New Family Favourite Kleine Fische

we have had this German card game for almost twenty years. I bought it at the same time as I bought a bunch of others, a mix of card games and big box games. Somehow we never quite got round to it and it just got put up in the loft when we lost the games room to child #2, yes it's The Boy's fault.

Anyway I had to go up in the loft to add a few books to the hundreds up there and a couple of games that have fallen off the play list. A good opportunity to bring down a few others. With the kids being 11 and 9 we still have a number of games they are not old enough to fully get. We tend to let them loose on up to about 12+ games. Both get Settlers of Catan and hold their own at Ticket to Ride so they do all right.

Kleine Fische is 7 plus but whilst seven year olds can play this it's got a deeper play level that a older and more experienced gamer can get their teeth into. It's typical of the better German (OK Euro if you will) game in that it's so very easy to get the rules but mixed in with the simplistic rules is some nice tweaks that getting will increase your chance of winning and deepen your enjoyment. The Girl got this real quick, The Boy took a few hands before he fully got most of the depth. 

It's great for kids as each game is fast paced and whilst little interaction takes place your still involved. the aim is to collect different fishes on your fishing line without suffering the octopus gobbling them all up. It's all about knowing when to stop turning the cards over against the risk of going for one more card to get extra points.

Once the deck is exhausted you score the highest card you have in each type and add to previous rounds score. First to 77 wins which seems about three to four rounds on average. The blurb says 15-25 minutes a game but to be honest we were having too much fun to pay attention to it.

I got home from work to find out they had been playing a few three person games and had a ball (it's 2-4 player). If I remember correctly we paid about £5 for it so it was a steel. A quick look on -bay, Amazon and Spirit Games show no copies, seems it did not make a splash and get a lot of attention then. 

It's no headliner but I expect it to make regular appearances for a fair bit of time to come. If you like German games then this ones well worth looking out for. It's also a great bridge game for your none gaming friends over a few beers.