Andrew Smith is the executive editor of The Family Gamers, and co-host of The Family Gamers Podcast.
Explore the reviews and podcasts he has contributed to.
After a cold dreary winter, we are ready for green, growing things. Let’s talk about games with flowers and plants that make us think spring.
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Runemasters is a tower defense game where every character’s abilities will add to the success (or failure) of the group.
There’s a lot of randomness in the setup and the gameplay, so it can be surprisingly hard.
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Cooperative games encourage players to work together. Here are three to bring your family from beginner to advanced.
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It took a game or two to get our heads around all of the different mechanics and scoring strategies in Flower Fields but once we did it tasted sweeter than honey. Don’t let these little issues affect your run through the wildflowers though, because Flower Fields comes up smelling like roses.
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“For me this game varied wildly from very easy to very hard depending on the map tile that we happened to use.”
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This was a really hard puzzle – and that’s not a bad thing! Just allow plenty of time to work on it.
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This week, we’re talking about cooperative games – what they are, what makes them a good fit for families, and we explore the breadth of games that can be considered “cooperative”.
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Combo is a great unique game for the family! It’s kind of cooperative, in the sense that you can’t create a full combo on your own. You have to work with people at least a little bit if you’re going to score any points. But it’s not REALLY cooperative, because you still want to get the most points, and win.
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Shift obelisk dice around the circle, banishing opponent’s dice and re-forming your own. Can you attain supremacy by blocking out your opponent entirely?
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Sometimes intentionally, sometimes by accident, we find games that disconnect us from the stresses and worries of every day life. Andrew and Anitra discover that they have different ideas of what helps them step away from the real world – but there’s some overlap, too. 0:00 Fact for 389 When diving (“stooping”), the peregrine falcon can reach speeds of 389kph.
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It’s the first podcast of 2025, so we’re going to go back over our favorite games from 2024.
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We’d recommend Streamer Standoff for teens and young adults who are REALLY into streaming culture. Otherwise, save your subs for something less standoff-ish.
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Águeda does a masterful job with sequencing. Within each sequence of the game, there are only a few decisions to make…
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This small dexterity game surprised us. We recommend it for family fun when you’re in a constrained space.
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I was surprised and impressed at how simple this game was while being simultaneously incredibly fun to play. This is the kind of game that you lose and then it’s pretty easy to convince yourself you can win the next go ’round.
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Add some Christmas spirit to Green Team Wins with this holiday card pack, featuring the same categories (This or That, Best of Three, Fill in the Blank) with holiday-themed questions.
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This is a gimmicky kids game. But I was honestly really surprised at how well Dodo works even for adults.
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We are really impressed with Santa’s Workshop. It manages to work for two very different audiences in one box.
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