Looking for the list of games mentioned during the panel? Here are all the ones I wrote down, with a few notes about why it was mentioned. I’ve tried to include links to our reviews if possible, but otherwise there are links to either the official sites about the games or a place to purchase them.
Pokemon (both the videogame versions and the card game) was mentioned several times throughout the panel as a game that is quite similar to Magic: The Gathering in its mechanics, but is kid-appropriate. A number of people mentioned that it’s great for encouraging your kids to read, and it’s something that both parents and kids can play together.
There were a number of storytelling games discussed, including two from Daniel Solis: Happy Birthday, Robot and Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple (which recently had a successful Kickstarter funding campaign). Also mentioned were A Penny for My Thoughts, Once Upon a Time, Rory’s Story Cubes, and Storyworld, all of which are games about storytelling or role-playing. Finally, there’s Dixit, which is an interesting mix of storytelling and party game, and is excellent particularly for its wonderful illustrations.
For kids who are interested in role-playing, Cathe also talked about rpgKids by Newbie DM, which is suitable for kids 4 and up. Another similar game is Dungeon Adventure by Ben Garvey, which was reviewed earlier this year by Dave Banks. Cathe also mentioned both HeroScape and HeroQuest as games that have lots of miniatures that you can give to your kids to play with until they’re old enough to play with yours. Unfortunately both of those have been discontinued but they might be something you could still find at a garage sale or online.
While discussing videogames that teach, Little Big Planet was a favorite for problem-solving and level-creation. Also, Super Scribblenauts is a good one for teaching literacy and creative problem-solving. Rael mentioned a funny story about Animal Crossing, which has a lot of text in it — when his son was playing, he came and asked his dad what a “mort-gage” was, because he was working to pay for it. Minecraft is a giant sandbox that allows you to create almost anything you can imagine, and Voxel is an inexpensive 3D-pixel creation tool for iPhone and iPad.
Speaking of iPhones and iPads, there were a number of comments about those: if you have one of the devices already, games for kids are cheap and most have very intuitive interfaces that your kids will pick up easily. Even with non-educational games there are things they can learn while they play without even knowing it. We mentioned GeekDad favorite Mixamajig particularly because designer Chuck Gamble was at the panel, too.
One of the best types of games to play with kids who want to join in with mom and dad are cooperative games. With cooperative games, it’s okay if the kids don’t get the strategy because you can help them with that, and you don’t have to deal with the whole “should I go easy on them?” question. Some great co-op board games (roughly listed in order of age-appropriateness) include Castle Panic, Forbidden Island, Flash Point: Fire Rescue, Pandemic, and Arkham Horror. We also mentioned Sentinels of the Multiverse, a new game we saw at PAX but haven’t gotten to try yet. On the videogame front, there’s a site called Co-Optimus which rates games with a focus on co-op modes.
My own talk, about alternatives to traditional kids’ games, included mentions of Gulo Gulo, Zombie Dice, Pengoloo, and Magic Labyrinth.
Finally, a couple others that were brought up as favorite board games by either panelists or audience members: Ninja Versus Ninja, the 10 Days in… series of games, Ticket to Ride, and Warmachine.
