Play The Games They Want

This one I think is pretty obvious. Play what the kid wants to play. You might not love playing Candyland, but when they are really young, that might be what they want to play. And you can bring in new games to hope to get them playing something preferable, but play the games that the kid asks to play.

BoardGameCo is very good about talking about this. When he gets rid of games, and kids games, he always asks his kids if they still want to play it. If they say yes, even if they aren’t, it stays. But the games that he plays with his kids are the ones that they want to play and they have their own game shelf.

But it can be a trip up for some gamers. If you want your kid to love bigger and heavier games, but they still want to play a simpler. So a parent might push a harder game than they should onto the kid. And that’s an issue because now the kid feels like they don’t get to do what they wanted. They wanted to be part of what you are doing, but what you picked makes it unfun.

Don’t Introduce Too Much Too Fast

Now, that doesn’t mean don’t introduce new games. Both the letting the kid pick what they want to play and not introducing stuff too fast. A kid might really enjoy a deck building game like Dominion or Ascension, but that doesn’t mean that you take them to a really complex deck building game or introduce another 10 deck building games. That is overwhelming and learning something new all the time might be fun for some of us, but not for everyone.

Just needing to learn too much all the time can turn a young gamer off. And this one is true for most gamers. I know some people I play with who are always ready to learn something new. And there are other people I game with, they want to play the same few games most of the time. They will learn a new game, but mainly want familiar.

Don’t Go All Out All The Time

This one is going to be the most controversial, but I don’t think should be. The reason it might be controversial is that kids do need to learn how to lose graciously. But that doesn’t mean every time. And that doesn’t mean that you go out of your way to just destroy the kid. Close games tend to be more enjoyable.

There is a difference, I feel, between playing poorly all the time or obviously throwing games. Chaz Marler now with Watch It Played and previously doing his own thing on Pair of Dice Paradise, talked about it with his daughter. He and she would play Ascension and she really enjoyed it. He didn’t go all out. Instead he experimented with other strategies in the game. That made the game more fun for her and kept the games closer, while still keeping the game interesting for him.

Final Thoughts on Kids in Board Gaming

I do think that board gaming is a great hobby for a lot of kids. Mainly that as a hobby that encourages people to think. It encourages thinking outside of the box and figuring out strategies and basically stretching your brain in a way that is good for learning.

But it isn’t going to be for every kid. If they show interest, bring them into the hobby. My toddler wants to play my games. He has a few of his own games and he likes to mess around with them sometimes. We make a different game out of it because he isn’t able to grasp all the rules. But it is something he is interested in. We’ll see if he stays interested, but if he does, we’ll keep on playing the games that he finds fun, even if it is just that little fishing game where the fish move in circles.

What have you found useful with a kid that is interested in gaming? Anything that has worked or hasn’t worked?

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One way that you can kind of cut through the clutter that’s in the industry is by using online sources and resources to help determine that games look interesting. I have a number that I use, and I want to talk about some of them there.

Board Game Geek (BGG)

The biggest one that you should know about is BGG. Board Game Geek is basically an IMDb for board games. You can look games up, see the designer, game play time, ratings of the game, player count, how difficult the game is, and more. You can also keep track of your collection and rate games that you’ve played, all of it for free. There are a few nice things with this that help you be able to figure out what board game you might like. First, you can ask for recommendations in the forums. If you do this, ask a specific question and still do research on the games, someone will always recommend Scythe or their favorite game, even if you’re asking for something like Exploding Kittens. But most people will be very helpful with recommendations. Also, each game has recommendations itself, so something like Wingspan, as I mentioned last time, recommends Welcome To… I’d spend some time checking out your favorite (highest rated) and your most played games to see where there’s overlap in recommendations and those would work well for you. BGG does more than that as well, but that’s how you can use it to help narrow down your next purchase.

