesting choice and will probably laugh at your plan backfiring. The interesting decisions that make a game a game- the interesting decisions that are completely lacking in Ludo- they are in abundance here.

If you think of all these games as a family**, Mancala at 6000 years old is the mom and Backgammon at 5000 years old is the dad. He may not be the coolest dad. He may not understand his kid's hobbies. But he's got plenty of wisdom to impart. So sit down and listen up. Backgammon will teach you a thing or two.

• Recreate-ability: 3/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 3/5
• Photo Bomb Family: N
• Final Score: 3/5

*This isn't even taking into consideration when you roll a double and can take up to four moves which really notches up the complexity. **Ludo is the neighbor kid who comes over uninvited.

Review 13/51

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Ludo (Sorry)

This is perhaps my least favorite game in Clubhouse games and also my least favorite board game. And it isn't because there is so much chance/dice rolling involved. Dice rolling is fun. There is a game at casinos called "Craps" that is just rolling dice and people hoot and holler and clutch their loved ones arm tightly with anticipation while playing that game. Dice rolling can rule. Chance can rule.

But this game takes that chance and draws it out to an absurd degree. Let's say you're having the unluckiest* day of your life and you can't help but roll ones. It will take 40 rounds for you to get one of your pieces into the winning section. And that is rounds, not turns. Because you'll need to wait for the other three players to roll after every one of your turns. That means it will take you 160+ rounds to finish and that's if your opponents don't jump on you and then you start over. And your pieces can't get out of their prison until you roll a six. So there is the chance that you get your first piece to the winning section and then you just roll five and unders the next 60 rounds while your opponents slowly win.

The game is called "Sorry" in America because when you knock your opponents piece back to the beginning, you're supposed to apologize. This game's rebranding is built on asking for forgiveness for infuriating the player.

You know what Ludo? I'm "sorry". Sorry I ever met your ugly butt! Get off my Switch! Go to Pluto, Ludo! A not real planet for a not real game!

• Recreate-ability: 3/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 4/5
• Photo Bomb Family: Heck No
• Final Score: 0/5

*Luck ain't nothing but a construct, baby.

Review 12/51

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Chinese Checkers (Sternhalma)

Before I say anything about this game, the game is called Sternhalma. The moniker "Chinese Checkers" stems from a toy company that brought Sternhalma to the west. Pressman Toy Corporation knew "the Orient" was mysterious to their ignorant audience and changed the name to the completely baloney name "Hop Ching Checkers". It was later produced by Milton Bradley and renamed the still bogus "Chinese Checkers". Nintendo even hints at this history with their trivia in Clubhouse games. I don't know why they didn't just use the name Sternhalma. Sternhalma is a cool name. Say it out loud. Feels good. Sternhalma. Sternhalma. Sternhalma. Sternhalma. Sternhalma. Okay, I'm gunna call it Sternhalma throughout this review instead of Chinese Checkers for that reason. Thanks for understanding.

Ahem.

Sternhalma is fun.*

• Recreate-ability: 2/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 0/5
• Photo Bomb Family: Y
• Final Score: 3/5

*Hopefully you followed this down to my actual review rather than just reading my joke one sentence review above. Sternhalma has the inverse property of Hex. In Hex, each move facilitates your victory and obstructs your opponents victory. In Sternhalma, you need to be careful your moves don't benefit everyone. Each jump forward with your stones is progress for you, but try to not help out your opponents as well. It's this battlefield in the middle of the board where creative solutions flourish.

I only wish the game had some additional elements. You'll only want to play a game or two because it is so simple that your appetite will soon be whet for something more complex. It's like eating beans. I love beans, but after eating beans a few times, I'm gunna ask "what else ya got?"

Review 11/51

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Dominoes

I'm realizing now that my parents signed me up for a ton of extracurricular activities as a kid because they were just plain busy. I did choir, art, cooking, acting, mural club... and those were just the after school ones! I was also involved in sports constantly. Football in the summer. Baseball in the spring. The winters were when things would get switched up sports wise.

For a couple years during the winter my mom signed me up for an indoor soccer league at the same facility she did Jazzercise. Often she would give me 50 cents to buy a treat from a vending machine after practice. I, of course, chose to get the sweetest bang for my buck and used the money on a sodie pop. The vending machine was Pepsi and featured a lot of the usual Pepsi suspects: Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Brisk. But there was something new to me in that machine. Wild Cherry Pepsi* was a curiosity that captured my 8 year old mind. So I was quick to purchase, quick to fall in love, and quick to break up with standard boring Pepsi. I tried Wild Cherry, I wasn't going back to original.

