Children's Game Reviews • What is Best in Life

Here are the games I’ve tried with children, and my thoughts on what age range is best (keep in mind, Benny has been playing Magic the Gathering since he was 4, so some of these age ranges might be a few years ahead of kids from a non-gaming house):

5 Minute Dungeon (5+) – Kids will probably have trouble keeping up with competitive adults, but if you are able to slow down the timer (or use fewer cards), kids will probably love this cooperative real time dungeon crawl.
5 Minute Marvel (5+) – Even though this “5 Minute” game adds a few wrinkles of complexity with the hero cards, you could easily leave them off making this a good game to play with even fairly young children. Core gameplay of matching symbols shown on a flipped up card as a group remains strong for all ages.
Animal Upon Animal (4-7) – Simple stacking game with wooden animals. Pretty easy to avoid knocking the stack down, so a little tough to play with kids without purposely throwing the game, but it’s still usually a hit.
Aquanemo (2-7) – Draw a card and then find the matching fish to catch with your magnetic pole. Really one of the better options for very young kids (though the magnetic fishing poles are tricky to catch a fish with, so age 2 might be pushing it) as it is a fun, full-fledged game that is easy to grasp and looks great.
Banana Party (4+) – Fun game of picking branches to rotate clockwise…if your opponents have a monkey on that branch, the monkey will fall off and you will get their bananas. Pretty simple, but there are some good bluff elements at play, and the whole thing looks and feels very cool.
Battleship Express (4+) – The basics of “roll number of dice shown, look for color of ship you are aiming at,” should be able to be grasped by the very young. Some of the additional rules (only hit the front two ships, etc) might be tricky, but a guiding adult should make them no problem too.
Beasts of Balance (5+) – Kids will love this overpriced stacking game, especially as it offers hundreds of cool beast hybrids to discover as you mix the various animals together. The stacking element is fun for children too (and fairly easy to keep them from getting frustrated), but the evolving world you see on the app is the real draw here. Warning, they might want to game the system and just keep restarting the game after each new beast discovery.
Bonbons (4+) – The trying to match the tiles in front of you part can be a little confusing, but otherwise this is straight memory. You can adjust it for younger children by taking out some of the candies.
Bugs & Co. (4+) – Players scramble in real time to find matching sets of three bugs (which score them points) and not get stuck with unfinished pairs (which lose them points). There’s a decent game here, though it might take a bit of experimentation with your group to find a play style that works. Age limit is flexible depending on how strict you are about not allowing players to look at the bugs they’ve already taken.
Bugs in the Kitchen (4+) – Great game with a motorized bug that moves randomly as you constantly rotate the walls of a kitchen maze. Great fun for all ages, but, warning, the bug is prone to wearing out and just getting stuck in the corners constantly.
Cardline: Animals (5+) – The birds and smaller animals will definitely be tricky, but you can take out any animals you want/stack the deck only with obvious animals and allow a wide range of kids to have a pretty good time with this game of putting animals in line based on size and weight.
Cardline: Dinosaurs (5+) – Kids will mostly have no idea which dinosaur goes where, but it’s still fun for them to compare dinosaurs. You can even play semi competitively if you hand pick the dinosaurs to play with and get a good variety of sizes.
Carole (4+) – A very simple game that challenges kids to translate numerically coded taps for four different foods into pictures of the foods on cards. Surprisingly hard for kids, though, if you give them time, they might just take to it before they get bored with it. Adults, however, should avoid this.
Catan Junior (5+) – This takes out enough of the more complicated elements to make a great game for kids (though the 2d6 bell curve is definitely missed). Presentation wise it is a knockout, but as for the gameplay, there are plenty of better options for kids.
Chateau Roquefort (6+) – Maybe a little complicated for very young kids who aren’t ready to wrap their heads around the combination of simple action points, memory, and manipulating a shifting maze, but it looks amazing, it’s very fun, and kids will LOVE trapping you in the dungeon.
Checkers (4+) – Even though there is no theme and it seems pretty dry, there’s enough here to entertain young ones, especially in the simple delights of jumping over an opponent’s piece, mercilessly crushing its existence from the board.
