What to look for in a great board game for kids
Photo by Robert Coelho on Unsplash
In today’s episode Dave and Tim are discussing some of our favorite board games to play with our kids, how we find out about games, and what we look for in a great board game.
During this episode we’ll discuss:
Why boardgames are important to us
How and where we learn about boardgames and other tabletop games
What are the attributes we look for in a good game
Our favorite games and game companies
If you like what you heard, please consider subscribing, writing a review, and sharing the podcast on social media.
Resources:
Research on gaming:
Resources for finding games:
Games
Books
TRANSCRIPT
[music]
Dave: In today's episode, we're discussing some of our favorite board games to play with our kids, how we find out about games, and what we look for in a great board game.
[music]
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Papa est fatigué Podcast, the podcast for dads by dads. When Jim and I started this podcast, we wanted it to be a reflection of the kinds of conversations that we were actually having. As we started brainstorming ideas for the podcast topics, I had a very specific parent in mind to talk about games and board games and game night. Today, I'm really excited to have Tim filling in for Jim. Before we get into our discussion, here's my deal, "I'm Dave. I have a seven-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy."
Tim: I'm Tim. I have a seven-year-old daughter who is pretty good friends with Dave's daughter.
Dave: [laughs]
Tim: That's how we know each other.
Dave: Absolutely. When preparing for this podcast, we came across a fun survey from Wakefield Research. They found that 76% of families wish they spent more time together, 61% of families admit to having a hard time disconnecting from tech devices. 91% of families who play games together say it has a positive impact on their mood. 96% of families who play games together said they feel closer.
What was interesting is we also found this research about the fact that playing games can actually lead to positive behavioral modification. In a study that was done in the UK, these researchers created a board game that had these positive messages around fruit and vegetables. The children who played that game increased their real-life fruit and vegetable intake versus the control group, so really cool outcome.
Now, that I think about it, it would be great if I could get my hands on that game. Tim, we've talked a lot about games in the past. We had a game night pre-COVID. You and I, we've mostly talked about the games we like to play and the kinds of games we want to introduce to our kids. I don't think we ever really discussed the value of games for us. Why we think it's important for our families. I'd like to hear a little bit more about what you think?
Tim: That's a loaded question. It may seem on its surface even as far as the importance of tabletop and board games. The reason I say that is because I think in this time where digital gaming predominates, I believe it's important to share something from my own real-world childhood experiences with my daughter. You and I, I think we're both from Generation X. I'm a digital immigrant. That means I enjoy the benefit of growing up in the late '70s and the early '80s, right on the cusp of the video game era. That gave me about three years or so of uninterrupted tabletop game enjoyment-
[chuckling]
-before arcade games and home entertainment systems like Atari, Nintendo, Sega, PlayStation, where they came on the scene and just took over. I was able to get introduced to games like Life, Stratego, Othello, Battleship, Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, Scrabble, all of those. All those experiences of playing those games with my family and friends, they stayed with me just as much as my first experiences playing Defender or Asteroids at the arcade.
I wanted to keep that tradition going on in my own household and show my daughter who's a digital native that there is still value in meaning to be derived from this type of tactile strategic gameplay that can be had on a table with dice or cards or Meeples or whatever.
Dave: I like what you said about that, the tactile piece. Well, for starters, I actually hadn't thought about this as we were preparing for the podcast because I was thinking about my own experience. I had completely blown past the fact that we actually had game nights at my house. [chuckles] I do remember those fondly, puzzles and things like that. Even actually once we were older and I had come back from college, I'd still go over to my parents occasionally. We'd have board game nights. There's that tactile piece, it's funny. I have recently cracked out all of my old records, the storybook records like Batman, Superman. The kids, my son who's four, can now pick out a record.
He can put it on the record player and play it himself. It's that back-to-basics point that you bring up that tactile feel, that interaction that you don't have. Especially now, if he wants to listen to something, he has to ask me to find it on the computer, and then play the MP3. It's very different experience. I like what you say about that. There's something visceral about having those pieces in your hand that you can interact with and see them moving across the board.
Tim: Yes. Yes. I think that that's something that the younger generations are also starting to pick up on it. There is a missing element. There's just something that video games and digital, that world can't replace. Actually, even pre-COVID, there was a bit of a board game Renaissance going on where new board game companies were starting to emerge. New tabletop games were coming out. There's an industry in this. I think that probably the COVID situation has just made that even more the case, which I think is it's not a bad thing.
Dave: Yes, absolutely. Especially with the loss of retailers like Toys "R" Us that had the shelves of games. Now all of that has shifted really down towards more of the local-- Yes, you can certainly go into Target, but they're only going to be the top-selling board games that everybody knows. There's only so much space for the Hasbro's and the Milton Bradley's of the worlds when they're all these great independent game companies that you're never going to see in a place like Target, unfortunately.
We talk about all the negatives, obviously, and there are a ton of them with COVID and everything. Occasionally, there are these really few bright spots like how it's basically impossible to find a new bicycle anymore [chuckles] because they're all sold out as everyone's going out riding bikes.
Tim: That's true.
Dave: The point is I think we're all getting back to basics as we've been locked down. Certainly, those first few months at the beginning of the pandemic where no one was sure if it was even safe to see anybody or go out or touch anything, and getting back in our cocoons. Hopefully, the Renaissance sticks around beyond the next few months.
Tim: I would say that beyond tabletop games, I think jigsaw puzzles, I'd love to see the numbers on that [chuckles] in terms of just the increase in sales. Another thing in terms of the importance of board games or tabletop games is, I find that there's opportunities for bonding that come during and even before and after the gameplay. For instance, just deciding together which game we want to play or setting up the board, reacquainting ourselves with the rules of the game if we haven't played it in a while, or discussing the memorable moments of gameplay as well as the outcomes at the end of the game.
