R & R Games

There are 3 kids at our church that have had an incredibly difficult year. Their mom died from cancer near the beginning of the year. Then their dad basically stopped being their dad to them, so they had to go into foster care. Our family has been trying to think of something nice that could be done for them at Christmas-time.

I found out about this generous offer from a boardgame blogger who wanted to buy a game for someone who might need one. I wrote to him about the kids at church. A nice game company, R & R Games, also found out about this offer, and they wanted to help out as well. There were several submissions for people who seemed like they could really use a nice game at Christmas, and they offered to send games to anyone that the original blogger could not send stuff to.

I emailed back and forth with the R & R Games representative and found out that they are going to be sending a very nice Christmas package for the kids. They will be recieving several games, Flea Circus, Horse Fair, Bugs, Birds, and Beans, Take your Best Shot, and First Hand. They will also be getting a very cool toy (actually 2 of them), Hide n Seek Safari. 

The only ones of these that I am familiar with are Hide n Seek Safari and Flea Circus. Hide n Seek Safari is basically an electronic version of the 'Hot/Cold' game. Someone hides an electronic stuffed animal somewhere around the house. Then the other person searches for it with this wand. When the seeker gets closer to the animal, the wand starts to light up. The closer you get, the more lights turn on. (The kids will be getting 2 of these).

Flea circus looks like a fun card game for kids to play with their parents. It was designed by a well known game designer, so there is some actual interesting gameplay (which isn't always there in kids games).

I was blown away by this act of generosity from R & R Games. If you like purchasing products that support nice companies, I think R & R Games certainly qualifies. Like I said, I'm not familiar with some of their games, but if you have young kids, I don't believe you could go wrong with Hide n Seek Safari or Flea Circus.

Things are starting to go a little bit better for the 3 kids. They are now living with a very nice foster family (who also go to our church). There was no one in the area that would've taken all 3 of them in; they would have had to have been split up. But this nice family decided that they were going to help out and took all 3 of them into their home. Their dad has not been in contact with them very much. He did not even see them for Thanksgiving. But some relatives on the East Coast found out about how bad the situation was and have started to try and figure out a way to take care of them.

Edit: Since I'm talking about nice game companies, I thought I should mention something that GMT Games did in the fall. They offered 2 free games to anyone who recently lost their job recently. I own a couple of their games, Command And Colors Ancients and Battle Line (which, by the way, was designed by the same guy who created the Flea Circus game mentioned above!). And I'll be purchasing another of their games, Manoeuvre, this week. So there you go, yet another nice game company that produces good games!