Back for more? This is our second blog on games great for families… (here’s a link to the 1st one!) ie. games that adults and kids will enjoy playing together. We’ve decided not to focus on the classics that you all know and love, but instead to showcase something a bit different that maybe you haven’t heard of. Tried and tested in our cafes, this is guaranteed quality time.
Again, we’ll split our suggestions up into younger, intermediate and older sections. As we mentioned before, sticking to a definitive age for when you should play games with children is tricky, kids all develop differently… These are all ace though and teach important skills.
The younger audience: Matching and Manual dexterity.
Recognition of similarities and fine motor skills are key in a child’s development. Why not do these in a fun way by playing a game or two with them? Have we got a couple of corkers for you in this area!
Animal upon Animal
There’s a toucan on that penguin…
Stranger things have been said in a game, but not many… this could only be another quality game from Haba (makers of the previously mentioned Rhino Hero), namely Animal upon Animal.
That yellow box is considered a sign of quality in many board gaming households and Animal upon Animal is one of the cornerstones of a great kids collection of games… (the slightly inebriated adults in the cafe quite enjoy it too…)
It’s simple… you have 7 animals and a crocodile is placed on the table. Roll the dice, obey the rule for how it lands and place an animal (or two) or get an opponent to… animals fall? Keep two and put the rest away, if not then when you are out, you win.
Oh yeah, I should mention… it’s not a real crocodile, everything is chunky wooden shapes that are all friendly looking, this crocodile honestly doesn’t mind being the bottom level of an ever growing pyramid of animals.
We encourage kids to make the appropriate animal sounds when they balance each one… although the frilled lizard sometimes confuses them… but getting them to use their imagination is good, there are no wrong answers!
So, make it snappy (come on… low hanging fruit there…), more than toucan play this game, don’t hedge-(hog) your bets or be sheep-ish… (T)hiss is great, even if you monkey around… it’s not even that (Liz)-ard to play. No penguin pun though… I froze. This writing lark is tricky!
CLACK!
Onomatopoeia: A word formed by the sound associated with it… (every day is a school day!)
That’s where we’re going with this one… It’s fast and it’s furious and it goes Clack!
Sometimes you don’t want a theme, pure speed and fun is what you are after. This game is all about the satisfying way the pieces go together. The discs have magnets on the bottom and as you pass one closely over another, the lower jumps up and connects to the other making that wonderful ‘CLACK!’.
Not much of a game there so each disc has some pictures on it, feet, stars, flowers, puzzle pieces and zig-zag arrows. These are a mixture of colours, purple, yellow, green, red and blue. You roll the special dice and have a combination of a colour and a shape and it’s time to get all the discs that match! Hang on though… dice have 6 sides? Yep. One side is blank on each dice so if you get the white side with the foot then just grab all the feet.. Or a blank side and the blue side, all the blue items… if you get both blanks it’s grab it all time! Play until all discs have gone, put the stacks together and whoever has the highest stack is declared the winner.
We’ve just explained it too. Madness. You have to try this, it’s really good and super satisfying to boot. Shape and colour recognition never felt so much fun.
BOOM! Believe the buzz, the chatter on this one is real. Slap your hands on a copy.
The intermediate audience: Building on matching and understanding risk.
Moving on from matching is the idea of same but different and simple strategic depth, also a simple ‘push your luck’ game. These are also great skills for a kid to develop, logic and a feel for simple risk (where the consequences are only winning or losing) are not a bad thing for any age to practise.
Qwirkle
Scrabble for those who don’t like words? I’m in!
As mentioned in our previous post about Shenanigrams (move over Scrabble!) This game drops all pretence of having to be able to spell and takes the well loved tile laying of Scrabble away from words and into the friendlier realm of colour and shapes! Get yo Qwirkle on!
6 colours… 6 shapes… each combination appears 3 times in the bag of tiles. That’s…ermm… 108 tiles! That’s all you have with Qwirkle. On your go you form a ‘word’ like in Scrabble but it’s either got to be made of the same colour but different shapes of the same shape but different colours. No repeats in a ‘word’. It’s one point per tile formed in any words you added to horizontally and vertically and if you get all 6 out… Qwirkle! Double points!