Maybe my daughter or my wife expressing where they may have succeeded and won game or where they think that they just lost it, and threw the game away. All these things go on sometimes while you're just putting the game pieces away. Sometimes I find that those little moments can be more meaningful than who actually won the game in the end.
Dave: While I was doing the research for this podcast, I was looking up all this stuff about, "Are there cognitive benefits to playing games?" The research is a little mixed. Some of the things that have been clear about if you want to get into the cognitive benefits is that oftentimes, the benefit is actually not in playing the game, it is in the learning that you get from having played the game.
Exactly what you're talking about. "I tried this strategy, it didn't work. How am I going to think about this differently next time? Hey, what did you do? How did you beat me?" It's the learning from it. Certainly, we don't do a lot. It just comes up as you guys are doing it. That was eye-opening to me. The feedback loop is not there if you just play the game and then you're done and you put it away, which is, I think how most people play it. [chuckles] Certainly, there's a lot of the way we do it.
Tim: Where spending too much gloating.
[laughter]
Dave: Yes.
Tim: At least, they can get lost.
Dave: I think that's so interesting and great that you guys, that's just something that happens as you are going through the process. It's something that I'll have to think about, is there some way of fostering that when the game's over, "Hey if you won, why do you think you won? If you lost, why you think you lost and going through that?"
Tim: I think I actually inherited that which speaks again to the importance of it because it does carry a legacy, at least for me playing tabletop games. In my case, my dad, he was an avid chess player. He taught me how to play at a very young age. We pretty much carry on that tradition from my youth all the way through my adulthood. There were lots of teaching moments during those times that we would play over the years between my dad and me.
That certainly held a special place in our relationship throughout the years of our life. I only recall being able to beat him once before he passed away 10 years ago and before my daughter was even born. I can't help feeling, even then like he let me win.
[laughter]
Now her and I, play chess in that same way. It definitely feels like carrying of the torch. That's I think another important thing. It's like just something that you want to pass on. I think that's where, again, we being Generation X, we're unique. We are able to experience this kind of pre-digital world a little bit, the analog world, so to speak before being fully immersed in what we live in today.
Dave: I guess the reason that I am interested in gaming is I think that a lot of the people who answered that survey, it's hard to find time. I use that as an excuse to dedicate time to the kids. If you're going to whip out a board game, it's pretty tough to be doing other things. You can but it does focus you on the activity and the interaction that you have. It might not all be about the game. You might be playing the game and then you just go into these conversations about how's school going or what are you reading or what are you doing? It allows for that natural flow of conversation.
Getting back to one of the things you said earlier is that shared experience. Those are all the things that we remember. 20 years from now with maybe a few exceptions, you don't remember who won or lost the games, but you remember the time that you spent together playing those games or making those puzzles and doing that stuff.
Tim: Oh, I do.
[laughter]
Dave: Well, yes, you certainly do. I think that it's that shared experience. It's about the relationship that you're building with that person. The game is the vehicle to strengthen that relationship and just make it a slightly different relationship than you might be used to. You might have similar style conversations at the dinner table or walking your child to school. I don't know, the game, it's just a different interaction style, I think as you're having those conversations.
Tim: Yes, for sure.
Dave: I've always felt too that what are the benefits for us, in the games that I look for is I always like games that have some level of reinforcing the learnings that are doing. It could simply be reading. Right now our daughter, we're working on Scattergories, which is interesting. Again, she's seven. Her reading is pretty good. If you just set that timer and then she has to read them out and then think through that, that's not going to happen. The little thing that I let her do is read it in advance. Even still, sometimes you roll an L and you're like, "I'm not sure what to do with a V or a W."
I think it makes her think through all of these combinations and these sounds. Then certainly there are a lot of games. You and I have talked about even just earlier last year, about some of the games that reinforce math skills, where the mechanism is a math mechanism. Two years ago when I introduced these games to her, I was doing all the math. Then she'd say, "Well, how many points do I have now?" I'm like, "Okay, it's your turn to add these up. I'm not doing this anymore. You're keeping score."
It's just a fun way to reinforce some of that learning without her realizing that she's doing this stuff. I always felt that games are a nice avenue to do that. It's a natural avenue and philosophically. That's how I view games. We're starting to look a little bit like a small game store.
[chuckling]
We're just starting to stack up, which is funny. I enjoy it. We're trying to find more space. There's always another game that I want to get. [chuckles]
Tim: No, I feel you. The games that are coming out now are just so beautiful. The way they're designed. There's so much care put into these games. Going back to your point about just how we can use games to help children in their learning, it's funny because I don't think we ever really outgrow that when you think about how we use gamification in everything. It's just been found that it makes it a more pleasant experience for everyone involved. If you need to do a mundane task, gamify it. It just makes it easier. I think we're just wired that way to want to play games, to want to solve puzzles, to want to just make a game out of it. It's interesting.
Dave: Yes, I think there's something also to introducing a new game and then having to understand how to play that and then figuring out what your strategies are going to be. There's this sort of getting better at the games that you play. Then there's the, "Hey, here's a new game. All bets are off, now we have to figure out this whole new way of achieving whatever the goal is."
[laughter]
I always find that fun. All the different game mechanics that are out there, and how you get to whatever the "win" looks like. I think that's a lot of fun.
Tim: Sometimes reading the rules can be a game in itself.
[laughter]
Trying to understand the rules.
