5 Tips for Surviving the Summer Holidays
A tabletop gamer's clickbaity guide for getting through six weeks of summer.
July is ticking past, and if you’re a parent with kids at school, you know what’s coming. Six weeks of kids turning feral and simultaneously telling you they’re bored but don’t want to do anything.
But you’re a tabletop gamer, right? You’ve got an unimaginable embarrassment of ludological treasures just waiting to be played. So this should be easy. Entice the youngling downstairs, open your box of choice, and bask in wonderment and awe for the next few hours.
If you’ve tried this, and if your kid is anything like mine (12, going on 18), you’ll know that it doesn’t always work out that way. The frustrating thing is, you know they’d enjoy the games in many cases, but getting there is the hard part. So here are my tried and tested top five ideas to help you engage your children in some fun and games.
1 - Pick something small and fast
The biggest struggle you’ll have if you wrench them away from YouTube is keeping their attention for any length of time. For that reason, it’s best to pick something quick to both learn and play. Card games are a great choice because you can play them on just about any table.
There’s something for everybody when you opt for card games. Got a child who thinks they get away with telling fibs? Get them playing Cockroach Poker and see how that poker face holds up. From the same publisher is the slightly less structured, but equally hilarious Cheating Moth, where it’s in the rules to cheat as much as you can get away with. If they like something a bit more cerebral, you can’t go wrong with classics like Jaipur and Lost Cities.
Heck, you can even go super simple and pick up a copy of Push It, which is a tabletop flicking game. Think Crokinole meets Curling, but cheaper and quicker. If you’ve got a flat surface, you can play Push It.
The point is, whatever you pick, try something that’ll be done and gone in less than 30 minutes. If they don’t get on with it, it won’t leave a sour taste in their mouth. It gives you a change to try out a variety of different types of game, and hopefully you’ll come up with a winner or two.
2 - Play stupid games
Speaking from experience, it’s the dry nature of some games which really doesn’t click with the Fortnite generation. How can my beautiful, beige boys hope to compete with the neon-soaked dopamine hits of video games? Well, silly games go a long way towards doing just that.
A prime example is Coconuts. I bought this for my family when my son was 7, and it’s still a hit. You each have a spring-loaded plastic monkey which you use to catapult rubber coconuts into cups. It’s as daft and as hilarious as it sounds. You’ll be off your seat every 30 seconds to try and find the sodding coconuts pinging around the room, but it’s worth it.
Something more recent would be Stomp The Plank, a game about moving plastic elephants along cardboard planks that are held up with magnets and sheer willpower. At some point, they’ll come crashing down, but that’s half the fun, and it’s a great game to introduce push-your-luck as a mechanism, too.
Other games to keep an eye out for would be ones like Hamsterolle, Loopin’ Louie (Loopin’ Chewie is easier to find), Jungle Speed and Kluster.
3 - Get outdoors
If the weather’s good, play some physical games outside. There are plenty of games which will work outside, even with a breeze blowing. Get a copy of Hive on the table and the chunky, bakelite tiles won’t get blown everywhere. The same goes for lighter fare like Cobra Paw.
If you’ve got a family gathering, Wavelength is a great social choice. The big chunky wheel is the centre of the game, so the only thing you need to keep an eye on is each round’s card. I also highly recommend Just One for outdoor gatherings, too. The plastic easels and dry-wipe markers aren’t going anywhere. The co-op nature of Just One is great for avoiding arguments, too.
Of course, if you’re outside, then games specifically designed to be played outdoors are something you should absolutely be playing. Boules is a nice choice any time, but if you want something a bit different, invest in a Kubb set. Kubb is a Scandinavian game that’s like a mix between Boules and Skittles. You throw wooden rods to try to knock over wooden blocks.
Ultimately, you’re getting the family to play games together, and it’s only a hop and a skip from something like Kubb to dexterity games like Klask, Carrom, and Crokinole. It’s a slippery slope…
4 - Franchise crossovers
This is a sneaky one which works great for me. In the same way that movies and video games have frequent crossovers, the same crossovers are happening in the tabletop world too. Find the games and franchises your children love and there will almost certainly be a tabletop version.
Minecraft hit the silver screen recently, and there are a ton of different games you can buy that cash-in on the name. My personal recommendation is Minecraft: Builders & Biomes. It’s a game which feels like a ‘proper’ game, which you and your family will enjoy.
Maybe you’ve got Disney fans in the house. Now while LCGs can be a slippery slope, Lorcana is Disney’s foray into the space, and you know what? It’s good. It’s genuinely a good game. You can get starter sets, and you can pick them up just about anywhere, too. Even if it doesn’t go anywhere in terms of an obsession, in the same way people do with Pokemon TCG and Magic: The Gathering, it’s a relatively cheap way to get your young people away from the screen.
There are a ton of other decent video game crossovers worth your time too. Slay The Spire, Stardew Valley, Dorfromantik, Dead Cells, Wilmot’s Warehouse (read my review here), Apex Legends - the list goes on. Check them out.
5- Play a video game…
I know, I know, it sounds like a cop-out. But hear me out. The simple fact of the matter is that most kids want to play video games. Meet them halfway with some video games which feel less like ‘grab a controller and let’s shoot some scrubs’, and more like something which could have been played across a table.
First of all, take a look at the Jackbox games. These are games that you install and run on your games console, PC, or even smart TVs now. Everyone plays on their own device, whether that’s a phone, tablet, or laptop - basically anything with a web browser. There are so many games available now, but the word games like Quiplash, drawing games like Drawful and Tee KO, and plenty other crazy games are available. Yes, you’re still looking at screens, but the conversations in the room and the laughter it generates - without shooting anyone! - are fantastic.
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is one of my other favourite games in this arena. One player plays on a console, PC, or even VR now, and the others are given a manual. The manual can be a PDF on a screen, but I highly recommend printing out a couple of copies so you can work with paper instead. The player with the screen has a suitcase full of bomb parts in it, while the other players have the solutions. The game comes from the person with the screen trying to explain what they see, and the others trying to decipher their observations, find the relevant section of the manual, and tell them what to do to defuse it.
Of course, you can just play Mario Kart and swear at each other instead 😅.
These are just a few things to think about. Some things which have worked for me. Maybe they’ll love your games and want to play something bigger and heavier, but go into things assuming they won’t.
Remember that the goal is to have fun with your children. Think back to when you had summer holidays. Do you remember every last thing you watched on TV? Every game you played? Every toy you played with? Or do you remember the time you spent with your friends and family?
Every family is different, and every child is different, so what I’ve written about here might not work for you. Just make sure you’re having fun and spending time together, work and other commitments aside. If you’ve got any other recommendations, I’d love to know them, so drop me a comment below.