I think the moment you play some other form of Dominoes outside of vanilla Dominoes is the same. I liked Dominoes when I was a boy. But since I've played Mexican Train, I certainly didn't want to return to basic. Same feeling when I played Triominoes. And frankly, it was the same feeling when I started just lining Dominoes up and tipping them over. That is more fun than the standard game.

The game has this plus five mechanic that adds the smallest amount of strategy to what you are doing. However, you can just as easily close your eyes, click the action button repeatedly. and eventually win. If you can ignore the strategy and win at an almost identical clip, the strategy wasn't worth your time.

• Recreate-ability: 1/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 4/5
• Photo Bomb Family: N
• Final Score: 1/5

*According to Wikipedia, Pepsi wants us to call this product "Pepsi Wild Cherry". Uh, why don't you come to my house and make me?

Review 10/51

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Gomoku

Who hypnotized the masses into believing this mess is good?

First off, this is an uneven game by design. Placing first is a colossal handicap. Now, the Gomoku community has a workaround for this with the Swap2 rules. These are the rules that the Gomoku World Championships use. For some reason, these rules ain't good enough for Nintendo. They have a different set of correcting rules you can turn on, but are off by default. So either go first, play someone who can't take advantage of the massive control they've been gifted by going first, or invest the time into working out the balance for Nintendo.

Secondly, Gomoku is on a massive board. It is 15 spaces by 15 spaces resulting in a total of 225 spaces to choose from. This is how a child would create a board game. "Just add more spaces! That will be more fun!" They are missing the fact that restraints force strategic thinking. So why would the creators of Gomoku choose such a big board? Oh yea, I know why. Because the board wasn't made for Gomoku! It was made for Go. The board doesn't really support the Gomoku. It is just a board that people have in their home already because of the more popular game Go.

Which brings me to my last gripe: why is this included and not Go? I know Go is a more complicated game, but it is also a more popular, more dynamic, and more thoughtful game. There is just such disappointment seeing the Go board and playing Gomoku instead. It would be like walking into an Outback Steakhouse, but they no longer sell Bloomin' Onions or Steak. They now sell turkey lasagna. I'm not in the mood for turkey lasagna, Nintendo. I'm never in the mood for turkey lasagna.

I do like placing the fatal Go stone. But that feeling is a shadow compared to the drop in Connect Four or the checkmate in Chess. A turkey lasagna compared to those games' Italian sausage and ground beef lasagna.

• Recreate-ability: 1/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 0/5
• Photo Bomb Family: N
• Final Score: 1/5

Review 9/51

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Hare and Hounds

I normally feel distinctly programmed to dominate tabletop games. A friend recently accused me of pulling up strategies on my phone while we were playing a game. When I showed him my phone history to prove I was just scrolling through Twitter, he accused me of deleting my history. Both accusations made me feel good.

If he saw me play Hare and Hounds, he would not make such an accusation. The distinguishing marks that differentiate Hare and Hounds confound me. I know to build a line with my Hounds. I know to pick the space with most options when I move the Hare. But the clicking in my brain for when a strategy emerges never arrives. I just play until I win or lose. I almost never feel like I've come away wiser...

And yet I'm okay with that. After several games I'm still bewildered and slightly bewitched by this simple game.

I do wish there were more options though. Comparing the board to Chess (64 spaces), Checkers (32 spaces), or Connect Four (42 spaces), H&H feels absolutely paltry. With only 11 spaces, four of which are always taken up by pieces, your options feel severely limited. This could be appealing to a certain crowd, but it leaves me feeling optionless.

I have my gripes, but I do enjoy it. It may be a 3/5 but as Anthony Fantano* might say, it's a strong 3.

• Recreate-ability: 4/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 0/5
• Photo Bomb Family: Y
• Final Score: 3/5

*Playthony Switchtano

Review 8/51

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Checkers

STEAMING HOT VOLCANO LEVEL TAKE INCOMING!

Checkers is overrated. It only holds the popularity that it does today because of its proximity to Chess. It has a board that is nearly identical. You get to defeat the opponent's pieces. There is some attempted regicide.

It lets boys approximate the game of men.

I'm being unnecessarily harsh because the game I have an issue with is true checkers- the game that Clubhouse will have you play. There is no space for house rules. There are no draws because of an inability to make moves. There is no way to handicap with a kinged piece or two from the start. You must jump if a jump is presented to you. This last rule is the most egregious because it makes the fun of a double or triple jump eliminated because the game outright forces you to do it when the opportunity is presented to you. It's like hitting a home run in tee-ball while your coach forces the rest of the players to just watch you run the bases.