Dave: I have hit YouTube more than a couple of times to figure out how to play a game. Disney Villainous, in particular, that one's like, "Okay, I'm super confused. [chuckles] I need some help."
Tim: You have to tell me about that.
Dave: My wife and our daughter have been playing that. They're not quite there. It's actually pretty complicated. Even my wife is like, "We're not quite sure [chuckles] how to play it." I think we're going to leave that aside maybe for another few months and take another run at it. Hey, Tim, do you have a structured game night? What does this all look like in your place? Is it your daughter just coming up and say, "Hey, well, I want to play a game?" How is this built into your life?
Tim: I have definitely tried to have the structured game night, but honestly, it tends to get vetoed in favor of a movie night a lot-
Dave: Oh, movie night.
Tim: -since Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, they make for very tough competition. With those, you just press play and the entertainment just happens to you versus the interactive and vested nature of a tabletop game. Those games aren't going to play themselves. You have to put some work in. Even though my daughter, she loves to play tabletop game. We do limit her screen viewing time during the weekdays. She's always going to opt for an opportunity to stare at the screen instead.
[laughter]
It's sad, but it's true. It's an ongoing struggle. Typically, if we can get two out of four weekends out of any given month, I think we're doing pretty well. When we do get to play, it's usually on Saturday nights. That way, if it turns into a late-night, we can sleep in a little the next morning.
Dave: [chuckles] Good strategy, Good strategy. I have also always tried to get a scheduled game night. It just one of these things that slips off the schedule. Like you, the kids, they just gravitate toward the movie nights. We actually have stopped doing that too because, at seven and four, it's really tough to get them to agree on anything. It's not just that they don't want to watch the same things; it's that our son gets scared much easier. A lot of the things that our older daughter wants to watch, he can't.
The game night is something that I do want to implement. I feel like maybe a structured game night. Hopefully, I can do that soon-ish. I think we're like you. It's frequently; our daughter will just come up to me and say, "Hey, I want to play a game." Like, "Great, [chuckles] take your pick. We got a whole bunch." That's what we do.
Tim: You are doing something right. [chuckles]
Dave: Well, I started to notice that her arc has been recently less about toys and more about experiences or art projects or things that she can do. I think that the games fold into that. I would say at least once to twice a week, she'll want to play a board game.
Tim: That's great.
Dave: It's a little different. For some of them are going to be easier than others. There are a few of go-to's that she likes. Then sometimes I try and bring the ones out that we haven't played in a while, but they're are great games. It can be difficult. I know some people do have regular game nights. I tend to think that it's been older people.
[chuckling]
Certainly, before we had kids, there was somebody in the group that every weekend, he had a game night. He could get anywhere between 5 and 15 people to show up to his game nights. It's just different. Going back to the point, it doesn't matter what age you are, the communal aspect, and that thing, it's fun.
Tim: You made me think how you said that your daughter, she's grown to this place where playing these games are filling a need that she has. In a way, it's up to us to try to follow that, try to track it, follow the child as it's been said. Speaking in my own case, again, my daughter, lately, she'll randomly come up to me and want to do what seems like role play. She'll literally start narrating a story. She'll stop at certain places.
Then she'll give me choices, "Do you want to go over here or do you want to go over there?" Then I'll tell her where I want to go. Then she'll continue the story and tell me the outcome. I'm thinking of myself, "Hmm, the time might be right to introduce her to role-playing games." Again, you have to follow that through. I think she might be ready for that.
Dave: One thing that we've just started, we just got this. My brother picked it up, I don't know for Christmas. [chuckles] He just gave it to us recently. Have you heard of Story Cubes?
Tim: Yes. We have that.
Dave: We've got the Moomin ones, which are adorable.
Tim: Oh, wow.
[chuckling]
Yes, I can imagine.
Dave: I've started to have our four-year-old play with those. I got something similar to that for our daughter and she never took to it. They were these tangible-- they weren't dice, it was a bunch of icons. Not, icons but they were, I don't know, they were actually almost like gummies. You put them in a bag. Then you just grab five of them out and with that, then you create the story. She just never got into it. [chuckles] He seems to be taken to the Story Cubes a little bit. I'm like as you say, "Let's foster that. Do you want to tell me a story? Let's go do it." The same thing with our daughter with the games. Sometimes, I can't play the game. It's just life is unfortunately in the way.
I try and do that as little as possible. I don't want her to ever get to the point where she wants to play a game, she's like, "Well, dad's going to say, 'No. What's the point in asking.' "
Tim: Oh, wow. yes.
Dave: I want to make sure we never get there. It's as much as I can, "Do you want to play a game? Okay. Well look, I only have 10 minutes. Here are your three choices-
[[chuckling]
-because these are quick games." We can get in and out and trying to work on that because it can be difficult. As you point out, "Follow the kids and when they're ready, they're ready," and hopefully that we can just ride their coattails [chuckles] and give them slight pushes in the direction as we get there. Since we've started talking about a few of the games that we're playing or interested in, how do you learn about games? What are the resources that you tap to find out what's out there and what might be a good fit for your family?
Tim: I would say it was a little different pre-COVID. It's pretty easy now. Before COVID happened, it was the all-powerful Google or subreddits that talk about board games or tabletop games. Those were always great resources, just looking for top 10 lists best board games. You put in the age range. I also have gone down the YouTube rabbit hole. A couple of those that I enjoy diving into from time to time. There's this one called Watch It Played where the guy basically gives you a step-by-step tutorial of how to play specific games. He's really good at that.
