The kids may be small now, but they’ll eventually get to that age where they’ll want to go out and party of an evening instead of staying at home playing games with their parents. What to do now you’re twiddling your thumbs and those fart joke games the kids begged for aren’t really your cup of tea? My advice: get yourself some games that work just as well with your adult friends as they do with your kids. Some games may be marketed at children, but are just as challenging and entertaining when they aren’t around. Here’s some suggestions from our bloggers to get you started:
Dobble - Chris Ridley
Snap is the quintessential kids’ game, and often one of the earliest games a child will play. While Dobble takes that same basic idea of spotting a matching symbol, it never feels tedious or childish.
Each of Dobble’s 55 cards contains eight symbols, cleverly designed so that any two cards will always share exactly one matching symbol. It sounds simple, but when you’re desperately scanning two cards while everyone else is doing the same, suddenly finding that tiny snowman or lightning bolt feels like an impossible task.
That simplicity is exactly why Dobble works so well with adults. It’s often a game I pack when I need something between heavier games, or when I’m meeting friends who wouldn’t describe themselves as board gamers. There are almost no rules to teach, everyone immediately understands what they’re trying to do, and within minutes it can become surprisingly competitive.
One of the most raucous games of Dobble I’ve played was at a New Year’s Eve party, where a group of adults were zealously slapping down cards and shouting increasingly strange phrases like “Green Splat!”, “Dobble Hand!” and “Ghost with chain!” across the table.
It may come in a little round tin covered in colourful pictures (or your favourite franchise characters), but Dobble can turn a room full of grown adults into excitable children remarkably quickly.
And that’s exactly why I keep bringing it with me.
Hey, That’s My Fish! - David
I remember being informed of this game, I’m sure it was about 20 years ago. A mate of my old man’s talked about it as a game he was getting for his nephew, but as all good board gamers do, picked up a set for himself and played to death with his gaming group first. I was intrigued as the title didn’t align with the games I associated with him. And this is a man who had a board game collection in the mid 00’s that would rival and no doubt exceed most of those you see on social media today.
As I had a huge amount of respect for him as a gamer, I obviously picked up my own set as soon as I could know nothing on it other than the title and included it on a telephone game order (incredible).
I could not have been happier.
An amazingly simple game for 2-4 players where the goal is to collect as many of 100 fish as you can. The board is made of hexes (ice) and every time you move your penguin to get a fish, you remove the ice hex the penguin came from and add the fish to your collection.
The board disappears as you will see as the game progresses. It ends very quickly and is incredibly intense but so much fun as you try to hoard the most. To look at this game, it is a children’s game, the animation, the short game play, the very simple rules, it is a kids game. And yet, perfect for anyone to play with a huge amount of strategy for something so simple.
Minecraft Builders & Biomes Junior - Percy Hartshorn
With Minecraft well into its teenage years, there are parents out there able to say “I played that as a kid”, and I suspect many are saying “I still play that”, so I’m not sure the franchise is even just for kids anymore. This board game is an excellent way to draw the kids (and adults) away from their screens for a little while to play the same block-breaking game analog style.
Minecraft Builders & Biomes Junior is essentially a co-operative version of Jenga without replacement combined with a memory snap game to decide the pieces to pull. A dexterity game like Jenga isn’t always that challenging when you’ve developed your hand-eye co-ordination, but in this game, you don’t get to use your hands to take blocks out, you have to use a foam pick-axe! Builders & Biomes Junior also adds further challenges with limits on your movements, like using only one eye or only holding the pickaxe with your index fingers, which can make it genuinely tricky.
My adult friends and I took several tries to win on the hardest levels, and just one slightly mistimed move can send your whole world crashing down and you’ll have to start again! So don’t be put off by the label of “junior”, this game can prove difficult even for those more senior in years.
