Last weekend I was camping with our Boy Scout Troop, enjoying some great weather and managing to play a few games. (I was actually undefeated in three games of chess, three games of backgammon and three games of
Hive - a very rare thing indeed!) Playing outdoors is a lot of fun, but not every game can handle it. I wrote about this after the same campout two years ago, but with a focus on
games good for camping. This time, I want to talk about three excellent family games that could be played on a lazy Sunday afternoon right on your patio; games that would be easy to find.
The difference between a game good for camping, and a game that you would play on your patio, is the weather. When you're camping, you have to be prepared for any kind of weather that might come along. That limits your selection of games to those that could get wet. However, on a patio, you can wait until the weather is dry before you go out. That opens up some additional possibilities, like having an actual board in your boardgame. Another possibility would be having some tiles. Either boards or tiles will soak up some water if the surface is wet. You can avoid that on your patio. Additionally, a lot of picnic tables at campsites are not flat, but most peoples patio tables are fine. In fact, the only real environmental issue on a patio is the wind.
So now that we understand why games good for camping are not necessarily good for the patio, let's move on to the actual games:
- Scrabble. Here's our first case in point. Scrabble is a great game: a timeless classic. It does not work well as a camping game because it has a board which would soak up water if anything dropped on it, or was it laying on the table. However, on a patio, that's not an issue. Furthermore, this game's wooden tiles won't blow away in the wind. The best part about this game is that you probably have a copy laying around. Almost everyone knows how to play, or is at least somewhat familiar with its ideas. I know some people don't like Scrabble, because they don't feel their vocabulary keeps them very competitive . However, I wrote a whole article on approaching Scrabble as a strategic game, rather than a word game, and that will make anyone a winner..
- Qwirkle. Qwirkle can be thought of as Scrabble with colors and shapes. It has the opposite problem than Scrabble does though; it has no board. It is therefore susceptible to unevenness in the playing surface. Picnic tables don't work well for this game. However with chunky blocks as the playing pieces, this game isn't going anywhere. Qwirkle was the Spiel des Jahres winner a couple of years ago, and that means it's a great game. This German award is given to the best new family game each year. My full review which can be found here.
- Blokus. The last game is Blokus. Blokus has a plastic board, so it cant get wet. Since its plastic, it's also rigid, and therefore doesn't care what service its all. It might think that this would make it a good game for camping, but some of the pieces a rather small and could be easily lost in the grass. This will be a great games to play with the little ones, it's fairly easy to understand and very colorful. I wrote about the entire family of Blokus games several years ago.
These are three great games for the family that will make a great afternoon or evening outdoors in the fresh air. All of them are readily available at stores like Target, Wal-Mart and Barnes & Nobles. None of them are terribly expensive, and the latter two are certainly playable by the under 10 crowd (probably down to about age five or six). I've seen these games at all of those stores, as well as bigger grocery stores. Barnes & Nobles stores are carrying more and more good games all the time.
Bonus. This brings me to my last point. Speaking of B&N, I can't help but mention one other game that plays really well outside:
Carcassonne. This is another game without a board; you actually build the board by laying down tiles. This game plays very well with anywhere from two to five players, and I just can't say enough about how good this game is. This is one of the very few games I rate a 10/10 on
BoardGameGeek, and I have played more than a few games. At one point, we actually owned three copies, so we would have one for my wife and I each at work, as well as the one we keep at home. I don't play games at work anymore, so that copy now belongs to a neighbor who loves it.
Pick a warm night under the stars with a lantern and play. Take an afternoon in the shade and have a blast. In any case, everyone in the family will be a winner.
It's Your Move,
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