Normally I would appreciate a strictness to the rules because it allows for a deeper well of strategy. If you can force your opponent into a jump, then you can also force them into a trap. However, the issues remain that the game just doesn't have the depth of Hex or Mancala- even after its Sergeant-like uncompromising nature. So I'd rather have the flexibility to make the game as silly, frustrating, and stupid as the games of Checkers I've played on the carpet with my kids.

• Recreate-ability: 2/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 0/5
• Photo Bomb Family: N
• Final Score: 3/5

Review 7/51

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Hex

I was pretty ready to dismiss Hex as another Hit and Blow: An at first fun but ultimately simple and repetitive pseudo strategy game. I had a strategy that worked, and I figured that if you used it first, you would win. I had written half a review when I questioned that truth.

I first wikipedia'd Hex. Made by mathematicians? "Deep Strategy"? "Profound mathematical underpinnings"? I was writing from a place of ignorance. So I played again. And again. And again. I was winning against the "Impossible difficulty" but less than half the time. My strategy was morphing with each game and often between moves in the game. I had drastically undervalued this gem.

My one complaint is heavy though. There is no Ka-chunk. The Ka-chunk is when you get to bring the hammer down on your opponent. When you triple jump their Checkers. When you steal a hole full of Mancala stones. When you place that perfect Connect Four chip and leave them devastated. Rather the game reaches a point where it is obvious one party will win. After this the game fizzles out like a Monopoly game where one player runs a mom and pop store and the other is Jeff Bezos.

I wish the game had a Ka-chunk. Cause we all wish we could beat Bezos.

• Recreate-ability: 3/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 0/5
• Photo Bomb Family: Y
• Final Score: 4/5

Review 6/51

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Nine Men's Morris

I am bad at Nine Men's Morris. I have only won one game against the Normal level CPU and that was after clicking "Undo" several times. I feel like the strategy for this kind of game is lost on me. But I appreciate it. Nine Men's Morris is like a Lars Von Trier film. I don't like it, but I appreciate it. I see the craftsmanship in it. Maybe I will one day revisit these 51 games. And after enough curious time with NMM, it will be among my favorites. It could be the Dogville of Clubhouse Games.

I don't think I have any fame or infamy on this site, but maybe some have noticed that I don't swear. It is a choice I made after I had kids...* I will admit that in a moment of sheer confusion and frustration I let lose a quiet WTH while playing this haha.

• Recreate-ability: 2/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 0/5
• Photo Bomb Family: N
• Final Score: 3/5

*Maybe after my youngest graduates from high school and moves out of the house, I will start aggressively including F words in all my reviews just to celebrate my parental freedom. Check back in 18 years to find out!

Review 5/51

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Hit And Blow

Replayability is a big phrase in videogames. Star Fox 64 is an amazing, but very short game. If it wasn't so replayable (different paths, high scores, secrets), it's legacy would be far less intimidating.

Hit and Blow is excellent... the first three times you play it. Then you get the game and there isn't much more to do. The puzzle that powers the game is fairly simplistic. So much so that one of the game's trivia pieces is that the game is always winnable within the first 5 turns. I'm no mathematician or statistician but I have never taken over five turns to win.

The multiplayer puts a nice twist where you and an opponent take turns trying to solve the puzzle. Or rather it would if it weren't for one of Clubhouse's eccentricities. The game does not want you to spend too much time on any of its tapas. They are miniature experiences so you must not want to spend more than eight rounds. In theory, that's a fine decision, but that eliminates the strategies for delaying your opponent from finding a solution. Like you might as well just play the game straight, but you need to wait an extra turn to play because your buddy is playing.

Lastly, my kids wanted to understand how to play. So I started playing, and I guessed the answer right the very first round. I put the game down, and the kids played War instead.

• Recreate-ability: 1/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 3/5
• Photo Bomb Family: N
• Final Score: 2/5

Review 4/51

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Four In A Row (Connect Four)

Connect Four is another why did we stop playing this when we were ten game. It is a game where every move is defense and offense. It is equally about creativity and limitations. One whose limitations help form a more interesting game*. It is the kind of game where you fist pump when you surprise your opponent with a victorious chip drop.

My only gripe is that right after you beat your opponent, the board automatically drops the chips out. Let me marvel at my intellect, Nintendo. Let me rhapsodize on when my rival made their fatal mistake. And when I'm good and ready, I'll click the action button to release my enemy from a prison of gloat.

• Recreate-ability: 2/5
• Chance-O-Meter: 0/5
• Photo Bomb Family: Y
• Final Score: 4/5

*I think the limitations of Connect Four (gravity and the small board size) make it much better than Gomoku. I'll elaborate in the Gomoku review.