Another one that's fun to look at is, I don't think they've made any new episodes, but the older episodes of a YouTube show called TABLETOP. It's hosted by Will Wheaton of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Those are pretty cool. Then BoardGameGeek, it's a website. It also has a really good YouTube channel that reviews games. They give you gameplay, tutorials, and things like that. Then another resource is just going to the local game shop, perusing the shelves, talking to the staff, and that's always fun. Then, of course, picking the brands of other gaming families and friends, people like you, Dave.
[laughter]
Dave: I do similar stuff. I think the first pass is you Google something. Then you start seeing what comes up. Then you start to get to know what sites make sense for the type of things that you're looking for. We've done that. I've looked up occasionally when I'm doing research for a specific-- if there's a specific event where I know I want to get a game, which I look for. I've used the Mensa awards or the Spiel des Jahres in the past. I'm not so much looking for the winner as much as I'm looking for the nominees. I don't care if you want or not. If you're a part of the conversation that-- it narrows the focus, but it also is that discovery piece.
That all right, "Well, there's been a first pass here." I will say there's one game that I bought when Toys R Us was going out of business. I'm like, "Well, it's five bucks." Unfortunately, my daughter enjoys that game. I hate that game.
[laughter]
I find there to be very little redeeming quality in the gameplay and all of that.
Tim: There's always one.
Dave: Right. It feels like pure luck. I'm just like, "Why did she like this game so much? I never should have bought it." I feel like at least that first pass online filters out some of those useless like, "We launched this one game. It sucked and you're the sucker for having bought it." I think that that first pass and going to the local game stores. The rabbit hole of YouTube is absolutely real when you start putting in those keywords. Then the next thing you know, you have no idea how you got there. It's been three hours later. I built now this laundry list of 20 games in the last three hours. I'm like, "These could all be great." There are a lot of resources.
I don't know that I have necessarily any go-to's, but just by going into Google and finding all of the links. Like I said, there are a few places that keep popping up in a few games that always pop up. I think it's that for a search. Just like you, you and I have had conversations. This is where it becomes fun to see what other people are doing. What they like? Why they like them?
Tim: Yes. Again, it's interesting. New York Times and Forbes came out with top 10 board game lists at the end of last year because that's what people were doing. Again, it's a good thing. It's one of the silver linings. One of the silver linings-
[chuckling]
-of all this lockdown stuff.
Dave: Yes. So few but we'll take that one. We're already starting to get closer to the point, which is, "What do you look for in a good game?" What are the kinds of things that make something open your eyes up and go, "Yes, I want that one."
Tim: Oh, man. That list is long, but let me try to keep it short. I have to say, this may sound shallow, but it's got to be aesthetically appealing, I think. It's almost first on my list. The look and feel of the game needs to draw you and hold your attention. It's weird how much of an impact that can have on the overall experience, but for me, it really does. I also think it needs to be challenging but not too punishing. There's a fine line because you want players interest in the game to remain high, even if for when they're losing. At the same time, if it's too challenging or too unforgiving, you run the risk of them losing total interest.
You, also on the other side, if it's too easy, then the mind is more apt to drift and players get bored and distracted. You want a game that keeps everyone in the zone and fully engaged throughout. I also find it important to have games that don't have an elimination mechanic that takes the player out of the game completely before the game is over.
[laughter]
Nobody wants to be kicked out of the game before the game is over. I find that balance that I was talking about can especially be hard to strike when you have kids who are growing because they're becoming smarter or sharper, faster every day. You have to intuit when it's eventually time to move on from a game that they've outgrown. Then you put them on craigslist and you buy something more age-appropriate with the money.
[chuckling]
Like for instance, when our daughter was younger, the HABA games, the German company, those were our wheelhouse. Being seven and a half now, she's pretty well past those. We do still keep a couple of them on the shelf more for posterity. She still enjoys playing them, but I think it's more for nostalgia's sake than for any actual challenge. What we try to do now is look for games that are a little bit beyond her ability actually so she can put some work into meeting the challenge of mastering them and then growing into them.
Dave: Nice. When you talk about this balance, is that why this walkthrough YouTube videos are so important? Is that how you establish? How do you figure out what that balance is before you have to cough up the money. Certainly, as games are getting more and more expensive. They're $50, $80 games out there. How do you make that call before you've actually played it?
Tim: This is, again, where intuition has to come into play. You watch the gameplay on YouTube. You read reviews, comments in YouTube videos, or on Amazon, for instance. You look at the comments and the reviews underneath. Sometimes, people will just talk about how old their kids were when they were playing them. Eventually, you feel it. Then looking at your own child, just thinking, "Do you think she could handle that?" Actually, let me think. Has there ever been a time where I was wrong? Not yet. not yet. You give yourself time. You give it time, and you just feel it out. I haven't been wrong yet, but it can happen.
[chuckling]
Dave: Well, I like the concept of having them grow into a game. I believe and I think we'll get into this a little bit later. I think that also, your daughter actually is doing that in terms of some of the games that you guys are playing where I'm like, "I'm not sure if my daughter is ready to even start that yet." I like that concept of having them go in maybe a level just below where they need to be. It gives them a challenge. Then also, there's a sense of, I think, accomplishment-
Tim: Oh, yes. For sure.
Dave: -when you've hit that and you're like, "Wow, I want my first whatever or now I really understand the mechanic, let's go." Like "I'm all in now."
Tim: Oh, you wouldn't believe how much pride comes from knowing they can play a game while on the side of the box, it says 14 plus. They're like, "I'm only seven and I can play this game." It's pretty cool. Honestly, those age ranges, sometimes they are very appropriate. Sometimes, again, depending on your child, it's like when you're looking at Google Maps and the amount of time it takes to walk somewhere. It really depends on the person who walk it. Sometimes you get there sooner, sometimes you get there later. You take it with a grain of salt.
