The game boxes

Quarantine Cycle: Board Games to Buy to Play with an Elementary Schooler

March 19, 2020 Kelsey Rinella 0

This piece is part of a series, the next of which is Quarantine Cycle: Tabletop Games You Can Make at Home. Many parents found the board games available to them when they were children tiresome as they grew to adolescence, and may view the prospect of entertaining a child with endless games of Monopoly or Uno with dread. Fortunately, as games have grown more popular, the array of games which are accessible to elementary school students (grades 3-5 in my district, roughly ages 8-11) yet tolerable or even fascinating for adults has grown, also. The following are suggestions from recent experiences with my own children, ages 10 and 12. Disney Villainous (2-6 players)—lovely artwork and elegant pieces accompany a game that introduces a lot of concepts from more complicated games. Some kids just delight in being the bad guy, each pursuing their own goals and hindering other by playing heroes to block others’ plans. While it can run long at higher player counts, it’s very rewarding to see an observant child realize why certain cards have the effects they do, and there’s impressive variety available between the base set of six characters and three standalone expansions of three each. A superb example of licensing which enhances the game. Unmatched (2-4 players)—another gorgeous production, Unmatched uses a brilliantly streamlined system to represent battles between legendary fighters and their sidekicks. Hand management and timing are key to making the most of your opportunities, so Unmatched is a marvelous tool for teaching those who tend to resist reflection to slow down and consider consequences. But, with games usually lasting only 20 minutes or so, being punished for one’s mistakes tends not to linger in resentment, but instead encourage trying again, perhaps with a different hero. Like the villains from Villainous, each plays very differently. While there’s plenty of variety in the four-player base set of King Arthur, Medusa, Sinbad, and Alice in Wonderland, you can try out the system more cheaply with the standalone expansion of Robin Hood vs. Bigfoot, and my favorite character, Bruce Lee, comes in his own solo expansion. Tokaido (2-4 players)—a gentle game about touring feudal Japan which gives players points for things like seeing beautiful views and taking baths. If anxiety is getting to you, this pleasant journey might ease your mind for an hour or so. PARKS is a reputedly similar, more recent game with stunning art depicting U.S. National Parks, but availability has been an issue. ICECOOL (2-4 players)—sometimes, it’s helpful to have a game which is a bit less cerebral, and relies on dexterity rather than pure analysis. This game features penguin students running around their school searching for fish to snack on, but you move your oddly-weighted piece by flicking it. Skilled players can make their penguins jump, corner, and stop at just the right points, so ICECOOL can play the valuable role of occupying a lone child in practice for quite some time. And, for less dexterous parents like myself, it also offers the opportunity to lose to one’s children without throwing the game. NMBR 9 (1-4 players)—the only game on this list for which one could make a case that the educational payload is obvious enough that children wary of edutainment might balk, NMBR 9 transcends that genre by embedding some multiplication practice in an elegant polyomino-stacking game which rewards careful spatial reasoning and planning. Sleeping Queens is a simpler card game which is better suited for younger mathematicians, but was so beloved when my children were smaller that I couldn’t leave it unmentioned. The world of modern board games is sufficiently diverse and marvelous that I could write this article several times over without repeating games. If you’re motivated to research more, http://www.boardgamegeek.com is the most comprehensive destination on the web. Most of these games aren’t excessively difficult to come by, often stocked by big box stores or Barnes and Noble, and it’s a superb time to support local game boutiques if you can do so safely. The best prices are often available at specialty online game stores like http://www.gamenerdz.com, which became my go-to after I learned of their relatively low $75 free shipping threshold.

A match made in heaven: Playdek and GMT form partnership

July 23, 2018 David Neumann 18

iOS, Android, PC/Mac • When something gets too much hype there’s a good chance that reality will never rise to meet the expectations already formed in your head. That was the fear when GMT started talking about a “major” announcement regarding digital games that would be coming in late July. I was expecting the announcement of something like Labryrinth or, if we were lucky, a digital COIN game being announced. Big, but hardly the earth shaking announcement we were led to believe was coming. Then I found out what the announcement was and, damn, if GMT didn’t actually surprise me with this one. Not only is Playdek making digital versions of GMT titles, but they’ve joined forces and formed a partnership which ensures we’ll be getting GMT games on our devices for a long, long time.

Fear not, Exodus: Proxima Centauri is on the way

June 11, 2018 David Neumann 4

iOS, PC/Mac • I was browsing our fantastic forums over the weekend just to see what the Stately Players [someone at BGG told me the editorial asides weren’t funny so I’m not going to comment on the blatant disregard for quality writing Dave’s throwing up here by calling you “Players”. -ed] were up to and trying to forget that I hadn’t posted anything since Thursday and stumbled upon a new thread discussing possible vaporware. One of the games mentioned on the list was a little space game called Exodus: Proxima Centauri that we mentioned back in March of 2017. Strangely enough, right after reading that thread I heard from Offworld Games about, you guessed it, Exodus: Proxima Centauri. It’s not vaporware, in fact, it’s coming to PC/Mac on August 10.

What does Playdek have up their sleeve?

May 23, 2018 David Neumann 12

Not a lot of time today, so I’m going to just touch on a little nibble that I found last week but haven’t been able to coerce a certain forum member into divulging any details. Yet. It all stems from a tiny little blurb in last month’s GMT Games newsletter.