Cockroach Poker (4+) – A bluffing game distilled down to the basics, this is a great way to teach your kids to lie (and, more acceptably, to teach them to identify falsehoods). There can be a bit of trickiness for very young kids in understanding the basic concept of “I tell you this is a certain bug, you tell me if you think it is or isn’t. If you can tell if I’m lying, I have to take the card, if I manage to trick you, you take it.” Otherwise, this is a hit that is just as fun for adults as it is children (and can be played competitively with a mixed group).
Crossing (4+) – This is a simple “point at one pile or another” game, and if you are the only one pointing at a pile of gems, you get to take them all. Small kids can get upset if you steal their own pile of gems, but aside from that this can be played at a fairly young age.
Doctor Panic (6+) – I believe this real time game of doing a string of tasks to save a patient was probably aimed at adults, but the tasks are all so easy, it can easily be played with kids. Honestly, I was bored very quickly, but the 6 and 11 year old I played with loved it.
Don’t Be Greedy (4+) – A simple push your luck game of drawing cool gems out of a bag for your treasure chest, most of which are blank, but some of which have sad faces. Young kids might have trouble grasping the rule that a sad face on your opening draw won’t end your turn, but otherwise, this is a hit with most age levels.
Electronic Labyrinth (6+) – A bit more complicated than vanilla labyrinth, but the talking book is worth it. Brilliant implementation of the electronic book and a classic game, this one is great fun for adults too.
Enchanted Tower (4+) – Odd game where one person hides a key and then gives the other player a head start in a race to find it. Sometimes it’s over right away, but sometimes there is even a bit of good bluffing gameplay to be had–overall a great looking hit, and it’s fun for adults too.
Enuk (4+) – A great combination of memory and push your luck, this is a huge hit with kids (even makes for a reasonably good game for adults). The food-chain themed luck pushing (if you turn over an animal directly above or below one of your other animals on the pictured food chain, it runs away) is nicely balanced so that no one every loses their entire turn for risking. My only complaint is that the end game really doesn’t work as written (most revealed animals get taken over the course of the game) and always feels like an arbitrary afterthought to an otherwise great game.
Go Away Monster (2-3) – Barely a game, but very young children can grasp and enjoy the act of drawing tiles out of a bag and hoping not to get the monster. This will be quickly outgrown, but right around the age of two, there will be a time that this might just be a favorite.
Guess Who (4+) – Classic 20 Questions style game that has cool player “boards” with windows you can shut when you rule out suspects to elevate things a few notches. The visuals in front of you can lead to inspired questions, and kids of all ages can have fun with this one as long as they are careful when they eliminate suspects.
Gulo Gulo (4-7) – Simple dexterity game of pulling small colored eggs out of a bowl and trying not to knock over a stick standing up in the middle. The amount to which some reviews have claimed small fingers can balance the game against adults is overblown, but it’s still a reasonably fun (if a bit overrated) kids game.
Hang Four (5+) – Simple dice rolling game where you hope to roll high numbers (which give you coins), to buy surf boards to complete your surfing dogs. It’s pretty damn random, and there’s not much to really hold your interest, but kids seem to like it, and it plays reasonably fast.
Help Me! (5+) – This is really more of an adult abstract game, and the scoring mechanism of only scoring stacks with your color, and getting bonus points for having more tiles of your color in the stack can be a little hard to grasp for young kids. The game is fine, but it’s not something I really see getting played much, by adults or kids.
Hirelings: The Ascent (4+) – This is really just a shitty roll and move that adults should steer clear of. The rulebook is a wall of text explaining 3 “special” rooms, otherwise, there is absolutely nothing of note to be found here. The art is really really good, the game is really really bad…this does NOT make things a wash however.
Hop! (5+) – You will have to make the central mechanic of throwing a ring onto someone’s up-pointed finger quite a bit easier for some of the cards, but with a little tweaking (and a few second chances)(and an adult to handle the scoring), kids will have fun with this beyond how much they will love the scoring miniatures.
Hurry Cup! (6+) – You could take out a few of the chrome rules to lower the age range on this, but the central mechanic in this Formula D style game of picking a dice that is just high enough to beat the odds of going around a turn isn’t easy for kids to figure out. Luckily the game is forgiving enough that you can basically say “lots of big corners coming up, grab a low dice!” and it will work just fine.