Dave: Yes. One of the things that I look for is, and I guess maybe it's also because my youngest is still four. We're still doing a lot of the cooperative games. I like that mechanic though, to just in general even as an adult. I enjoy the mechanic of the co-op game like the Pandemic. That one, even as adult, can be a little bit punishing. I enjoy playing that. That's one of the ones I want to get her into. I think that co-op style, it’s relatively new. I enjoy that. We look for that.
The other thing, I guess is, as we talked about. I tend to like games that have that component where she can do the math. She can now contribute or be the banker if it's Monopoly. Like, "All right, you got to count it out. I'm not doing that anymore. If you happen to steal some money, good for you. You've earned it. You can get away with it."
[laughter]
Also, having to build houses and things like that. We're not doing the full-blown Monopoly yet. We're doing the Monopoly Junior. There's some money going back and forth. At least, having to count it out and then thinking, "All right, well, is it time to buy the house, or is it time to buy the thing?" [chuckles] I think those are just some of the fun things that I look for in a game. What are some of your favorite games that you guys are playing right now or maybe things that you really enjoyed when she was younger, either/or?
Tim: Well, when she was younger, I think, did we play Orchard at Your House?
Dave: Yes, thankfully. Yes, we have that. You guys, yes, you gave it to us.
Tim: Yes, we played it one last time, and then we gifted it to you.
Dave: Yes. Thank you. He plays it. That's the one that he's like, "I want to play this." He will pull that one off the shelf and say, "Let's play this." Thank you.
Tim: I have to say, I miss it sometimes. It's such a strange game. It's funny. It's one of those games where on the side, it says, "From age 3 to 103," and it's true. There's just something fun about that mechanic. Again, because it's cooperative. That was one that was really, she loved it. [chuckles] Something I wanted to talk about in terms of some of the nostalgic game that she played that she had outgrown. She was really big into Candy Land when she was younger, which I was not a fan of. It's like that game that you were talking about, where you're just trying to find a day where it can just mysteriously disappear.
Dave: Right, yes. It's a debate most parents.
Tim: Yes. I think what was wrong with that one is because, I think, for me, at least, there needs to be a good balance between luck and skill in a game. I find this especially important when you're playing with young children. This evens the playing field and allows for someone who may not be as skilled to still have opportunities to win if luck happens to be on their side. I think a luck element needs to be in there. If there's no luck component in a game, like chess, for example, then the better player will likely always win. Then, of course, that's stops being fun pretty quick.
In a game like Candy Land, where there's no skill and only luck, that's no fun either because that game is based completely on the drawing of random cards from a pile. Then that dictates how you move on the board. When the novelty of having a game about candy wore off that got pretty old, pretty fast.
[laughter]
Eventually she tired of it. We were able to move on. Now she's definitely more into strategy and decision making aspects of a game. That was another one she really liked. You'd mentioned Pandemic. We bought and played that one about a year before COVID on the strength of what seemed to be a really cool premise. Now I have to say it can be downright eerie having that game on earth.
[laughter]
Even still is up there among my very favorites. It's cooperative, which I love, essentially the collective premise. There's lots of ways to lose and basically only one way to win. Lots of variants, the different characters with different skill sets. That's a great game. I like that you can tweak it so that it has different difficulty levels to choose from. That's a cool one. Ticket to Ride, have you played that one?
Dave: We've only played the junior version. I played it on mobile.
Tim: We have the European one. We like that one, it's pretty fast-paced. It's competitive and definitely requires a lot of strategy. Every player is a railroad baron who has to build train routes all around Europe. Then they points to doing that. It's quick to learn. The games go relatively quickly like 30 minutes or so, 30 minutes to an hour maybe. One game that we really like and we play this game a lot. We usually play it on our sushi night. It's Tokaido. It's easily the most ZEN game in our collection. It's like a two to five-player. It's a competitive game. The play is so easy-going and peaceful that sometimes you forget that the goal is to win.
[chuckling]
There's so much fun in the journey that the destination is almost secondary.
Dave: Is that the one where you were going through the Japanese countryside?
Tim: Exactly. Each player is a traveler. They're walking along the East Sea Road of ancient Japan. They're trying to get from Kyoto to Edo or what is now known as Tokyo.
Dave: Tokyo, yes.
Tim: Along the way, you make stops at temples and shops. You make friends who help you on your journey. You collect souvenirs. You make stops at hot springs. Each of those encounters scores you points so that the person who arrives at Edo with the most experience points wins.
Dave: It's not the person who gets there first. It's the person who has the most experience.
Tim: Yes, and that's basically the winner. It's really fun. I have to say. I just like the feel of that game as you play it. Then I would say, the one game where my daughter has to reach a little bit that we have, and what she really enjoys is Wingspan. That game is rewarding on many levels. First, it's just gorgeously designed. It's a game about birds. There's like 170 cards of different species. Each one is just beautifully illustrated. Then there's the different colored bird eggs and the bird feeder that comes with game. The cool-looking dice and tokens. I could go on and on about how pretty this game is.
It's an engine-building card-based board game, which means that players create something at the start, which keeps building up points as the game progresses. If you're a bird enthusiast, you're never going to want this game to end. Even if you're not, this game will have you under its spell pretty quickly just based on the mechanics and the gameplay. I have to say, there is a bit more of a learning curve. Again, the recommended age for this one is like 14 plus. Once everyone gets the hang of it, it can be a lot of fun. I would recommend that one, for sure.
