Octopus Overlords

So I was playing board games with my eldest (5 YO) on Saturday. Which was great, except that all she has right now pretty much are straight luck games - Candy Land, Chutes n' Ladders, etc. - which is both boring and I think frustrating for her when something bad happens to her for no reason (doesn't that frustrate us all, I suppose).

Which has made me think more about other board games to get her that involve actual choices. Of course she's only five, so they can only be so long or involved at this point. Cooperative games would be particularly good, as I think she'd have more fun playing together than in opposition. Long-term I'd *like* to get Defenders of the Realm, but (though I've never played it myself) I think that's probably too complicated for a 5 YO, right?

Anyway, I'm interested in thoughts about board games to introduce at different ages, including suggestions that would be good for five year olds in particular.

These are all off the top of my head. I can't be bothered to think too hard today.

For board games that don't bore the adults completely:
Hey, That's My Fish!
Flash Point: Fire Rescue - if the kid can handle the theme... dead animals will make my 8 year old quit this one, but he's pretty sensitive
Zooloretto
Carcassonne
King of Tokyo

Boring, but not completely awful:
Monster Factory

Will teach your kid to kick LM's ass at RoboRally in three plays or less:
Robot Turtles

I wouldn't try and introduce a 5 year old to Defenders, as much as I love it.

If you want to get a good kid friendly co-op, I can't recommend Castle Panic highly enough. It's a tower defense type game, and a heck of a lot of fun. My kids love it.

That is a little younger than I started my kids on board gaming - I think they were 7 and 9.

My thoughts for that age are simple rules and short games. Something easy to understand, pick up, and play.

Qwirkle and Zombie Dice might fit the bill.

I'll second Castle Panic. Good game, simple to play plus it's a coop so there's no beating up on each other. The basic game is good, especially if you consider it "just" a kids game, but with the Wizards Tower expansion it's got a lot more weight (and teeth) to it. If Amazon or whoever offers a deal to get both don't hesitate... it's only about $20 for the expansion.

Castle Panic is great, but for a 5-year-old I'd stick with the base game for now.

My 5-year-old son loves My First Carcassonne, and can even beat me at it.

Gamewright puts out a lot of great, small-box kids games like Rat-a-Tat Cat, Dweebies, Gopher It! (and a few stinkers like Slamwich).

You could even try something like Forbidden Island, for a more advanced 5-year-old.

If you want to branch into dexterity games, Coconuts and Click Clack Lumberjack (aka Toc Toc Woodman) are great kids' games that are also fun for adults.

Boudreaux wrote:Castle Panic is great, but for a 5-year-old I'd stick with the base game for now.

I'll second that. The expansion probably quadruples the number of times during a game you have to stop and look something up, and it halves the number of times you'll win.

It's great for adding complexity for older players, but would make the game less appealing to a five year old.

Off the top of my head:
Chicken Cha Cha
Hey, That's My Fish
My First Carcassonne
Animal on Animal
Orchard
Knuckling Knights
Go Away Monster (best at 3-4 years)
Robot Turtles
Gulo Gulo

Yellow Orange has a few good games like Pengoloo.
Also the Richard Scary Airport -- it has a fice tower!!

A set of D&D dice and figures also works. My 7 year old just used poster board to make her "Dungeon Level 1" board game map. Explaining to her that she shouldn't draw a "surprise" exit portal on the map was challenging.

Also, there's an old thread here.

Thanks! Castle Panic seems like it might be a good option. Theme matters a lot, and she likes high fantasy stuff it seems (though ideally it'd have some fairies and the like too), and it's good that it's cooperative. I'll look up the other suggestions too.

I remember hearing about Gulo Gulo as one of the few games where the kids will always win against adults. It involves a bowl full of wooden eggs with a pole being held up by the eggs. Something like you need to pull specific colored eggs out without knocking over the pole, and kids with their small hands are at an advantage. I don't know if it's out of print or not.

One guy on another site was raving about Kids of Carcassonne with his kids. It's basically Carcassonne with some elements simplified.

