The holiday season starts earlier every year, and I’m all for it. As far as I’m concerned, Halloween runs from September 1st through October 31st, Thanksgiving stretches (like my eating pants) from November 1st through the holiday proper, with Christmas kicking off on Black Friday and going through the end of the calendar year. If you need a little help to get into the holiday spirit, then pick up these new card games from Funko Games, gather our family and friends around the table, and get caught up in the magic of the changing seasons.
Something Wild! – Five Nights at Freddy’s
Get spooky with the latest extension of Funko’s Something Wild! series, Five Nights at Freddy’s. Like other games in the Something Wild! series, the fast paced card game is for 2 to 4 players ages 6+. Included are 45 Character Cards depicting 9 full color FNAF characters, 10 Power Cards, 1 miniature Rockstar Freddy Funko Pop! figure, and the instructions.
For those unfamiliar with Something Wild!, players try to score tricks by completing either sets (three Character Cards of the same number, regardless of card color) or runs (three Character Cards of the same color in sequential order). As players play cards from their hand, Freddy moves around the table. When players score points, they take the Power Card as a reward. If a player has a Power Card and Freddy, they can use the Power Card to gain an advantage.
My family enjoys the various iterations of Something Wild!, and the FNAF version is no different. As with the art from the FNAF IP, the cards Character Cards are suitably spooky for the target age range, with each character depicted in the Funko Pop! style. The game moves quickly and is easy to pick up and play right out of the box with minimal explanation needed. There is very little learning curve for the Something Wild! games.
While enjoyable by itself, the strength of the Something Wild! games comes from combining decks to create a mix, which keeps players from having to shuffle the discard pile as often and adds a layer of fun and strategy with multiple miniatures and powers are in play. The same can be said for the FNAF version — it’s fun on its own but really shines when added to additional decks. After playing the FNAF version solo, we added the Toy Story deck and had a blast as the action picked up. With around a dozen or so different versions of Something Wild! — including various Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and other brands — available, you’ll want to grab Something Wild! – Five Nights at Freddy’s either as a starter pack to get you ready for Halloween or, if you’re a collector, to help complete your set.
Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: Making Christmas
Is The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie? I say “yes” — it goes into the rotation no later than October 1st and gets regular play on the TVs in my house through Christmas Day. Regardless of which side of the debate you come down on, now is the time to grab Making Christmas. The game is for 2 to 6 players ages 6+. Included in the box are 4 Workbench Tiles, 40 Toy Part Cards, 20 Goal Cards, and the instructions.
The Workbench Tiles snap together like a puzzle, creating a 3 by 3 grid. Toy Part Cards are placed on the grid and into the hands of the players. A line of 3 Goal Cards are set up next to the Workbench. On their turns, players take turns swapping 2 Toy Part Cards — either swapping 1 from their hand with 1 on the Workbench or rearranging 2 cards on the Workbench. When a player creates one of the toys on the Goal Cards, they take the Goal Card and the point. The Goal Card is replaced and play continues, with each player attempting to meet the most goals and score the most points.
There was essentially no learning curve to this game, just read the instructions and go. It’s that simple to pick up and play right out of the box. During our playthrough sessions, things started slowly as players looked to get their first points, then became faster and more cutthroat as the number of goals/points available quickly disappeared. When the final 3 goals were on the table, my family members changed strategy (as taking a point for oneself became increasingly harder) and took to trying to figure out where they stood in the point count and setting up players who could score without being a threat to win. Sometime the strategy shift paid off; other times it backfired.
With its simple to understand rules, quick gameplay, and different strategies, Making Christmas is a great game to pick up and play with new players. With gmaes taking about 15 to 20 minutes each, you can knock out a few rounds in no time at all.
Disney Cookie Swap
The holiday season is also baking season in my house — quick breads, cakes, pies, cookies, you name it. It starts in September with apple, moves to pumpkin in October and November, then turns squarely and solely to cookies in December. That makes Disney Cookie Swap the perfect game to pick up and play with friends and family this holiday season. The game is for 2 to 5 players ages 6+. Included in the box is one Baking Sheet Board, 64 Cookie Cards, and the instructions.
As you might expect with so few different pieces in the box, the game is really easy to pick up and play right away. Cookie Cards are placed on the Baking Sheet and dealt to players. On their turns, players swap a cookie from their hand with one from the Baking Sheet in an effort to build a stack of 4 Cookie Cards of the same character. The first player to create 3 stacks of cookies wins.
This was my family’s favorite of the games we tested for this article. Gameplay was fast and furious, with players gravitating toward specific characters they needed to complete their stacks naturally. Misdirection and subterfuge became the primary strategy in order to try and keep the other players from knowing which character(s) each was collecting. Players would swap out cards they didn’t need at the time in order to try and keep others from completing their stacks, while trying to time their swaps so they could grab the last card they needed in order to win before someone else got their third stack.
This is another great game to introduce a newcomer to card games. The game is simple to understand, quick to play, and each playthrough is different based on how you change your strategy to try and score while keeping others from scoring. I can’t recommend this game enough this holiday season. I’d say it makes a great stocking stuffer, but there’s a lot of time between now and Christmas and you shouldn’t wait to pick this one up and play it all holiday season long.
Jingle All the Way: It’s Turbo Time!
The final game we’re playing this holiday season is Jingle All The Way: It’s Turbo Time!. As in the movie, players are looking to score the ultimate gift, Turbo Man. This game is for 2 to 4 players ages 7+. Included in the box are 16 Toy Tiles, 36 Cards, 4 Reference Cards, 1 Live-Action Turbo Man Figure, and the instructions.
As you might expect from a game that includes Reference Cards for each player, this one is a little more complicated. Players are dealt cards and given a Booster Toy Tile to put in their shopping cart. The remaining Toy Tiles are arranged in a 4 by 3 Toy Shelf. On each turn, players play a card from their hand. Once each player has played, players use the skill on the card they played to peek at the various toys, swap toys, turn over toys for all to see, or turn all of the toys in their cart face-down and shuffle them to throw others off their trail. After all skills have been used, each player takes a toy from the shelf. Play continues until the shelf is clear. Then players flip all of their Toy Tiles face up and tally their points. The player with the most points wins.
Gameplay itself is simple. Just follow the order of play each round. Where things get complicated is by the various skills on the cards and the fact that point values change based on what’s in your cart. A Toy Tile might be worth a certain amount of points by itself, but that value might change if certain other Toy Tiles are present in your cart. The number of card skills and Toy Tile scoring options allows players to create any number of different strategies to try and win, but it also tend to slow the game down a bit and might require working with younger players to help them figure out what they need to do on their turn.
Pick up any of these games online or at a retailer near you this holiday season to help set the mood, to create reasons to get your family and friends together around the table (you know, besides just the eating), and to make fun memories that will have them asking to deal another hand.
Disclaimer: a copy of each game was provided for review.