Dave: Yes. I think the last time we talked about games; you had your eye on that game. You were going to pull the trigger pretty soon. I remember that was something that you were looking at for a while. I think they won Game of the Year for that or they were runner-up? I think they got some critical recognition for that one.
Tim: I believe you're right. I think it did win some awards.
Dave: One of the companies that I really like. I keep going back to these guys, this game. I think they have just a great lineup of super-inventive games. We like playing Sushi Go!
Sushi Go is a really good example of something where there's a math mechanic in there, so the idea is you have all these pieces of sushi and you make points based on combinations. It depends on if you have the most amount of cards or sometimes if you have the nigiri, you can add a wasabi, and then it's a multiplier. There's a little bit of multiplication in there and there are multiple rounds. I like that one that one is a lot of fun.
Zeus on the Loose is another one where you're basically going up to Mount Olympus. Each card ranges from 1 to 10. It's the first person to get to exactly a hundred wins that round, but there are cards that will take away points, or there are certain cards, it'll just go from zero and you can put a card that says, "add 99," or something like that, or it goes to 99. It's a fun mechanic, but it also keeps you going up and down the ladder between zero and a hundred. It keeps people guessing. Again, it just allows for that quick mental math of adding this plus subtracting that, which I like her doing.
That was a fun one. It's pretty quick. It's normally four rounds, so the first-person that spells Zeus wins, but if you can't bang out four rounds, then you bang out one or two, whatever. Actually just the other day, she wanted to play Qwirkle, which is a lot of fun. The Qwirkle has got-- you've got all these different shapes and colors. You almost make a Scrabble board where you're linking shapes and colors together and it's a point-based system.
There's a lot of strategy. What I like about that one is when we first started playing, she would play with us and she'd start getting behind in the point score, but if you get a Qwirkle, which is six in a row of either the same color or different shapes, it gives you 12 points. You get a few of those, you can quickly go from being behind by 30 points to being up.
That was the thing that I was trying to teach her because in one point of the game, she's like, "Oh, I'm behind too much. I quit," and I'm like, "Let's just keep this going."
I didn't pull that many punches, but I pulled a few just to get her to understand that just because you're down at the beginning, that's not how it's necessarily going to end up at the end. To your point, about some of the things that you look for in games, like the ability to come back from being way down, and still having that hope that the game is not over until the game is over. Always having that little possibility that you can come back with a good move or by, in some games, screwing the other person. That was a lot of fun.
Tim: What a great teaching moment there.
Dave: Yes, I think that's another thing that I'm trying to pull out in places here like, "Look," whatever you can do to have those life skills that yes, overall, it teaches, not being a poor loser and all that stuff, but I think there are other things that you can slide into games that are maybe less intuitive than the, "All right. You lost. Suck it up, and let's play it again. Let's try it again and see what happens."
Our son right now being four he's into, obviously slightly different games. We started introducing Outfoxed to him, which is a fun game. It's another game by Gamewright, actually.
There's a logic mechanic about finding out which of the foxes stole the gem and there's a process of elimination. We played our first legitimate round of that. Busy Town. He really likes Busytown, which is some of the Richard Scarry.
We've got Busytown and there's an airport one that he likes. If you're familiar with Richard Scarry, with his design sensibility, it's those things. It's a hidden image game. You have to find all of the garbage cans. The board is like four feet long, I think. Everybody could split up a section, so it's a lot of fun to find those. That's the one that he goes to quite frequently. That's one of his go-to.
He's starting to get to the point where he wants to play the older games, but, mentally he's not capable yet of understanding the mechanics. Sometimes we just have to make up rules entirely to get to play because he's like, "I want to play." I've gotten a few coding games that's really-- Coding games are all about teaching logic, and the, "Here's a step-by-step process."
There's one in particular that he likes because I think he likes the pieces and the visuals of it, but that, at this point, it's a little bit beyond him, so we'll just change the rules on the fly, which I guess makes it a little difficult because every time the rules are a little bit different because what we told last time. At least he's having fun, and he's still coming to us with games, but there are other games that we have for him.
One of the things that actually our daughter really enjoyed playing when she was probably about four was Guess Who?, and that was actually one. I talked about how, we didn't have too many discussions about, "Okay. You won. Great, good job," but actually Guess Who? was one where, there are a few times where she guessed the person within, I think three or four turns, and we're just like, "How did you do that? Was there an actual thought? It was just completely random and you just lucked into it."
It's interesting too, as you're having those conversations to see her line of thinking through that process. There's one that we actually have, that's this a Guess Who? on steroids. It's the same concept, but instead of it being people, it's a bunch of desserts and then you have to pick colors of the desserts. That one's really fun. I'm blanking on it right now. I'll send you the link. I'll put it in the show notes when I figure it out, but that one's a lot of fun. It's pretty complicated because there's so many different variables. The board is 12 by 12, so there are 144 possibilities. It's a lot of fun in that sense. There's a lot that you can do with that one.
Tim: Actually, that was one of the things I had wanted to mention in terms of what I look for in a game too, because storage in our apartment for tabletop games is pretty limited. I try to stock our shelves with games that are highly replayable, and they have lots of variability with multiple paths to victory, based on multiple strategies. That allows for different styles of play each time, which makes for different outcomes. It just keeps you wanting to come back for more. Of course, the more [unintelligible 00:46:39] come back the better when you have limited space.
Dave: [laughs] [unintelligible 00:46:44] I'm sorry. You mentioned that you're teaching your daughter chess, and I know that there was a thread going back and forth, at school about some people are starting to play chess online. Have you guys done anything like that, where she's starting to take on people online? If you have-
Tim: Online gaming.