The Dice Tower

The Dice Tower is one of the biggest reviewing sites/YouTube channels out there. Tom Vasel and Zee Garcia are the main two personalities currently with Mike DeLisio and Roy Cannaday also putting up some content but being more involved in production. The Dice Tower does a few different things that are useful for finding board games that you might like. First and foremost is reviews, they do a lot of them. Now, reviews, I think, can be hard to get a good feel for a game from simply because it’s one persons opinion, and everyone mileage on a game might vary, but both Tom and Zee do a good job with their reviews breaking down what they like and don’t like, and generally you can see what the underlying game is and how it works, even if you don’t agree with their opinion. They also do live shows, board game news shows, top 10 lists, and more, that can be informative. If you like adventure games, they did a top 10 list for that, so you might be able to find more adventure games that you’d like. All of these are useful, but more generally informative versus specifically digging deeply into a game. Finally, there are playthroughs of games, and I highly recommend these. Though they are learning a game most of the time, so they might not seem the most enthusiastic about it, it really gives a good idea of what the game is.

GloryHoundd

GloryHoundd and Dr. GloryHogg are two YouTubers who are on a much smaller scale than The Dice Tower, but they put out a lot of useful content as well. Especially now during Covid-19, they have put out a lot of videos of playthroughs of games so it gives you a very good idea of how they work. But they also have a weekly show where they look at various Kickstarter games, generally four per week and talk about them live with their audience. If you get a good in depth breakdown of a Kickstarter, they do a really good job of it, and they do a good job selling some games to you via their interest in them, or helping point out issues. Now, with that said, they also don’t slam any Kickstarter just point out the issues that they see, and if a game isn’t for them, there are some that they talk about that they aren’t, it’s generally because of their gaming group or style versus something very bad about the game.

Man vs Meeple

Another YouTube channel, this one is a group of four main hosts who do board game reviews, Kickstarter previews, actual plays, and more content. They are very much in the same line of content as The Dice Tower, just doing it on a smaller basis. They do a great job with their Kickstarter previews and just the depth that they go into them. Definitely worth checking out with finding another voice in the gaming industry that is talking about a lot of games. Tantrum House, The Broken Meeple and Roll for Crit.

Rolling Solo

This channel is a bit more specific, as the name would imply. One of the bigger trends in board gaming has been solo gaming as of late, and not just because it becomes more of necessity with Covid-19. Adam Smith, the sole person who runs the channel, does a lot of game play, set-up, and Kickstarter preview videos. If you are a solo gamer, there are a number of channels you can check out with it, but I really appreciate what Adam does, because he goes into a lot of detail. You’ll get a very good idea of what the game is like and how it’s going to play and if it’ll be right for you. Definitely someone to see if their tastes mesh with yours if you’re a solo gamer.

Watch It Played

Now, I am keeping Watch It Played a channel by Rodney Smith, now working Pair of Dice Paradise and Chaz Marler, but Rodney does his content a bit differently. Mainly, Rodney does rules videos. So while you won’t get an opinion on the game or often anymore a playthrough of a game you do get precisely how a game is played. Through this you can often tell if a game is going to work well for you or not, or at least see if the mechanics make sense compared to what you normally play. I highly recommend it for learning how to play a game, I think in some ways, for finding a game, you need to be pretty familiar with games to get an idea if it’ll be your type of game or not by just watching a rules overview.

Now, those are just some of the resources that I use. There are others like No Pun Included, Shut Up and Sit Down that are out there and many many more that you can checkout and find out good information. I will say, with reviewers, be careful, find someone who has similar taste to yourself. I personally don’t put much weight in No Pun Included’s reviews because we have vastly different gaming tastes and I don’t get the information that I need on my style of game from them. Sure, it can be interesting to see a dissenting opinion but there are a lot of people who put a lot of stock in it. So know the types of games that the reviewer likes and understand that a review is an opinion piece and find the one that matches up with you, it might be No Pun Included, it might be Tantrum House, it might be The Dice Tower or someone I haven’t even mentioned, but find what works for you.

Do you have a favorite YouTuber or website for board game information?

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