Family Games Recommendations

April 11, 2020

 Amy writes:

 One of the great joys of working at the Ludoquist has always been seeing families come together. Gamers young and old connecting over a tense game of Jenga or a noisy game of Kerplunk! While the current situation means we can’t safely give you access to our library, we can bring the games, and the fun to you! While we obviously do stock traditional family games such as Monopoly and Hungry Hungry Hippos in our webstore, if you are a little less certain about which games will entertain both you and your little ones, allow me to present ten of our personal favourites.

 

  1. Dobble 

Dobble is similar to Snap with a rather clever twist. Every card in the deck matches every other card with one (and only one) of the printed symbols. You have to be fast to find the matching symbols, call it out loud and then slam the card out of your hand and onto the table. The first player to empty their hand of cards wins! It’s fast, frantic fun and available in a few different themes, like Harry Potter and Disney Princesses.

  1. Monopoly Gamer 

I know I said I wouldn’t mention Monopoly, but Monopoly Gamer truly is a different game. There’s less money to deal with, “boss fights” every time you pass go, and most importantly of all: the game takes under an hour to play! The inclusion of a Sonic or Mario theme with wonderful, chunky painted miniatures of iconic characters for playing pieces makes this a joy to play.

  1. Team 3 

I had to put this in at number 3 didn’t I? Team 3 is a great cooperative puzzle game that has you playing as the three wise monkeys. One of you can “see no evil” (keep your eyes closed) but is the only one allowed to touch the tetris style puzzle pieces. One of you can “speak no evil”, but unfortunately, they are the only one who can see the solution to the puzzle! They will have to use hand signs to convey information. The last monkey can “hear no evil” and has to translate the hand signs into verbal communication for the builder.  Can the 3 of you work together to solve the 3D puzzle within 3 minutes?

  1. Dr Eureka  

Dr Eureka is a speed game where you have to match the requested formula by getting your six coloured balls in the right order in your three test tubes. Safety first, these chemicals are too ‘dangerous’ to handle. So no using your hands, you’ll have to carefully pour them from test tube to test tube. Can you be fast, and precise, enough to win?

 

  1. Ghost Blitz Ghost Blitz

Ghost Blitz (also known as Geistes Blitz) is another speed game. This time instead of matching the cards you have to find the odd one out. There are 5 pieces included: a white ghost, red chair, green bottle, grey mouse, and a blue book. Each card drawn will show two objects in the wrong colours. For example a card might have a blue ghost and a green chair. You have to rapidly look at the card, determine which token isn’t represented either in colour or shape and grab it to win the card. In our example that would be the grey mouse. 

  1. Pigasus Pigasus

Pigasus is a matching game of animal hybrids. Cards are drawn from a deck revealing animal crossbreeds; an elephant with the body of a snail perhaps. As soon as you find a “matching” pair (for example a gorilla with the body of a crocodile and a crocodile with the body of a gorilla) then you have to grab the squeeky pigasus before anyone else can. The first person to find a pair wins the cards, but if you grab the pigasus when there is no pair then you’ll lose cards!

 

  1. Yogi Yogi

Yogi has always been incredibly popular since we opened the café, because it’s so easy and fun to play. Yogi can be likened to Twister, but you only get tangled up with yourself. Players will take turns drawing a card, doing what the card says and keeping doing what the card says. As time goes by, you’ll be drawing more and more cards, giving you more rules you have to obey. Prepare to get twisted up in knots until you can’t even draw cards anymore!

 

  1. SOS Dino SOS DIno

Another cooperative game.In SOS Dino you’ll be escorting four dinosaurs to safety as volcanoes erupt and meteorites fall! Every turn you’ll add more lava to the board before moving one of the dinosaurs a step closer to safety. Can you get all four out safely whilst avoiding rocks and collecting all of your eggs? Part of SOS Dino’s charm is the large dinosaur miniatures and the 3D mountains, volcanoes and rocks.

 

  1. King of Tokyo Tokyo

King of Tokyo is a dice game where you play as Godzilla-style monsters who have all decided to invade Tokyo at the same time. For some reason these giant beasts aren’t up for rescheduling, so instead they will punch their way to victory. You’ll be rolling, and rerolling dice Yahtzee style in order to fight each other, heal yourself back up and upgrade your monster to make them more powerful. Ultimately only one monster can be crowned King of Tokyo!

 

  1. Board Games to Create and Play Boardgames to make and play

Why play other people’s games when you can design your own? Board Games to Create and Play is a game creation book. Featuring multiple pre-drawn maps ready for you to doodle and add rules to, this book is sure to get creative juices going. But don’t worry if you need help, the book is chock full of rules that you can mix and match to create your own unique games. Just add dice and tokens!

  

I hope this gave you some ideas for keeping you and your loved ones playing games together. If you are interested in games that are more aimed towards two people look forward to our recommendations coming soon.

When she's not working at The Ludoquist, Amy writes for The Game Shelf reviewing games.




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