218 – Room to Grow: Tile Laying Games – The Family Gamers Podcast

On today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about tile laying games.

But first, we open today with a politics fact for 218 – that’s the number of votes needed for a simple majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Thanks again to our sponsor, First Move Financial. For expert help applying some of the same principles that help you take down your friends in Agricola, head over to firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers today to schedule a call.

What We’ve Been Playing

Haunt the House (Kids Table) Thanks so much to Josh and Helaina Cappel!

Gobblet Gobblers (Blue Orange Games) – the kids wouldn’t let us give this one away.

Campaign Trail (Cosmic Wombat Games / Grey Fox) – with 6 players! This was our very first written review all the way back in 2015. The gameplay makes for great storytelling. Check out their Kickstarter for the second edition and Green Party expansion.

Pan Am (Funko Games) – we love this game.

Town Builder: Coevorden (First Fish) – Andrew played solo? What is happening?

Timeline: American History – continuing with gameschooling. More education than game.

Prisma Arena (Hub Games) – our review is out today. There is so much to love about this game!

Don’t forget you can enter the Food Fighters giveaway!

SNAP Review: Cupcake Academy

Can you work together and stack cupcake tins before time runs out? Match all the cards and become the Star Bakers.

See more pictures and read the transcript on the SNAP review page.

Room to Grow: Tile Laying

A continuation of our Room to Grow series. If you’re interested in tile laying games but you’re not really sure how to bring kids in and then grow them into more complex games, we’ve got suggestions for you.

Beginning Level Tile Laying: Hisss

This simple color-matching game from Gamewright is a perfect introduction for very young children. Start with simple turn taking and pattern matching. Once they’ve mastered that, you can put in a bit of game strategy. The most important part is the recognition of tiles and laying them to create a continuous flow.

But if you’re starting with older kids or adults, this might not be the best choice.

Still Easy But More Grown-Up: Kingdomino

This is one your kids won’t grow out of. It’s very flexible and can be played with kids who aren’t reading yet and understand very little math. They can understand they need to match terrain types and try to make large contiguous areas with lots of crowns.

Kingdomino also introduces the concept of exterior restraints: in normal play, all your pieces must fit in a 5×5 square, but there’s no grid given. You decide how you’re going to make the pieces fit.

There are expansions to grow the game further, such as Age of Giants.

Winner of the 2017 Spiel des Jahres, Kingdomino is incredibly flexible. You can play it in a 7×7 grid with two players, you can pull it out as a filler game between heavier games.

(We reviewed Kingdomino in 2017.)

Classic Family Tile Laying: Carcassonne

This is a classic for a reason. Build a landscape together, while trying to claim the best bits for points.

There are also tons of expansions for Carcassonne , so if you want to step up the gameplay, there is certain to be an expansion that will work well for your family.

(Carcassonne was the Spiel des Jahres winner in 2001.)

More Excellent Tile Laying Games

• Isle of Skye looks a lot like Carcassonne, but each player is making their own island. This game uses cyclical scoring, bidding, and sometimes set collection.
• Miyabi tweaks the tile-laying with many more restrictions on where pieces can be placed – plus drafting and stacking! (our review)
• Nmbr 9 is an abstract game where you’ll lay number-shaped tiles and stack them (without overhangs) to get point multipliers.
• Sorcerer City combines tile laying with matching and tableau building – and rounds are timed! A very interesting combination that is fulfilling from Druid City Games now.

I can’t believe we didn’t mention Barenpark or Patchwork! Those are great tile laying games as well.

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The Family Gamers is sponsored by First Move Financial. Go to FirstMoveFinancial.com/familygamers to learn how the team at First Move Financial can help you pile up the victory points.

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