Dave: Yes. Have you started to start exploring that? Maybe less like the Minecraft online gaming and the Fortnite online gaming versus playing a tabletop game in a virtual environment.
Tim: As soon as it goes digital, something just happens to her brain. When she thinks of games, it has to be moving around and it has to be music. Going to just the idea of chess, I love that they have this community and I wish she could join it. I wish she would want to join it, but I think what happened with chess is she had a Searching for Bobby Fischer moment. I don't know if you ever saw that movie. It was where the kid at the end-- Well, I'm not going to spoil it. I think it's a good movie. Everybody should see it. Definitely, she loves to play chess. She loves to play chess with me, so it's almost like a moment where we can just quietly hang out, and do something almost mechanically without putting much thought-- You're definitely putting thought into it, but it's hard to explain. She enjoys the process of chess as much as I do. She does want to win. She's definitely trying to win and she wins. She was in the chess club for a little while. Our kindergarten had a chess club she was in it and she enjoyed it and she loved it, but she hasn't expressed any desire to play it online or anything, any board games online, but that could change.
Dave: I guess that goes back to the point that we were talking about earlier. There's that physical, tactile sense. There's something that's a little bit lost in translation when you're in this flat one-dimensional screen versus having learned it in a three-dimensional space.
Tim: Chess is great though for the reason that it is like a coding game. If you enjoy chess and you're into that and the mechanics of it, it's definitely setting you up to be able to get into coding next or just alongside playing chess. What about you?
Dave: We have been doing a few games. We had a podcast earlier, and there's episode two about how our kids are interacting with their grandparents. One of the things that my mom had seen in some of her grandparenting cohort, if you will, who had older kids would do-- they would have actually online game nights, but those kids were more like 14, like middle school, high school. We started thinking, "What kinds of games have a mechanic where you actually could play online?"
She created a bingo game primarily for our son. It's just a little bit easier for him. It's a little more colorful and everything, and our daughter plays it too. They FaceTime. She has a board and they have a board and then she brought Guess Who? so they can do that virtually. Then Battleship is the one that she just started to learn. You'll see iPad set up, it's fun.
It's a nice way for them to interact because through pre-COVID, we would go over there every Friday for dinner. In the last year, I think the kids have seen their grandparents maybe four times. That was really at the beginning when it was a little bit safer here in the early stages. It's a nice way for them to connect, and again, have that shared experience with their grandparents that they're not able to have right now.
The last thing I want to find out, because I'm really curious is, and you mentioned one of them, what are the games that you're excited to be sharing with your daughter that maybe she's not yet ready for, the things that you're like, "Man, I can't wait to get this one and bring it home and show her and start going on that"?
Tim: I have to, at some point, introduce her to Catan because this is the Holy grail of board games. It's literally on the shelf of every friend we know who is serious about tabletop gaming. If you're into board games, it seems like you should know it. You know the premise, it's a civilization building game about harvesting and trading resources. I'm pretty certain that my daughter is old enough to learn it. I just have to take the leap and get us started because I feel like, again, a lot of her friends may already know it and it would just be a great common ground that they would have.
Dave: We have the junior version, which that actually was heavy into the rotation at the beginning. That was one of the first games I think I got her. We've had that for a couple of years. The junior version, it's pretty easy, but she enjoys that one. I had gotten that junior version as a way to start early introducing the rough game [unintelligible 00:52:24]
We have a junior Carcassonne, we have a few of the junior ones because I'm hoping that basically we just start moving our way into the normal version if you will. I think that's where we're going with that. Are you playing Pandemic with your daughter already?
Tim: Oh, yes. We love that game. We've actually defeated the virus once. [laughs] It's a hard game. It's a hard game, but again, it's weird. It's one of those games where it's fun. It's such a fun game. It's fun to lose. Another game that I'm interested in, even for myself, just because it's been in my orbit, it's Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. Have you heard of that?
Dave: Yes, I've seen that. I've had my eye on that.
Tim: This one, I think it came out in the mid '80s. There's no dice, there's no pieces. It's a lot of problem-solving. You're looking at documents and forms and looking for clues. That just seems so ripe for just helping them solidify problem-solving skills and things like that. I know there's different versions of that game, but I would like to check that one out to see if it's-- I'd have to investigate it more, do a few YouTube dives on that one. That's another one that comes to my mind.
Dave: Then you mentioned, because I noticed this because I have it on my list, is Dungeons & Dragons that maybe now is the time to start mentioning. I really grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons too much, but I always wanted to, which is a weird thing that I feel like, "Here's my opportunity to create my own clan with my family." I feel like that one is-- we're rounding the bend and I think she'll be ready for that pretty soon. It sounds like you think that your daughter's probably getting ready for that?
Tim: We already have this book that we bought about two years ago. The name is escaping me right now for this book, I have it. It basically teaches you how to play role-playing games with your children at a very young age. You play with the dice. You have 12-sided dice, eight-sided dice, six-sided dice. Just the dice it's going to get them interested.
Initially, when they're very young, it's more about storytelling and them figuring out how to do storytelling and making choices and things like that.
This book explains how to make a game like that and to make it compelling and make it fun. You have character sheets that they draw the character. They have four skills, each one attributed to a different die, and then you go through a scenario and then you roll the dice. It's just very loose. I like how he goes about it, this particular writer. I'm sorry, I do not remember the name of that book.