There's also Waldschattenspeil, which is made to be played by kids against an adult. It's played in the dark with a candle. You start by setting up a forest of wooden pine trees, and a tea candle gets put on one of the board's spaces. That's an ogre with a lantern. The kids take a bunch of wooden dwarfs and hide them in the shadows cast by the trees. They can be anywhere that's in shadow. On the ogre's turn, he rolls a die and moves the candle that many spaces along the path, looking for dwarfs. Any dwarf that gets lit up is frozen. On the dwarfs' turn, the kids move the dwarfs around anywhere there's shadow, but can't cross the light. They can unfreeze a dwarf by moving into a shadow with it, and they're trying to all get in the same shadow. The ogre (the adult) isn't supposed to look while the kids move, and can't get out of his chair to move the candle (I think). It's neat because it looks super cool with all the shadows, and the dwarfs' movement rules are dead simple. Plus, it plays in less than 20 minutes.

Chaz wrote:I remember hearing about Gulo Gulo as one of the few games where the kids will always win against adults. It involves a bowl full of wooden eggs with a pole being held up by the eggs. Something like you need to pull specific colored eggs out without knocking over the pole, and kids with their small hands are at an advantage. I don't know if it's out of print or not.

One guy on another site was raving about Kids of Carcassonne with his kids. It's basically Carcassonne with some elements simplified.

There's also Waldschattenspeil, which is made to be played by kids against an adult. It's played in the dark with a candle. You start by setting up a forest of wooden pine trees, and a tea candle gets put on one of the board's spaces. That's an ogre with a lantern. The kids take a bunch of wooden dwarfs and hide them in the shadows cast by the trees. They can be anywhere that's in shadow. On the ogre's turn, he rolls a die and moves the candle that many spaces along the path, looking for dwarfs. Any dwarf that gets lit up is frozen. On the dwarfs' turn, the kids move the dwarfs around anywhere there's shadow, but can't cross the light. They can unfreeze a dwarf by moving into a shadow with it, and they're trying to all get in the same shadow. The ogre (the adult) isn't supposed to look while the kids move, and can't get out of his chair to move the candle (I think). It's neat because it looks super cool with all the shadows, and the dwarfs' movement rules are dead simple. Plus, it plays in less than 20 minutes.

Those all sound interesting and engaging. Plus you can't go wrong with a game with a German name.

I should also try out Here I Stand with my daughter.

Chaz wrote:One guy on another site was raving about Kids of Carcassonne with his kids. It's basically Carcassonne with some elements simplified.

We got some good mileage out of this, but I don't think it's overall shelf-life is very long given how simple it is. However, the cost is low and it plays fast. I would definitely recommend it based on my experience.

We're also big on Castle Panic, though we still use the easier rules included with instructions (essentially removing some of the more difficult chits). I think it's great simply because of the cooperative nature. Plus, the theme is infinitely more interesting than say...wandering through Candy Land for the 37th time.

When I was a kid, my mom would make her own cards for Candyland, and we'd have to go find our own pawns from around the house. Let me tell you of my chicken's magical trip to the top of Booger Mountain, or the journey to Toe Crud City.

I had a strange upbringing.

I think Gulo Gulo is out of print but my kids LOVED when I borrowed hentzau's copy. It is VERY hard for adults. Kids really get a kick about being better at something than adults.

Zarathud wrote:I think Gulo Gulo is out of print but my kids LOVED when I borrowed hentzau's copy. It is VERY hard for adults. Kids really get a kick about being better at something than adults.

Rio Grande has had a reprint in the works for a couple of years, but it looks like they are getting closer. May happen this year... (maybe not).

Chaos in the Old World! She will be screaming, “Blood for the Blood God!” in no time!

In seriousness, I’ll echo everyone else and say Castle Panic is about as perfect as you can get.

I also think Ticket to Ride would be a good choice, especially if you can get someone else to play. It’s basically just a color set collection game so as long as she can match the pictures to the board, knowing the geography shouldn't be important.

Carcassonne is a good starter game, although you definitely want to stick to to base game on that since the expansions make it considerably more complex.

Also, Flash Point is a pretty fun co-op game. She may be too young to understand all the rules behind the game but the actual mechanics are simple enough that she should be able to get into it.

When I was 5 I was more into family card games than board games. I loved UNO, Rook, and Euchre. I think Stratego was the first board game I really really really got into but that was probably six or seven. I also vaguely remember Peanuts Baseball and this card filling in board game where you try to dig your way out of prison.

