Board Games for Kids

I’m reporting to you live from the site of the Candy Land World Championships, where our resident Grandmaster is napping before he takes on his next challenger.

My son finally gained the patience to play a board game a few weeks ago. My partner and I are avid (though not obsessive) gamers, and already our nightly rounds of Candy Land with him feel like the start of a family tradition. It’s rather refreshing to play with a three year old. He squeals with delight any time anyone gets a “special” character card, and when he—or anyone else—arrives at Candy Land. He understands the goal of the game, but hasn’t quite grasped the concept of “If you win, I don’t.” I’m happy to keep it that way for a while. There’s no need to expose him quite so early to the competitiveness that’s been both a blessing and a curse in my own life.

When he’s older, I’m looking forward to sharing a few of my own favorite games. There’s Scrabble, of course, the only game my partner and I are quasi-obsessive (and rather competitive) about. There are also a few lesser-known ones we’ve grown to like.

TransAmerica (referring to crossing the country, not the movie starring Felicity Huffman) is a deceptively simple train-themed game. Players attempt to connect cities by laying down railroad tracks, and trying to take advantage of other players’ tracks at the same time. Cities are assigned by drawing cards, so every game is different. The box says TransAmerica is appropriate for ages eight and up; I think it would be playable a few years younger, depending on the child.

Carcassonne is a little more complex, but still fairly straightforward. It’s a non-violent tile-matching game in a medieval setting. Players draw tiles and place them down to build castles, roads, cloisters, and fields. They then “claim” them with knights, thieves, monks, or farmers, and try to grow them with additional tiles, for more points. There’s no board per se. Each game is created anew as players lay down their tiles. Like TransAmerica, it’s aimed at ages eight and up, but might be played younger, especially without the slightly tricky fields/farmers option. I like it somewhat better than TransAmerica, since there’s a little more strategy involved, but TransAmerica is probably better for the lower edge of the age range, and faster to learn.

I also remember playing a lot of card games as a kid, starting with Concentration and working my way up through Go Fish to endless rounds of gin, at which I usually beat my parents. Pinochle was the thing in college, though I suspect that’s been supplanted by poker among the card-playing youth these days. (Compiling this post, I’ve discovered Wikipedia is a great resource for refreshing my memory on the rules of a game.)

Any other game suggestions for kids (or adults) of any age?