Hi everyone! I recently got a request for games which you can play with people of all ages. I've put together a list of great games to play with younger family members. I have lots of happy memories of playing these with my cousins when they were still quite young, as well as with adults, who enjoyed them when I was younger. These games are easy to learn but will still intrigue parents as they play with their young ones, and hopefully create happy memories for your family, too.
1. Animal Upon Animal
This may have been the first game I ever played. I always enjoyed the trickiness of stacking the delightful assortment of wooden animals. My family has many happy memories of playing this game, and when we got it out the other day we were delighted to find that it was still enjoyable. We were given the German copy, which is called "Tier auf Tier", by my great-aunt.
Here's what the center of the table might look like before a player's turn. In the foreground are the
pieces that player has left.
On their turn, a player rolls a dice with various symbols printed on it. For instance, they might roll a "hand" symbol, which means that they must choose another player to pass them an animal of their choice. Alternatively, they might simply roll a one, and have to place one animal from their collection. The winner is the player who is able to play all of their animals first. This makes the game very straightforward, but deciding where to place your animal, which animal to pass another player, or, as the result of another possible roll, which animal to have another player place, is a tricky choice. If animals fall on your turn, you must add two of them to your collection, before the next player takes their turn. This game is a great one to buy if you're looking for one to play with your family and is definitely suitable for younger kids.
This is the game's cover (image from habausa.com). Other versions include different animals or
are available in travel editions.
2. Viva Topo
When choosing a game to play with my then 12 and younger-year old cousins (the youngest being about 7), I would most often choose Viva Topo. This game is full of character and the lovely wooden pieces, from the mice which players control to the cat that chases them, are truly charming. My copy of the game's box boasts four awards: the 2003 Japan Boardgame Prize, third place in the "Kinderspielecrew" contest in which children playtest games, winner of the "Spiele Hits für Kinder" award from the Vienna Game Academy and finally the 2003 Kinderspiel des Jahres (the kids' game category of Spiel des Jahres, the German board game awards).
This is the English edition of Viva Topo, published by Pegasus Spiele. My German copy has seen a lot of action and the lid is taped up – the sign of a long-treasured game. Image from atomicempire.com.
In Viva Topo, players control a team of five mice of a single color, with which they attempt to collect as much cheese as possible. Players roll a dice. They then decide how they want to split that roll between their mice, taking care to avoid the hungry cat that lurks behind them. When their mice reach the holes full of cheese at the four corners of the board, they can decide whether to use one move to go into the hole, or to continue. If they go in, they collect a piece of cheese, which will be worth points according to the number of segments in it, but – and this is the tricky bit – that mouse can't leave the hole.
Here is the board, set up for a four-player game of Viva Topo. If a mouse is next to one of the arrows made of cheese, they can move into the hole it points into using one move.
If a mouse is able to make it all the way around the board to the castle, where there are complete wheels of cheese, they would of course earn many more points, so there are potential benefits to saving one or more mice for the longer journey. But the risk associated with going all the way to this cheesy paradise is a big one: instead of rolling movement for their mice, a player may roll a cat face, which causes the cat to move instead! If the cat catches up to or passes any mice, all the mice on a space are eaten!
And that's it for the rules! It's a very simple game which is suitable for younger kids, but it's got plenty of strategy and is really beautifully designed. It is sure to make you chuckle, and I can say from experience that it is highly replayable – since the cat moves at a different speed each game, being controlled by the dice, your strategy will need to shift accordingly! This is a great one to pick up, too.
3. Labyrinth
This is another go-to for my family, and I've played it with friends and family of a whole range of ages, from 8 to adult. It's a wonderful game with a truly unique mechanism, and is available with a variety of themes, including Harry Potter and Disney Villains. The original game, though, has a fantasy theme, with unicorns, dragons, and books of spells decorating the board.
Here is the game's cover, which presents the game's cartoon-like depictions of
fantasy creatures (image from ravensburger.us).
In Labyrinth, a random maze is created from an assortment of tiles, which are placed on a board. Some tiles are fixed in place, however, and remain the same each game. Then, on their turn, the first player is given the remaining tile. They can either move their playing piece, push a row of tiles with the one' they've been given, or push and then move. They may not move and then push. Their goal is to reach artifacts spread across the board. Each player has five cards, each one with an artifact printed on it. The first to reach all of their artifacts is the winner.
