Sometimes games are about being taken into far off lands, dripping with theme and crunchy bits to work through. Sometimes they are silly and simple, luck based rolls of the dice. And sometimes they are everything in between. But for our family, a game that has familiarity and some amount of skill mixed in with luck almost always seems to win out for those times you want to play but don’t have the whole night to dedicate to it. This is where Grandpa Beck’s Games come into play.
The Beck family story is one of my favorites. This family decided to make modifications and changes to games they played at home with their family and friends and found that people enjoyed their modifications more than the original versions. They started Grandpa Beck’s Games to share their love of card games with everyone. I love this quote from their website:
“They truly believe that time spent playing games with family and friends is time well spent.”
We were able to get our hands on a few of the titles in their library and wanted to share a review of each and how they went down in our own group of families and friends.
Nuts About Mutts
This card game plays 3-8 players with a run time of approximately 30 mins per game. The rules can be played simple for ages 5+ and more advanced for ages 8+. The goal of the game is to get all of the cards in your hand played before everyone else, getting your dogs home before your opponents do.
The game comes with 109 cards in which there are total two sets of each colored card for a total of six sets of numbered cards. The dog breeds match numbers on each color set, but they do not match among the colors. This makes two identical matches of each numbered card. 78 of the cards in the deck are numbered and colored cards. The other 31 cards are special and treated as wild cards that can be used for any card current down. They will change things up on the deck and the player who plays it can decide what the new color of the deck will be.
Each player will be dealt 7 cards to start and the dealer will place bone cards on the table in the middle for all to reach with a total of cards the number of players minus one.
On your turn, you play a card that matches either the color, number or breed of the dog on the top of the pile. If you cannot, you draw a card. Play proceeds from there. There are special cards that will affect the game as well. These include:
In the case of the Mutt card, each player must quickly try to place their hand on a bone card. The one who doesn’t has to draw a card to their hand.
Flea cards will cause each other player to have to draw a card into their hand.
Fire Hydrant cards will allow the player that played the card to swap hands with any other player in the game, these are rare but strong.
Pedigree cards force each player to play a card of the named type into the center. If they cannot, they must draw a card and the player who played it is able to discard all of that named type they currently have.
The Dog House card means that on the player who it is played on, their next turn they must draw until they find a card that matches the current card. Any that don’t match are taken to their hand.
Impressions:
This game play at its core like Uno with a twist to the mechanics of gameplay. You can change the rules and add special plays both in and out of turn that ramps up the game with matches and runs as well. As far as difficulty goes, this game is going to be an easy one to pick up for those young and old. Kids will love that they understand it quickly, and ease of gameplay with recognition of numbers and colors along with matching dog breeds makes this one even your younger kids can enjoy. I recommend this one for families looking to integrate their younger members into games at the table!
The Bears and the Bees
In this game, each player has a hand of honeycomb-shaped cards that they are trying to play to the main beehive in the center of the table. Some cards give bonus points, others allow you to force others to draw more cards slowing their gameplay. The first person to run out of cards ends the round and you score it based on the points of cards left in your hand. Lowest score wins, so you want to be rid of those cards as fast as you can!
The game starts with the Queen tile being played to the middle of the table and all of her sides are wild with one more card played on it from the draw pile. Each card played must match on two or more sides. Starting with your second turn you may play an additional car if you can play one that touches the first card you played. This will allow you to start stringing multiple cards from your hand to the table and try to win quicker!
Matching more than one side will give you even more plays and more cards to the hive in one turn. If you match three sides, you get one additional play, four sides gets two plays, five sides get three plays and matching all six sides means you discard the rest of your hand and instantly win! If you can’t match a side, you draw one card or discard one and draw two.
The cards consist of the following:
Queen-She is the center hex with all wild sides. None of the special cards can touch her, just the Honeycomb cards played on the matching edges. 
Honeycombs-These have 2-3 color side patterns and are the most common type of card you will pull out of the deck. These are the only ones to touch the Queen.
Drone-These are half wild and half one color and can often be key to stringing those extra plays together.
Worker Bee-One side of each color plus wild. If you match at least two sides your opponent will draw up extra cards to their hand. You can assign more out the more you match and given them all to one player or spread them out to various players.
Flowers-There are one for each color and are all one color. They force all players to draw an extra card and ramps up based on how many sides you match.
Bears-These are the fun silly cards in the game-each bear must touch at least two sides but one side must be the wild side of a Drone or Worker Bee. They cannot touch the Queen. No future cards may touch a Bear card, not even Bear themselves!
Players score points based on the cards left in hand and ramp up based on the type of card. After three rounds, the player with the least total wins!
Impressions:
This game adds a slight level of complexity from Nuts over Mutts but is still very accessible for a variety of players. The art and design on the cards is clean and pretty. Small hands may have a harder time managing the cards and choices, but at its core this game is a matching game that can easily be learned but is tough to master and string together multiple plays in one turn. It plays 2-5 players very well, as turns tend to be quick and easy to run. Great game design and one that is bound to bring out the competitive side of your family when you sit down to play it!
Skull King
Finally we have the third game from Grandpa Beck’s line, Skull King. There is a Legendary Expansion for the game as well, but we are going to stick with talking about the Original Game and design. This is a game that plays 2-6 players in 30 mins and also sits at ages 8+ recommended.
The way to win in this game is to be able to predict correctly the amount of tricks you will win each round. You win points for being right and lose for being too many or too few off from how many you actually got. This game is a trick taking game which may be a first introduction to many players on how that works.
There are four suits of cards numbered 1-14 and three are equal value-they are green, yellow and purple. These are the high suit in a turn where one of them is the first played. The black suit, the Jolly Rodger is the high suit to these other three color suits and will always win. They play by the same color rules though and cannot be played if you have a card of the other suit already to play.
Then there are special cards that really change up the gameplay and add some fun twists to this game. They are as follows:
Pirates-These beat all the colored suit cards and will beat another Pirate played later in the same hand. 
Escape-These “white flag” cards will allow you to lose the round intentionally. This card comes in handy when you are trying to lose a round and keep your trick guess right where it needs to be.
Tigress-She is either a Pirate or an Escape card, and you can make the decision when you play it to the table. Very helpful when you could go either way with the need of adding or losing a trick.
Skull King-He is the highest of any cards and trumps everything else played to the table.
In each round, you are given a card for the round number. So in round 1, you each have one card and will guess either zero or one as the total number you will win of tricks. As the rounds go up, you gain cards thus making it more challenging to determine the exact number. You score points based on being correct and lose points if you are off by any amount. So each round the stakes get higher and the points start building up or tearing down quick!
Impressions:
I really like Skull King, and as the hardest to understand and work through of the games we played it is still very accessible to those in that 8 and up range. This game led to some hearty laughs and fun around the table and the adults and young alike all seem to do well with it. I played with friends who have all played card games for years and it was an instant hit with them as well. I highly recommend Skull King for those looking for a fun trick taking game with a few extra twists!
So there is our review of three of the treasures in Grandpa Beck’s catalog! Make sure to check out their site and on Amazon for more selections and ways to get your very own copy!
