[no run today]
Oui is yes in French and Si is yes in Spanish. It is pronounced We-See.
Before Christmas I started seeing advertisements on Facebook for a picture-matching game. And I thought it looked interesting. So a few people on my Christmas list received it as their Christmas present this year.
The game consists of a pile of stiff picture cards, square in shape, along with a card container/dispenser thing made of plastic, and a rule book which I glanced through but pretty much ignore.
The general play of the game reminds me somewhat of dominoes with each player trying to have a match between what is in their hand and some particular place in the pattern that is being built on the table.
I have played this game three times now, and I find it enjoyable.
I’ll describe the way I’ve been playing it. There is no competitive aspect, no score keeping and not really even any “end” except when people get tired of playing or the table top is full or I suppose you could run out of cards.
Here’s how I’ve been doing it:
We make a pile of cards face down. We had some trouble with drawing cards from the card holder while I was in Iowa, so we just made a loose stack on the table face down.
We put one card face up in the center of the table as a starting point.
We take turns drawing a card from the face-down stack and trying to find a “match” for it as a neighbor to some card already on the table. If there isn’t any match then the card is put in the card holder face-up in the discard pile. (notice there is no accumulation of cards that a player has to manage, and there’s no secrecy about what card we are looking at.)
Then, whether the card is played or discarded, the next person gets a turn.
Things start out with a lot of discarding, but they eventually get going and later in the game discards are pretty rare.
A match can be by pattern, color, theme, just about anything.
Other players can make suggestions but the final resting place is up to the player who drew the card.
You end up building up zones of certain patterns or themes and they morph into neighboring zones. So you might have flowers and then a red flower is the basis for a red sunset and then other red things, etc.
We have had some interesting discussion about visual patterns and various theme ideas. I think it is kind of a combination game and group puzzle session. It is interesting to see the ideas that people put forward.
When you’re done just get all of the table cards gathered up, all facing the same direction, and put things back in the box.
I sent one of these games to my mother (turning 90 next month) and one to my mother-in-law, and one to my grandson’s “other grandma” (my son-in-law’s mother) who frequently baby-sits our common grandson.
I’ve noticed (or at least imagined) that my sensitivity for pattern and color is higher after playing the game.
I haven’t been doing it long enough to have become jaded with the selection of picture cards… they send a pretty good sized pile. But I could see that eventually happening if someone has a good memory.
There isn’t any reading involved, and you don’t really need to know what the pictures are “of”, what objects are in the photos.