Here's a sample turn. The active player in this case is pushing the second-to-last row to create a path to a new tile. (Image from ravensburger.us)
If a player pushes themself off the board when shifting tiles, they appear on the other side, which adds to the game's abundance of strategy and forward-thinking as players race to make it to the artifacts while being pushed off course by their opponents. But the simplicity of the rules and the objective make it suitable for kids, too. I would recommend this game for kids in the 7+ range, as the box estimates, but it is great for families and can be played extensively because the setup and players' objectives are always randomized. It's also quite easy to find a copy of this game.
4. Chicken Cha Cha Cha
Yet another classic in my family, Chicken Cha Cha Cha has been played with my younger cousins and my parents so often that the box of our first copy began to deteriorate. It is a truly unique game, and highly playable with young children, placing it solidly with the minimum age range of the first two games on this list rather than the third.
The game's cover, which shows off its humorous and cut-throat theme. Image by Gabriel Sanchez on the page on Chicken Cha Cha Cha on boardgamegeek.com.
In Chicken Cha Cha Cha, players attempt to pluck the feathers of all other chickens playing until only one remains as queen of the roost. To do so, they must pass the other chickens on the track. Movement in this game involves flipping the egg-shaped tile ahead of you, putting it back and flipping one of the grassy octagonal tiles in the center of the ovoid track. If the two match, you flip up the egg for all players to see, and continue. You may then repeat those two steps, attempting to move again.
In this case, the yellow player, having passed the green chicken, has collected its tail feather. This players have already gone around the track once, since every egg that makes up the track has been flipped over expose the image underneath. This photo was posted by Druyts.t on the Chicken Cha Cha Cha Wikipedia page under the CC BY-SA 3.0 copyright license and can be found here.
It is ultimately a game of memory, which means it can be played with the very young, but its take that mechanics of stealing feathers from other players makes it fun for all ages. Once again, the pieces are made of wood, and it always raises a chuckle when one player passes another and gets to yank out a feather, adding it to their own plumage. I would definitely recommend this game for families with younger children, as it and Animal upon Animal are the easiest-to-learn games on this list.
5. Monte Rolla
The last game on this list is another classic which I've often played with family, but it is very different from the others. Instead of using wooden pieces, players in Monte Rolla control two marbles. The board is also three-dimensional, in that it is lifted up at the fold by a mountain. The reason for this design is that players are trying to get their marbles from a pond, over the mountain and to the ocean on the adjacent side. However, if they end up in the river on either side, they will roll down towards either the pond or the ocean.
The cover of Monte Rolla, which showcases its cartoon-like art and unique three dimensional box. Photo by Werner Bär on boardgamegeek.com under the article on Monte Rolla.
There doesn't seem to have been an English edition of the game, but it includes English rules and none of the components have any language printed on them. Players roll a dice and may split their roll between their two marbles however they like. They then move each marble that number of spaces up or down the mountain, depending on whether they have passed the fold in the board.
If there is a marble on the space they land on, however, they send it rolling down the folded board into one of the three bodies of water: the pond in which the marbles start, the lake on the opposite side, or the ocean at the end. This can be used to send other players' marbles back or to push your own marbles towards the finish; it can be used to skip spaces or to undo the other players' progress. If a player's marble is on the large spaces which can hold several marbles and it is not full, the incoming marble doesn't knock its unfortunate target out.
This photo illustrates an example of a safe space. As you can see, there are also spaces in the shape of ripples
which marbles can pass through, but not finish on, because there would be nothing to hold them
in place, which adds another tricky element to the game! This is another photo by Werner Bär on
boardgamegeek.com under the article on Monte Rolla.
The ability to split your rolls between your two marbles, incentivizes players to strategically attempt to knock marbles off their spaces and hide from the other players in the safe spaces to prevent them doing the same to you. These choices make this a very interesting game for all ages. Because of those choices, however, I would place it with Viva Topo in the 7+ range. If you can find a used copy, however, it's a great game!
And there we are! The first collection of games in a single post on the blog. Let me know whether this was useful, what games you'd like to see reviewed, and whether you'd like more games for all ages on the blog!
Until then, happy board gaming!
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