Doesn’t sound much, does it? There’s that moment though when you realise if you add a tile to a 4 tile group then another player may have the missing one, and do you really want to give away a Qwirkle? No, you do not. That’s what makes this great for all ages, the rules are simple… same but different… but the strategy is gleaned over time and developing the logic to see that potential is priceless. There is a reason this won the Spiel des Jahres the year it came out, as mentioned before, it’s like the Oscars of the family gaming community… well deserved if you ask us.
We once tried something interesting… Calico (great game, quilts and cats) has a set of hexagon tiles with… yeah, 6 colours and 6 patterns and weirdly 3 of each… playing Hex-Qwirkle kind of worked… but hey, if it ain’t broke don’t try to six… err… fix… it.
Stomp the Plank
Ahoy! Captain Giraffe’s treasure is too tempting!
Pirates! Elephants! Treasure! Planks! Crates! Push your luck and don’t fall in the briny, Stomp the Plank is fast and fun!
Those cute pirate elephants character minis are awesome! This game is super simple but risk and consequence is what this is all about, in a short game that will keep any kid’s attention. 10 minutes maximum and it’s the kind of game they keep coming back for more.
Raid the treasure chest (draw a card) as many times as you like and if you keep getting different treasure then you can keep going. The more treasure you have drawn then the riskier it becomes. If you stop you can get your opponents to place crates on the end of their planks where their elephants are ‘stomping’ but if you draw a duplicate your elephant moves along the plank. Go too far or add too many crates and your plank will tip and it’s game over! But if you get 7 different treasures in 1 round then you win!
A delicate touch and a lack of risk aversion can suit you well in this beautiful game. So, get your trunks on and dive in!
The older audience: Putting yourself in other’s shoes and forward planning.
Considering others and their responses to the stimuli you provide them is (let’s be honest) a skill that more of us could do with in life, instilling this in the next generation is not a bad idea at all. Thinking about the future and the impacts our decisions make on our future selves is another amazingly useful skill that can’t hurt. Games can do this and here are two examples to grow these skills.
Cards against humanity: Family edition
A modern classic made family friendly…
This truly needs no introduction… but… there is more going on here than first appears. Yes It is Cards against Humanity… but Family Edition.
Do you know CaH? No? It’s a bit rude and not politically correct… The makers have realised that there is a bigger audience though and made a wonderfully childish kids and adult friendly edition. Yes, some things are a bit dodgy so it’s not for everyone (try Apples to Apples if you want to keep it less crude)… there are butt jokes in here but nothing more risky.
How to play? Each round, one player is the judge, they read out a prompt card and the others each choose one response card from a handful, they are shuffled and the judge reads them out and chooses the one they like the most. Be it the most truthful or the most hilarious or the most inappropriate… Winner gets the card. Next player becomes the judge. Most cards = winner. Easy.
But when we’ve played previously there has been a moment of disappointment as an awesome card is not picked for a clearly inferior one. So what we encourage people to do is to say why they pick a certain card over another and thus the game becomes a way to learn more about how people think and hopefully improve on their future choices for said judge.
Also, it’s funny. Very funny. Result.
Sometimes it’s how you play the game that’s important. Cards against Humanity? Nah… more like Cards for a better understanding of Humanity…
Misfits
Forethought and balance, excellence in design in a dexterity game
You open this game and behold, a beautifully designed sight is before you. This isn’t Jenga anymore… This is Misfits.
Balance blocks, they fall you either lose or add them to your stack. Run out of pieces, you win. That’s Misfits.
Still here? Wondering why I mentioned forward planning on this one? Well… There is a whole set of odd shaped pieces from the cloud to the ghost to the inverted cloud or just the plain wheel, column or cube and… You get to pick your playing pieces, choose wisely and you’ll do well. Choose badly and you may as well give up against a good opponent. It doesn’t seem important when you first play but like all well designed games, those hidden depths can be the thing that clinches victory.
Misfits? More like a perfect fit.
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So there you have it, another selection of games that will make your family time just a little bit different.. Enjoy!