"Boardgame ideas?" Topic

I'm looking for suggestions for a Xmas pressie for a friend. He plays occasional boardgames (and has gifted me a couple…Isle of Skye and Tokaido) and I thought it would be nice to get him something he can play with friends but also with his 9 year old daughter.

I'd wondered about Root but it sounds like while the theme would be ideal, it may be a bit complex and cutthroat for a 9 year old (although in my experience 9 year olds can be pretty ruthless!). Any ideas?

I recommend The Amazing Labyrinth. amzn.to/2OasCqX

It is a simple game, designed for kids. However, it actually has a lot of playing depth.

First, it is a maze game. You move your token around the maze to collect treasures (printed on the tiles) based on a random set of treasure cards you have.

The maze is a set of random tiles. Some are fixed to the board, the rest are placed. There is an extra tile and the board is set up so that every other row and column slides.

On your turn, you slide the tile into one of the movable rows, which pushes them all down the line, and the last one pops out to be the extra tile, changing the maze. Then you move your peg along the new routes and try to collect your treasures.

So, depending on the age of people and how many moves ahead they can plan, it can be a simple, easy game or a complex brain burner.

It is also easy to scale player complexity. F'r'ex you can either have objectives that everyone can see, or ones that opponents can't see, limiting their ability to block you. You could also draw treasures one at a time, building up to your required number instead of having the flexibility to get any treasure at any time. And, of course, you could give the younger players fewere treasures to collect and the older ones more.

Labyrinth is a superb game – really easy to understand, really hard to play!

There's also a Harry Potter themed version of it – which is perhaps the most appropriate "Themed" version of a game ever!

I have the version of Labyrinth called "The Magic Labyrinth," where the theme is collecting ingredients for a magic potion. Each player has a card listing three specific ingredients, which will gain them extra points at the end of the game. There are a series of ingredients placed in the maze, numbered from 1 to 21, plus an extra valued at 25. The number is the value of the ingredient if collected (whether on the potion recipe or not). All ingredients can only be collected in ascending numerical order. Nifty game.

Also take a look at Ticket to Ride. I took it to a family vacation this summer, and it wound up as the nightly request by both my 7 and 9 year-old grand nephew and niece, and my 79 year-old father (who is not a big gamer at all). Great game, at its best with the full compliment of 5 players. Caveat: It takes 2 hours to play, because play continues until one player runs out of train pieces…and there are a LOT of train pieces. But even so, it's fun right through to the end.

For silly fun with a hint of combat, try King of Tokyo, which is basically Yahtzee with Kaiju (giant Japanese movie monsters). You roll dice, amassing points OR attacking opponents OR gathering energy to buy special abilities. You get extra points when "in Tokyo"— but then everybody's attacks hit YOU (of course, your attacks hit EVERYBODY ELSE). Great bit of silly slugfest, with the strategy merely being deciding whether to go for points, attack, healing or energy to buy those special bonuses/attacks. Kids love it, and adults will enjoy it too.

check out Wil Wheaton's Tabletop on YouTube

you can see the games as they are played

for example Munchkin:
YouTube link
(with Steve Jackson)

I forgot to mention the classic Survive, aka Survive: Escape from Atlantis. Originally published by Parker Brothers, this family board game is surprisingly challenging and a lot of fun. The center of the board is the island of Atlantis, which is about to explode. The island is built from hex tiles representing beach, jungle and mountain. The players control different pieces on the island, and have to evacuate their pieces from the island to surrounding islands before the big one goes boom. There are boats on the island, and pieces can swim as well, but the island is surrounded by sharks (which will eat swimmers), whales (which will sink boats) and sea serpents (which eat both swimmers, boats, and the people on them). So the game becomes a desperate struggle as players compete to control the boats, and send the various sea creatures to disrupt their opponents' plans. Great game for all ages (my mother-in-law loved this game, and was ruthless at it!). Of course, it's also the sort of thing that provokes cries of "why would you do that to me!" Followed by reprisals, of course.

Stone Age, King of Tokyo, Ticket to Ride Europe, Takenoko(9yr old daughter will like the cute panda) and Lanterns are some of the games that my 10 yr old daughter enjoys playing with grandma, grandpa, her and myself. I recommend them.

for example Munchkin:

Okay here is something…

Never play Munchkin with the person who created it.

You are going to lose.

I have Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters and Axis & Allies & Zombies. Haven't played them yet, but I thought they looked interesting and weren't too expensive.