It's a good place to start, before you start getting into the real nuts and bolts of a role-playing game with you because those can get pretty involved. Right now we're actually in the process of building our own role-playing game based on the rules of that book. That's been fun. I have a sneaky feeling that if she gets into role-playing games, she's going to be the game master because she loves to tell stories. She just loves telling stories and holding forth.
Dave: I think that's why that's such a fun outlet, the Dungeons & Dragons, to be able to tap into the imagination and have that experience. That's why I'm interested to get the kids going on that. There are a few other games-- yet another game, a game that we have actually that is that medieval fantasy style. She really enjoys that game. It feels like that's the evolution. The natural evolution of all this stuff is that at some point, hopefully we will go down the path of doing Dungeons & Dragons.
I was reading this article. I think these guys came out just a little bit before the pandemic, but there is a service online where you can basically match up to an online dungeon master. If you're just getting into it that you can have somebody basically handle that side of the house for you and then you can just play. I think you can pick your scenarios and you can pick the age of the kids, if you're playing with kids or the adults.
That might be also maybe a way for us to ease into it as well, to test the waters and see with somebody who has some experience in building those worlds and bringing those to life. I think that's going to be really interesting. I can't wait. Hopefully she'll get there. I don't know, maybe it's just going to be me. You know what? It'll be me and your daughter. She could be my dungeon master.
Tim: You can play with [crosstalk]
Dave: Yes, I know. Invite me in. I think that'll be fun.
Tim: One other game that comes to my mind that we actually own it. This is one of those games that I was so excited about. I bought it and I said, "She'll be ready in five years." It's such an exciting game, the premise. The game is called Dialect. It's not really a board game. It plays more into the role-playing genre, but it's basically a game about how language forms and how it dies in a society, in a culture, which I thought would be a really interesting thing to explore, especially given that my daughter goes to an immersion school. She's all about language and language acquisition and learning language.
This particular game sets the stage where you're in an isolated community and you build a language and then through time, that language starts to devolve. You watch how that affects how things happen within your society. I just thought that was such an interesting concept. It's been around for a couple of years and I'm still trying to learn the rules. I've got a few more years to figure it out. I think that would be a really good exploration of just language and how language works generally.
Dave: The beauty of games is to be able to bring in these kinds of topics and explore them in ways that are completely innovative and new, and maybe more fun than reading about them, maybe for certain people. Look, keep us informed. That sounds pretty cool.
Tim: For sure. Do you play any traditional card games?
Dave: No. Well, actually that's not true.
Tim: Like poker games.
Dave: My wife really wants to play poker. She had poker chips. I'm not sure what that's all about, but she plays that. Actually one of the games that I grew up with, because my mother is Japanese, is there's a Japanese card game that I played quite a bit growing up, and that's a lot of fun. It's not quite pattern recognition, but there's a certain number of sets and suits.
Actually, you would probably like it because it's very visual. It's not just like the Ace and a King, but there's a whole series of different images and certain cards go together. They're all sets of four and then based on how you match them together, you get a certain number of points. I haven't played it in a while, but it's probably something that I should introduce to my daughter because it's fairly straightforward. You just have to memorize the sets. Again, there's only four cards per set, and they're very distinctive visually, so it should not be that difficult. It's a very small deck and I used to take that elsewhere actually.
There's another game that I used to play, and I don't know what the name is in English, but basically, it's a card game. It's a European card game. In Europe, they have those mile markers that it's old school cement mile markers. You have to get to a thousand of these mile markers. When you're playing, if I'm playing with you, I can throw a flat tire, and that stops you from you being able to advance until you fix your tire. Then there are Ace cards. There's a firetruck, which is the right of way, so you can't throw red lights at me, and I don't have any speed limit requirements.
Actually, our daughter has started playing that with me right now. That's another math game, but that one's a lot of fun. Those were two, she likes to play UNO. What about yourself? How do you guys do?
Tim: Well, I don't know poker, I don't know Spades. I don't know Crazy Eights. I know War. That's about all when it comes to traditional card games. I just never got around to learning them, but at the same time they do seem like an important part of every kid's social education. Not to mention there's something really cool about knowing that there are hundreds of games you can play with one simple deck of 52 cards, games that people all over the world have literally been playing for hundreds of years.
There's a part of me that wants just the educational part of that, and the historical part of it is fascinating to me. Again, it's almost an educational part that I think is very important. It's one of those things that I just never got around to it. That's what I think is so great about being a parent. You get to revisit your own childhood in a lot of ways and fill in the blanks with your own child.
Dave: There was a card game that we used to play in high school. I can't remember exactly what the name of the card game was. It's similar to War. You'd set the thing out, and then if it was similar numbers, then you could slap it, and then you take that batch. It was more than War. I remember we used to play it so often, and so violently that I remember I had to tape up my cards. I literally had to put box tape on the cards because they would end up being ripped because people were trying to grab the cards. It was a lot of fun.
My high school was tiny. The graduating class was 22. When I say "everybody," it's all a relative term, but everybody was playing this game. When you effectively laminate your card deck, it becomes three times as thick as a normal card deck. It was a funny thing to be roaming the halls with in your pocket, but it was something that every recess, every lunch, everybody was playing this for-- I think it was like a year. It was just a thing. I guess we were overtly bored or something, but it was a lot of fun.
We hope we've been able to share some of our love with board games with you. If you'd like to support the podcast and hear more discussions around fatherhood, please subscribe and drop us a review. If you have any questions, hit us up on the Facebook page, facebook.com/papaestfatitue, that's P-A-P-A-E-S-T-F-A-T-I-G-U-E. Now, I know we discussed a ton of games, so we'll be putting all the links in the show notes. Thanks for listening.
[music]
[01:04:59] [END OF AUDIO]