210 – Party Games for Family Gatherings – The Family Gamers Podcast

Episode 210 - Party Games for Family Gatherings
Episode 210 - Party Games for Family Gatherings

It’s Labor Day weekend in the US. If you’re getting together with family, what games will you play? We recommend party games that are good at 4-8 players and across generations.

Fact: Class 210 patents are about purifying or treating water (or other liquids).

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What We’ve Been Playing

Animix (Blue Orange Games) – This game feels familiar, but we can’t figure out why. Lay out a central tableau; on your turn, play a card from your hand – either face down into your own space, or swapping it with a card from the central tableau. Once all cards are played out, each animal scores for the player who has the most of that animal.

Color It! (HABA) – Exactly what we want a “my first roll and write” to be.

Filler (Green Couch Games) – Claire wants to play more food-themed games. What’s your favorite?

Pan Am (Funko Games) – We found out this week that it’s not as good at 3 players; the early game is very frustrating with that many workers on the board. We have theories on how to make this better.

Ancestree (Calliope Games) – one of Eric Lang’s lesser known titles, since he doesn’t do many family games. One of our favorites!

Dice Throne (Roxley Games) – We like it best “king of the hill” style with 3+ players. You’re always motivated to bring down the leader.

Kingdomino (Blue Orange) – Math practice at the end of a fun game. Even our youngest got practice “counting by 2s” and other mutlipliers.

Tajuto (Super Meeple / Luma Imports) – we released our review today. It starts disappointingly slowly, but otherwise it’s great.

Rock Paper Switch (Mindware) – As we said in our review, it’s hardest at more than two players. Watch out for the wild color(s)!

Harry Potter: House Cup Competition (The Op) – Perfectly themed worker placement game.

Quick plug for Anitra’s blog post to encourage parents to stick with the hard work of parenting.

Smoosh and Seek Treehouse

SNAP Review: Smoosh & Seek Treehouse

Corey and his daughter tell us about this darling, cheerful cooperative game.

This game is intended for very young children, using “smoosh dough” to add a tactile component to a simple memory game. Read the summary and see more pictures on our SNAP review page.

Backtalk

In episode 208, we recommended games under $20. Lots of people gave us their recommendations too!

See our Facebook community post. Our personal favorites from the suggestions are The Crew (for 3+), Similo (also great for families), along with No Thanks and For Sale.

Calli from Unfiltered Gamer shared with us the video she just made on this topic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If4N9VTWGiY&list=PLmIIYFy7QwO7S5-OWU9P5k31d22p-v2m4&index=2

Dawn Pleet recommends Silver & Gold, Point Salad (Andrew can’t get into Point Salad). We want to try Silver & Gold – maybe for our upcoming anniversary!

Party Games for the Family

We’re defining “party games” as ones that work well at more than four players.

Anomia Kids (Anomia Press) is a great example of a “kids” game that is great for adults. It takes the Anomia trivia game style and removes the need for domain knowledge (or even reading!)

Throw Throw Burrito – just plain silly. Who wouldn’t like to throw a foam burrito at your friends? Best at 4+ players.

Deep Sea Adventure (Oink Games) – This game accomodates 2-6 players. It feels very different at the various player counts, but always good as a press-your-luck game.

Castle Panic (Fireside Games) – Get your family to cooperate! Not a whole lot of reading, accommodates up to 6 players without expansions.

Concept Kids (Repos) – or Concept if you’re less worried about domain knowledge. We love the rotating team idea – everyone stays engaged for the whole game, and teams can’t be “unfair” because they don’t stay the same for the whole game.

Just One (Repos) – Up to 7 players for this word-guessing and cluing game. We have figured out how to play this while including non-readers.

Telestrations (The Op) – Up to 8 players and requires some reading. But there is an option in the Telestrations family to accomodate non-readers! Play Telestrations:Upside Drawn, a team game that involves drawing.

Bananagrams – Up to 8 players for this word-building game that isn’t about huge vocabulary or area-control (I’m looking at you, Scrabble). There are a “bunch” of variations in the official rules that allow you to make it more or less cut-throat as needed.

That’s it for this week! See episode 96 (Mothers Day) or episode 90 (multi-generational games) for more suggestions.

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