Monza - Sam de Smith (@big_geekingout)
Haba has a reputation for colourful, engaging children's games that are accessible and non-language specific. But even then, I wasn't sure how a kids' racing game could possibly captivate me, my 16 year old, and another grumpy 40 something friend. How wrong I was. This is an absolutely first-rate game, a proper mix of luck and tactics in a perfect package. It evokes lots of other "grown-up" racing games - Flamme Rouge, Heat, Spokes - whilst being unique and genuinely enjoyable as you race your lovely little wooden car to the finish line. Each turn, you roll the 6 dice yahtzee style (keep and reroll up to twice): colours allow you to progress along those marked squares on the track. Some areas are obstructed by debris, so you zigzag your way along and round; finish on an opponent's car, and you bump them back a square (and, yes, this chains) which leads to both hilarity and proper tactical decisions. You do have to roll White exactly to cross the line, but there's also a ranking based on the number of dice/rolls to do this so, again, tactics come into play. A tremendous game that is genuinely an all-ages triumph!
My Little Scythe - Pete Bartlam
My Little Scythe was designed by Hoby Chou because his 8 year old daughter Vienna had wanted to play Scythe like her father but it seemed too complicated and with somewhat scary overtones. So they set about creating a game that distilled the clever gameplay of Jamey Stegmaier’s masterpiece into an easier to digest format and replaced Jakub Rozalski’s fantastic art with cutsie illustrations from Katie Khau. They came up with their own gem My Little Scythe.
My problem was different. I host a U3A board games group for retired folk and I am always looking for intelligent games that play well at 6 players. I am also a huge fan of all things Scythe and would love to get the group into it, too, but like Miss Chou, full Scythe seemed too complicated and scary. So I introduced My Little Scythe, more in hope than expectation, and they loved It!
I was worried they would be put off by the cuteness of it all but they didn’t even notice. The gameplay grabbed their attention and is involving enough without being brain burning. The conflict element has now been sanitised as custard pie fights and because of this, in my experience, sees more combat than with the Mechs of Scythe!
Scythe for me is a gripping combination of a Steam Punk RPG and a top level heavyweight Eurogame and I love it. But for those put off by the darker story it would be a shame to miss the excellence of the game mechanics. My Little Scythe wraps up the best elements of the original in a super sweet but easily digestible package described by some as the best implementation of Scythe the game.
My Seniors love it and soon my Granddaughter Maya will too.
Pikit - Sorby Clynes
Pikit is mighty simple for 8-year-olds, yet treacherous enough to keep us big kids plotting until the end of the brawl.
The turn structure is easy to learn. Roll the two huge D6, then claim Kaiju from the play area by matching (a) the sum of both dice, (b) the difference, or (c) one or both faces. If nothing matches, you go home empty-handed. Roll a double and you can claim a Mecha. Luck does sway the outcome, but that's the point.
Kaiju come in values from 1 to 11, and some carry discard effects that let you reroll dice, steal an opponent's card, draw from the top of the deck, cancel another player's effect, or turn a die. Our favourite is turning a die to the face of your choice, which is brilliant for snatching an unclaimed Mecha. But beware the cancel card. Get blocked once and you'll spend the rest of the game plotting revenge.
With kids, we lean into the mental arithmetic and the thrill of collecting big cards, which makes Pikit feel thinky and merry. With just grown-ups around the table, that all goes out of the window. Sure, we want to win, but how dare you steal my Mecha five sessions ago?!
The big question is always the same: do I use my discard effect, or hold the card until the end? Pikit is surprisingly light, yet packed with quick decisions, and one lucky roll can turn the whole table's plans upside down. A little maths, a little luck and a lot of banter make every roll matter. Now would you pick Pikit?
I'm always looking for an excuse to buy more board games and writing for a board games retailer sounds like a good one to me! I am an especially big fan of games with solo-player modes as I can cosy up of an evening with a nice warm drink, an episode of Doctor Who and a friendly match with myself. When I'm not playing board games, or writing about them, you can find me curled up with a good book or trying to wrangle my chaotic DnD group into a session.
