142 – Abstraction! Top Abstract Games – The Family Gamers Podcast

Abstract strategy (or abstract puzzle) games are Anitra’s favorite! Let’s talk about what makes these games great for family game night. But first…

What We’ve Been Playing

ShutterBug – a set collection game from Calliope Games (review coming this week)

Palm Island – because it’s a great game to play while the boys are at baseball practice. Looking forward to a small wallet to carry the deck, available to backers of the Planetoid Kickstarter.

Go Nuts for Donuts – a family favorite.

Tiny Towns – still loving this and finding as many opportunities to play as possible. Look for it at your FLGS within the next two weeks!

The Bridges of Shangri-La – an interesting area control game where you burn your bridges after you cross from one town to another. (Find out more on BoardGameGeek.)

Silly Street – simply silly and fun. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Pyramid of Pengqueen – Andrew hasn’t played this yet. We need to fix that.

Mole Rats in Space – turns out this is really hard with the challenge cards added. Surprisingly challenging, given how approachable it is. The mechanics are easy to understand and fun for kids, even when the game is punishingly hard.

Abstract Games

According to Board Game Geek, Abstract Strategy games are often (but not always):

• theme-less (without storyline)
• built on simple and/or straightforward design and mechanics
• perfect information games (no hidden information)
• little to no elements of luck, chance, or random occurrence (Aside: this rules out games like Yahtzee and Can’t Stop)
• games that promote one player overtaking their opponent(s) (We decide this means games that end when a player wins, rather than games that have a set end point, and then you calculate a winner.)

We asked our Facebook group. They’re not always the first choice, but they have some real strengths when playing as a family. They suggested their favorites, including Santorini, Epigo, and Hive.

We get excited to realize that most abstract strategy games require little to no reading- making them easy to internationalize, and easy to explain to kids.

Andrew wonders if Catch! is basically an abstract cooperative game.

Nearly every game that we would think of as a true “classic” game (over 100 years old) is an abstract strategy game, unless it’s a card game. Think about games like checkers, chess, Go, Nine Men’s Morris, Mancala, Backgammon, Chinese Checkers, tic-tac-toe (also known as Noughts and Crosses). If you wanted to teach your kids about a lot of these games, we think the best resource is The Book of Classic Board Games that Klutz published in the 1990s.

We found our copy of The Book of Classic Board Games at a thrift store, but you can also buy it used from sellers on Amazon or eBay for under $10.

Favorite modern abstracts

X-in-a-row games like Cinco Linko, Gobblet or Gobblet Gobblers, Connect 4, 3D tic-tac-toe

More puzzley games like Sagrada, Dimension, Seikatsu

Kid-friendly games like Battle Sheep; we debate whether Drop It would be an abstract strategy.

Anitra’s top 3:

3. Cinco Linko – play it anywhere! No board, so you’re not restricted about which direction to play

2. Dimension – absolutely love the mechanics of the puzzley part. We pretty much throw out the scoring, though.

1. Sagrada – beautiful, puzzley, and not much interaction.

Our top choices to play with kids:

Anitra’s recommendations: Cinco Linko, the Book of Classic Board Games, and Battle Sheep.

Andrew’s recommendations: Catch!, Santorini, Pyramix, and Azul.

Find Us Online:

Facebook: @familygamersaa and thefamilygamers.com/community
Twitter (X): @familygamersaa
Instagram: @familygamersaa
TikTok: @familygamersaa
Bluesky: @familygamersaa
Threads: @familygamersaa
Youtube: TheFamilyGamers

or join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord! thefamilygamers.com/discord

Or, for the most direct method, email us! andrew@thefamilygamers.com and anitra@thefamilygamers.com.

PLEASE don’t forget to subscribe to the show, tell your friends about the show, and leave us a review at Apple Podcast or whatever your podcast subscription source is. We’re also on Amazon Music, TuneIn, and Spotify.

You can also now find us on YouTube Music! So pull it up and give us a listen while you’re toiling away at work :)

If you’d like to support The Family Gamers, there’s two ways to do that. First, you can pick up some sweet sweet merch. Big thanks to Matt who just picked up a Play Games with Your Kids shirt, and to some other folks who nabbed some things after we announced it last week. If you want to check out our merch you can go to store.thefamilygamers.com

You can ALSO support us on Patreon, if that’s more your speed. We have a few different support tiers from just a couple of dollars to show your appreciation – which we appreciate – up to five, ten, or even $20/month. There are all sorts of different rewards you can get, which we tried to make unique. You can see those at thefamilygamers.com/patreon.

Music for The Family Gamers Podcast is provided with permission from You Bred Raptors?

This episode of The Family Gamers Podcast is sponsored by Breaking Games. Check out their games Order of Invention and The Stars Align:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:04 — 24.1MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | Podcast Index | Email | Youtube Music | RSS