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Dixit Board Game: Giving Clues and Reading People
Dixit is a storytelling and interpretation family board game built around a deck of illustrated cards. Great for creativity and learning to read other players. Read more
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Ant Colony Board Game: Planning Routes and Anticipating Risk
In a nutshell Ant Colony (Ages 5+, 2–6 players, c.20 mins) is a cooperative tile‑laying board game. Players work together to build an underground ant colony while avoiding rocks, beetles and hungry anteaters. They take turns to add tiles, creating a network of tunnels that must have at least two clear entrances and four rooms.… Read more
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Bandido – A Puzzle‑Based Introduction to Cooperative Games
In a nutshell… Bandido and Bandida are puzzle-based family cooperative games. Players add tunnel cards to a shared layout to close every route before Bandido/a (= bandit) can escape. Bandida uses the same tunnel system as Bandido but adds variety. It has specialist item cards and three modes: stopping Bandida, helping her escape, or completing… Read more
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Kotakote – A Different Kind of Spatial Challenge
In a nutshell… Kotakote is a pattern‑matching family card game where players race to recreate an image using a small set of double‑sided cards. Each picture card shows a target image; each Kotakote card shows fragments of shapes and pictures in different colours. Players must combine the right Kotakote cards, in the right orientation, to… Read more
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Kariba – An interactive family card game without targeting
In a nutshell… Kariba is a compact family card game about wild animals competing for water. Players take turns placing animal cards around an eight-sided watering hole. When a group reaches three or more, the next card added chases away the nearest weaker animals, scoring points for the player. The elephant is strongest but is… Read more
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A Gentle Rain: A Quiet Tile-Laying Game
In a nutshell A Gentle Rain is a solo (or cooperative) tile‑laying game where the player(s) line up square tiles with cut-out corners to form matching flowers. Players look for placements that create flower matches without blocking or reducing future options. The board grows outward in a loose pattern that is different every time. When… Read more
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Trash Pandas: Push-your-Luck Laughter and Low Stakes
Trash Pandas is a relaxed, forgiving family card game that mixes push‑your‑luck unpredictability with a playful theme. Players roll a custom die to collect and store their favourite food scraps for points. It takes 10-15 mins and is suitable for 2-4 players. Read more
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Qwixx: A Quick Dice Game Where Choices Narrow as You Play
In a nutshell… Qwixx is a roll‑and‑write game played with six dice: two white and four coloured. Each player has a scoresheet with two rows (red and yellow) that increase from 2 to 12, and two rows (green and blue) that decrease from 12 to 2. Players use dice rolls to cross off numbers in… Read more
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Modern Classic Games for the summer holidays
As summer holidays approach, many parents are considering which pocket games to pack for travel, visitors and long hot afternoons indoors. I’ve spent the past few months writing about games you might not know yet but this week I’m looking at modern classics. These are games almost everyone recognises, even if they’ve not played them… Read more
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Similo – A Co‑op Game of Mind‑Reading and Clues
In a nutshell… Similo is a compact co-operative card game where players work together as a team to identify a secret character based on silent clues given by one of the team. It is suitable for 2-6 players and takes around 10 to 15 minutes to play. One player knows which character is the chosen… Read more