But the times and gaming has changed and games like Castle Panic sound like they could be the bees knees for kids.

Oh, Uno's a great idea. I loved playing that when I was a kid.

LordMortis wrote:this card filling in board game where you try to dig your way out of prison.

Dungeon Dice. I had that one as a kid too.

Spy Fox (the classic point and click adventure) on steam taught my kids how to play Go Fish.

This is more of a brag than a suggestion but I've been playing lots of Magic the Gathering with my 4 year old nephew. The kid is addicted.
He can't actually read yet so he plays with 1 of 3 pre-constructed decks that my brother assembled. Since it's a limited card pool he has all of the cards memorized.
I beat him twice on Saturday.

For that, I might bring Archinerd one of the My Little Pony CCG decks. I am waiting for 5 year old Bug to read better before introducing it to her. She'll be frustrated when her older sister gets into it.

I love Ticket to Ride, but I feel a youngster may lose interest quickly. Depends on the kid I guess.

hentzau wrote:

LordMortis wrote:this card filling in board game where you try to dig your way out of prison.

Dungeon Dice. I had that one as a kid too.

That's it. Apparently I was six and not five as I was 6/7 in 1977.

Ordered Castle Panic for my 10 and 7 year old. I hope I can get them to want to play it. My 5 year old is still a bit young for it, as she can generally follow rules, but likes to make up her own when needed to win.

Ha. I picked up Castle Panic two weeks ago but haven't been able to get my kids to sit still at the table yet.

Zarathud wrote:Ha. I picked up Castle Panic two weeks ago but haven't been able to get my kids to sit still at the table yet.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Archinerd wrote:This is more of a brag than a suggestion but I've been playing lots of Magic the Gathering with my 4 year old nephew. The kid is addicted.
He can't actually read yet so he plays with 1 of 3 pre-constructed decks that my brother assembled. Since it's a limited card pool he has all of the cards memorized.
I beat him twice on Saturday.

He's now moved onto Android Netrunner. We played last Saturday at his birthday party, he won.

Does anyone have any experience with Once Upon A Time? It is a card game that involves telling a story based on the cards in your hand. Anyway, I went to pick up a copy for my daughter for Christmas and it turns out I got an expansion pack instead of the original game. I knew it was an expansion but figured that it would be ok as we could just use the cards that we have. Now I am wondering if I should get the original so that we have enough cards to make the game better. What is the consensus on whether I need to get the original game? Will it work with just the expansion? Inquiring minds want to know.

I've only played the original, not the expansion, sorry.

Here's my latest suggestion for kids intro board games:

jimbo wrote:Does anyone have any experience with Once Upon A Time? It is a card game that involves telling a story based on the cards in your hand.

My younger sister enjoys it, but she was a drama nerd in college. It should be available for $11 online. More cards is usually better.

Not yet appearing on this list:
Monster Factory

I do vaguely remember it being on Tabletop.

Zarathud wrote:Not yet appearing on this list:
Monster Factory

I guess the very first reply was too late.

coopasonic wrote:Boring, but not completely awful:
Monster Factory

I admit, I did just get my eyesight examined.

My kids like Monster Factory. There's not much to it, but they've started insisting on making up their own rules for everything. That's great when they're making up their own D&D dungeon map, but not so good with anything else.

AWS260 wrote:I've only played the original, not the expansion, sorry.

Here's my latest suggestion for kids intro board games:

Hey AWS, just curious - what is that game? I can't make out the title on the board.

A Few Acres of Snow

coopasonic wrote:A Few Acres of Snow

Indeed. Great game. (Not actually good for kids.)

I might actually pick up Once Upon a Time - great suggestion. It's cooperative, it's fairy tale themed, and it seems like fun. Catch being that it's a little advanced for her reading skills, but that might also be good practice (though I'm sure that she'd need other players to help her with some cards).

El Guapo wrote:Oh, Uno's a great idea. I loved playing that when I was a kid.

My 3.5 yo and 6 yo are on an Uno kick lately. It's so simple that they can easily play on their own.

You might look at Phase 10 as the next step past Uno. You still get the Skips and Wilds without the Draw x cards, and every hand has a different goal.