Parental Board Game Reviews
My Parental Review The Games We Played Over Christmas Break Games
Parental Reviews
I’m lucky enough to have parents who are (broadly) willing to play whatever board games I bring to their place when I visit for the holidays. Some, like my own favorite game Arboretum, they’ve even liked well enough to pick up copies to “pay it forward” by getting their friends to play them.
Over the “recent” holiday (it’s taken me a hot minute to get around to writing this up) I thought it’d be fun to get their opinions on the gauntlet of games I had them try out across the week I was visiting. I quizzed them about their thoughts immediately after playing each game, then at the end of the week had them rank the games from favorite to least.
You can see my own brief thoughts on most of these games here if you’re curious.
Games
Souvenirs From Venice
Designed by Jun Sasaki, Goro Sasaki, Art by Jun Sasaki, Published by Oink Games
“Quick, easy to learn, easy to play,” as a comment from my Dad summarizes his biggest priorities for liking a game. He felt that it had some strategy, but not a whole lot. My mom enjoyed the mix of luck and strategy here, and thought the theming of collecting souvenirs for friends back home was cute.
Both parents hated the pigeon seller, and did not appreciate him messing up their collections.
My mother was also unfortunate enough to miss her flight entirely, which might have colored her opinion.
Deep Sea Adventure (Boost)
Designed by Jun Sasaki, Goro Sasaki; Art by Jun Sasaki; Published by Oink Games
Despite my repeated warnings that they would absolutely drown in the deeps if they didn’t turn back soon, there were a lot of drowned explorers during our play of this game.
Dad had an, “Ah hah!” moment after the first round when we removed the tiles and the track shrunk. He said it really changed the energy of the game is a fun way, although he wished the game lasted a bit longer. Mom liked the push and pull of the game, and the way it builds tension between doing what’s best for you, and doing what’s best for the group. She enjoyed the central decision point of figuring out when it’s optimal to turn back (even if this decision wasn’t made correctly most of the time).
Both parents enjoyed the game, but they also said they’d like to see an expanded oxygen track to use at higher player counts so it’s easier to get deeper. A thumbs up from both, and they even suggested they’d likely be able to get some of their friends to play.
Type Set
Designed by Jasper Beatrix, Published by DVC Games
We played this one with several of my relatives alongside my parents, I actually ended up photocopying the little playbooks for extra copies (although I do quite like the dry erase markers it comes with). The premise of it being a word game, and at least a little adjacent to scrabble, managed to hook a few of my more recalcitrant family members into giving Type Set a try.
Both my parents really liked this one with my Dad specifically praising the “crossboarding” and tabletalk (an even mix of giving advice and mocking each others choices), and my mom really liked the level of creativity you can bring to the game. Other highlights included the (unlimited) number of players and the fun level of risk taking around starting new words, and choosing to stay in or go out each round.
The rules of Typeset allow players to freely look up words during the game, but both parents felt there should be some limitations on that, possibly with some sort of scrabble rule or a limited number of lookups.
Trickarus
Designed by Bajir Cannon, Art by TANSAN DESIGN STUDIO, Published by Learn Bridge Online
Not a lot to say here, except that both my parents really enjoyed Trickarus. My dad tends to like games where you can be tricky and “get” people, and Trickarus lets you do that in spades with the way the scoring works. My mom tends to like this sort of trick taker where choosing whether and when to try and win tricks is a central part of the game, and she enjoyed the added wrinkle of the card flipping that changes the strength of your hand throughout a round.
The “Easy to learn, easy to play,” mantra was again repeated here.
Things In Rings
Designed by Peter C. Hayward, Art by Snow Conrad, Published by Allplay
Although both parents liked Things In Rings quite a bit, it was a huge hit with my mom. She loved the table talk, discussion, how open ended the game is, and how much game you play before the categories start being easy to figure out.
“I’m a teacher, and teachers love Venn Diagrams.”
Corvids
Designed by Jasper Beatrix, Art by Meg Lemieur, Published by DVC Games
“This is bullshit, I didn’t like the cawing.”
Definitive proof that my mother has bad taste in board games.
More seriously, she said she’d have to play it a few times to understand it enough to have a strategy. She didn’t like how one player was aggressively throwing cards around (by picking up acorns repeatedly), and didn’t appreciate the novelty of the tweezers. My mom thought the feathers should be worth points at the end (which I don’t totally disagree with) and did not think she could convince any of her friends to play this with her.
My father declined to play Corvids at all; a disastrous experience with DroPoulter seems to have fully put him off dexterity games.
Spring Cleaning
Although she didn’t love the art or theme of the game, my mom really enjoyed the ladder climbing aspect and the way that the “offering” mechanic gives extra ways to interact and shed cards.
Dad praised the mix of strategy and luck, and always enjoys these sorts of card gets that let you be tricky and make plans.
I wish I’d gotten a bit more detail from my Dad in particular about what he liked for this, as this turned out to be his favorite game from the week.
Ranks
And here are how my parents ranked those games against each other at the end of the holidays.
Mom
- Things In Rings
- Type Set
- Trickarus
- Souvenirs from Venice
- Spring Cleaning
- Deep Sea Adventure
- Corvids
Dad
- Spring Cleaning
- Type Set
- Trickarus
- Things In Rings
- Souvenirs From Venice
- Deep Sea Adventure
A little embarrassing for me as I gifted the felt box set of Souvenirs From Venice and Deep Sea Adventure to my parents for Christmas. Apparently I am not as good at guessing what they’ll like as I thought!
Overall the common themes of my parents taste are:
- Easy to learn, easy to play.
- Opportunity for table talk.
- Possibly of “trickiness”.
Which is not so far off from how I’d describe own taste, but alas it’s not a 1 to 1 matchup.
☕ Pudhina theme by Knhash 🛠️