Any recommendations for 3-4 year olds?
My youngest is five now (the other 8), so not quite in the 3-4 year old range so the following might be complete useless. But while I'm thinking about it, I thought I'd write up some thoughts on my collection from a family perspective. The idea here is that a young kid might not get the full enjoyment out of a game, but they'll still be able to play along in some way and have a great experience:
* Just Desserts - Very light dessert themed set collection card game.
Miss 5 - Works well for young kids because the theme (lots of different desserts) resonates and you can step them through each turn. "Do you have chocolate? No. Do you have cake? Yes! ...".
Miss 8 - Finds it a bit boring.
Verdict - Works very well with young kids and helps them with handling cards and matching some simple colours. The most complicated aspect is reading the customers favourite desserts, but you can assist with that and they seem to memorise them quickly. Recommended.
* Ultimate Werewolf - social deduction game
Miss 5 - A few early games ended in tears because she didn't want to be the wolf (her older sister yelling at her didn't help). How we managed this was essentially cheating to give her a village or seer roll each time. Once she had that she got into it, felt comfortable and now even enjoys being a wolf, even though she kind of sucks at it.
Miss 8 - Loves the "quiet silly" phase followed by lots of finger pointing and yelling at people. So it is always a hit when she has friends over.
Verdict - It isn't really playing properly, but it really isn't that sort of game. I'd hold off until they are older but if you are going to play it anyway it is worth a look.
* Camel Up - Light racing game
Miss 5 - Loves rolling the dice/pyramid. Doesn't really get the "betting" part until everybody else does it, but still enjoys playing and ironically helps keep the game moving.
Miss 8 - Makes dumb moves but somehow always manages to pick the right Camel in the end :|.
Verdict - A strong family favourite that everybody can play without worrying too much about the strategy. You pick a camel or two, you roll the dice and everybody has a good time. Recommended.
* Incan Gold - Push your luck
Miss 5+8 - Both took to it very easily and understand what they are trying to do. Of course they go much longer than they should each time...but then I do too.
Verdict - Classic family game and while the maths is a bit tricky, you can sort that out for them and they just understand more gems is better and spiders (or spoiders as we call them) are bad. The game still works in a grown up setting too.
* Forbidden Island - Coop
Miss 5 - Works for her when we give her the explorer roll which lets her move diagonally. Then she just has to concentrate on moving and fixing land. Due to the nature of the coop experience, you can help with every move.
Miss 8 - Took to it no problems, although we wouldn't give her the more complex roles without help.
Verdict - A very good family coop game where even young children can feel part of the team, even if you are directing their every turn. They'll soon fear "water rises" and that is enough to get it to the table constantly.
* Ticket to ride - Set collection
Miss 5 - Too much for her to play, her role is simply to "put the trains out".
Miss 8 - Has no problems with it, although we have the Europe map and live in Australia, so she needs a bit of help finding the stations. Once done, she attacks it in a pretty linear fashion, so as long as we are not too cut throat she can play without problems.
Verdict - Doesn't work for the very young, but you can still involve them in the game and perhaps enjoy it a bit more as adults.
* Jamaica - Racing game
Miss 5 - I thought she would struggle with this, but she surprised us by keeping up with the action and by and large understanding the concept of "more is better". Requires a lot of coaching, but the game is designed well enough that you can do that.
Miss 8 - Took to it no problems.
Verdict - I expected this to be a miss, but it was a lot easier to play with the kids. Really they just need to pick a card and see what happens (since you rarely get a great choice anyway chances are they'll pick the best one). That said, the only problem is that it is maybe 20-30 minutes too long so we don't get it out very often.
* Friday - Solo survival game.
Verdict - Too complex. Miss 8 tries to play, but it gets way too tricky (rules wise) as it moves on.
* 12 days - Christmas themed drafting game.
Miss 5 - Got the idea of "lowest card wins" straight away, but didn't associate this with saving low cards for the high value presents. However after a few games she got the idea.
Miss 8 - Understood it pretty much straight away, but needed constant reminders on the turn actions.
Verdict - While it works well, it is a little too fiddly in terms of the drafting and card passing to play in a relaxed manner. That said, it still "works" in a family setting and might be worth the effort each Christmas if you don't mind telling them to draw another card every damn turn.
* Castellion - Tile laying game
Miss 5 - Haven't tried.
Miss 8 - Was able to work through the game difficulties to take on the expert game. The design is clean enough that she can try to beat it from there.
Verdict - Not for the very young, but a great solo game for kids and you can easily play it coop too (where it really shines). I'm pretty high on Castellion at the moment, although the box it comes in is hot garbage (fits about half the tiles!).
* Hey thats my fish - Tile destruction game
Miss 5 + 8 - Found it easy to play, even if they just go for the "3" fish tiles. Luckily this often isn't the worst strategy, so they get to have a good game.
Verdict - Even though it is a little "take that", this doesn't seem to cause issues because you can't really avoid it and the game is so fast. Great little family game, even if you spend more time setting it up than playing.
* Exploding Kittens - Light card game
Miss 5 - I had to introduce the cards slowly here, by leaving out the "nope" and "take that" cards to keep it simple. After a few games we put these back in and she easily got the hang of it.
Miss 8 - Had no problems and loved how silly it was. The only thing to watch here is positioning. You really don't want the older sister seeding the exploding kitten for the younger player, because it'll end in tears.
Verdict - Very cool little card game and the concept of not getting a kitten or "noping" people is very easy to understand. May just require a bit of common sense about using the whole deck or not.
* Sushi Go - Light card game
Miss 5 - The first game she just collected all the sushi and had a good time. From there we suggested she threw a few puddings in as well and she seemed to pick up the idea of collecting a few of each thing. Now, she doesn't make optimal choices, but she understands well enough what to do.
Miss 8 - Took a few games to understand a good strategy, but now competes well.
Verdict - A very good little game that everybody can play sub-optimally and still enjoy.
* Pandemic the Cure - coop dice game
Miss 5 - Too complex to play, but she loved being involved as the "dice roller"
Miss 8 - Requires a bit of coaching, but by and large understands that she needs to move to the bad areas and helps clean up. Loves the dice chucking of course.
Verdict - I think this works better than straight pandemic in a family setting. It is quicker (generally in a bad way) and the kids will understand the disease dice are bad and will enjoy rolling them all. I'd just suggest a dice tower to keep things organised.
* Manhatten - card based city builder
Miss 5 - Initially happy to just build towers around the board, but ended up "not liking it".
Miss 8 - Took a few games to copy the general strategy of not concentrating on one city. From there can compete in broad terms, but the games doesn't really have enough options to let her compete properly.
Verdict - Need the kids to be a bit older for this one. That said, we haven't played with a godzilla variant (that destroys towers), so that might help.
Games I think will work, but don't have yet:
Outfoxed - Simple deduction game
Fuse - Lots of dice rolling and I think the cards will be simple enough that they'll get the idea (in general dice rolling seems to be a winner).
Happy Salmon - Very simple running around being silly game with only four cards to learn.
Zooloretto - Seems straight forward in that the youngest can just collect a set of animals before moving on.
My first stone age - Memory/collection game. Being delivered! (I hope).
Escape, curse of the temple - I'm a bit unsure how well this will go. It involves dice, but also time pressure. May need to be a three player game with a coach.
Cat Tower - I worry about how long the game will last, but I'm sure stacking cats rhino hero style will make for a fun time. This one might actually be age appropriate!
