Great Games to Play with Grandparents It can be difficult to find games that the whole family can enjoy - especially when the family spans 3 generations. Children are usually game to try anything, but often grandparents are reluctant to try something unfamiliar because "it will be too hard to pick up". What follows is a list of recommendations of great new games that have enough familiarity to tempt grandparents into play, and enough fun for everyone to enjoy! Games that are too complex or have too much small print don't make the list.  | Game Name: | Qwirkle |
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| Designer: | Susan McKinley Ross | | Publisher: | Mindware | | Players: | 2 to 4 | | Playing time: | 45 minutes | | Suitable for: | Familes (Ages 6 and up), Adults | | You'll love it because: | A very easy to learn and engaging game. Players try and create rows of tiles which share a colour or pattern, in a criss-cross maze of pieces. Each row can only have one of each tile, so tactical play allows you to block a row while setting yourself up for the opportunity to yell QWIRKLE and score bonus points for creating a row of six. The tiles are nice and solid and stand up without needing a rack. Not well-suited to the colour-blind unless you are mark some of the sets of tiles as you must be able to tell six colours apart. | | Grandparents will recognise it: | Qwirkle is Scrabble without words. The way tiles are placed and your hand replenished is just like Scrabble. Scoring is like Scrabble too except that each tile is worth one point, but has the feature of the bonus points for Qwirkle. The simple scoring and colour matching make it suitable for children to play from age 6, but challenging enough for grandparents to look forward to a game too. |
TOP  | Game Name: | 10 Days in Asia
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| Designer: | Alan R. Moon and Aaron Weissblum | | Publisher: | Out of the Box | | Players: | 2 to4 | | Playing time: | 30 minutes | | Suitable for: | Families (ages 8 and up); Adults | | You'll love it because: | 10 Days in Asia is an easy to learn, fun and educational race game. The goal is to be the first person to complete a 10 day journey in Asia. You receive a random deal of 10 cards describing countries and transportation methods that must then be rearranged to make a connected trip. The trick is that you must discard and draw new cards into your existing positions to make the 10 day trip. | | Grandparents will recognise it: | 10 Days in Asia is very similar to Rummy and Mah Jongg: you have a rack to keep tiles in and each turn you draw a new tile and then discard one. The only difference is that instead of forming melds you form a journey between your start and your finish tile. Even better, you can choose 10 Days in Europe, 10 Days in the USA or 10 Days in Africa if your grandparent hales from overseas and would enjoy an opportunity to reminisce.
| TOP  | Game Name: | Canyon |
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| Designer: | Frederick A. Herschler | | Publisher: | Abacus / Rio Grande (English language edition) | | Players: | 3 to 6
| | Playing time: | 45 minutes | | Suitable for: | Families (ages 10 and up); Adults | | You'll love it because: | In this game the players are American indians paddling canoes along a canyon. Each round a card trick taking game is played where players have to predict how many tricks they will take. Big calls and good predictions let you paddle your canoe further along the canyon. There are narrow sections of the canyon where canoes can block each other, and the rapids where the pressure is on to win big and shoot through - failure means a retreat to the cave which provides hope for players trailing at the back of the pack. | | Grandparents will recognise it: | This is a game where your grandparent's skills in 500 or Euchre can be used to the full. Younger players will enjoy the colourful board and canoes. The hand size decreases in successive deals which means that luck plays an increasing part in the game and gives every one a chance to win. | TOP  | Game Name: | That's Life!
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| Designer: | | | Michael Kieslng & Wolfgang Kramer |
| | Publisher: | Ravensburger | | Players: | 2 to 6
| | Playing time: | 30 minutes | | Suitable for: | Families (ages 8 and up); Adults | | You'll love it because: | This game is different each time: you lay out the tiles in a long trail. Some tiles are positive points while others are negative. Players start at one of the trail with their pawns, and some neutral pawns (called guards) are put along the trail. Every turn you roll the die and then move one of your pawns or a guard. If you are the last pawn on a tile when you leave it, then you must collect it and add it to your stash. The twist is that there are tiles which convert minus points to plus points: should you gamble on a big negative tile in hope of turning it to a positive! | | Grandparents will recognise it: | The game is very reminiscent of ludo with pieces moving along a track based on the roll of the die. That's Life introduces more pieces (the guards) for you to movehas the thrill of speculating on negative points, and as there is no knocking off the game is guaranteed to finish while veryone is still having fun! | TOP | Game Name: | Coloretto |
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| Designer: | Michael Schacht
| | Publisher: | Abacus / Rio Grande (English language edition) | | Players: | 2 to 5 | | Playing time: | 30 minutes | | Suitable for: | Families (ages 7 and up); Adults | | You'll love it because: | This is a simple game about collecting sets and pushing your luck. Each turn you either reveal a card off the deck and place it on a row, or else claim a row of cards and add it to your set. Points are scored for sets of like-coloured cards, but positive points can only be scored inthree colours, any cards in the other colours count against you. It's so simple, but very engaging. | | Grandparents will recognise it: | The rules are son simple and the play so fun that everyone will enjoy this game. It doesn't remind us of any classic games, but it has been grandparent road-tested and passed with flying colour-ettos! | TOP  | Game Name: | Hey! That's My Fish!
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| Designer: | Alvydas Jakeliunas & Günter Cornett | | Publisher: | Bambus / Phalanx / Mayfair (English language edition) | | Players: | 2 to 4 | | Playing time: | 20 minutes | | Suitable for: | Families (ages 8 and up); Adults | | You'll love it because: | You're a cute little family of penguins... but you are in ferocious competition with those other penguin families to get the most fish! The game board is made of cardboard tiles that each show some fish. On your turn, one of your penguins waddles to a new tile and then dives through the ice to catch the fish. You keep the tile to show the fish you've caught, but unfortunately this leaves hole in the ice shelf. Eventually the holes all join up and each penguin is stranded on its own iceberg gloating over its haul of fish! | | Grandparents will recognise it: | This game has elements of chinese checkers and chess. Each turn you may move one penguin and it travels in a straight line as far as you like, but not past an obstacle like a hole in the ice or another penguin. Then you pick up the tile you were standing on and that's it: the rules are that simple! Luckily the strategy isn't, and everyone in the family can have fun fighting for fish and trying to strand each other on the smallest ice bergs. | TOP
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