Ice Cool (4+) – Small kids can get frustrated at this flicking game as it is pretty hard to control where the spinning penguins go. On the other hand, it looks great, it’s fun, and it’s fairly hard for adults to play too, so it can work for diverse groups as long as the kids don’t get too frustrated.
Just One (7+) – For kids learning to read/write, this game of writing words to get one person to guess the secret word they can not see could actually be a fun way for them to practice both their writing and their critical thinking. You might have to adjust/choose easy cards to work with, but I think there is actually decent promise here as a kids game.
Kings on the Corner (5+) – Solitaire games are quickly grasped by kids as making alternating patterns of numbers is a satisfying concept for both young and old. Being able to play with a parent gives this one some legs too.
Knusperhexe (4+) – The box and cards form a cute gingerbread house and roof from which you slowly draw cards while hoping not to collapse the whole thing. There is very little in the way of actual decision making in the card aspect of this, but the dexterity game of keeping the roof intact is fun enough, and the whole thing is quite visually pleasing.
The Little Prince: Rising to the Stars (5+) – Very good race game (following the new, only vaguely related, movie rather than the original book) that uses the Thebes-style “last place goes until someone else is in last” mechanic. It can be a little unintuitive for children to understand the value of slow play (hell, the overall strategy on this one is even fairly opaque even for adults), but otherwise this is a winner: short, beautiful, not toooo complex, and, above all, fun.
Loony Quest (5+) – This game of drawing lines on a transparency and then lining it up with the picture you were looking at to see how accurate it was is hard enough for adults, so, kids will most likely be terrible at it. Still, for good sports, it’s definitely worth a try! Definitely get the Loony Quest version too as it has a way cooler theme than other versions.
The Magic Labyrinth (4+) – Very cool hidden maze game that uses walls under the board and magnets to let the players find out where the walls are through trial and error. Surprisingly hard to remember everything, and the placement of the stuff you are trying to find can be swingy, but overall it’s a lot of fun.
Mancala (4+) – This is actually pretty good for kids, as long as you don’t expect them to play strategically. The simple act of picking up a pile of seeds and sowing them around the board works for even the youngest of kids. Seeing good scoring moves and playing strategically however is something that even adults struggle with on this one.
Mastermind (6+) – Not really that great for kids, mostly because some of the subtleties of the black and white pegs are a little confusing. But, if a kid has the motivation it could all probably work pretty well with a bit of practice.
Minuscule (5+) – A line game where you play cards that move insects in a line up or down, trying to get the two secret insects you drew to the front. Works very well for what it is, even if it feels a little random. I’d probably recommend not using the ants variant even though it seems like it would be a good addition for adults.
Mix & Match Robbers (4+) – Ok game of rolling a dice, flipping up a card and then quickly finding the correct head, torso and leg combination from the array on the table. It’s kind of cool, but half the time the dice rolls and card distribution just keep on coming up with stuff that’s already been taken, which definitely kills the momentum.
Mölkky (4+) – Let them stand close enough and you can play this game of knocking pins down with a wooden throwing pin with just about any age. Unfortunately there is quite a bit of math in the scoring, but for slightly older kids, that can be great practice.
My First Carcassonne (3-4) – This is really a bit of a disappointment as the only strategic choice to be made is the fairly obvious act of leaving opponent’s roads open. Otherwise you just draw and close as many of your own roads as possible until you hopefully run out of meeples. Good for the very young, but full Carcassonne (or a variant) would probably be a better choice for the 5+ crowd.
No Thank You Evil (4+) – Children’s role playing game that uses all the same elements modern adult role playing games use (dice based skill checks with “assist” tokens if you can think of a way to use your skills to lower the difficulty of a check). The mechanics are nothing special, but the world building and cards are actually pretty great. Everything has a charming cartoonish quality and kids will love exploring the map of Storia with the included cards for them to encounter along the way.
Nuttsy Tennis (5+) – Adults should be able to slow hit the tennis ball for very young kids, but all ages should find this vintage game of paddling a tennis ball attached to a wire back and forth a blast.
Octo (3+) – Pretty random dice rolling game where you are trying to get three good rolls in a row. It doesn’t seem like a lot of play-testing went in to this one as it can be super easy to bust turn after turn with even average luck. There is promise here (especially with the potential for making a song with your final set of cards), but the game as written is not the best.
Old Maid (4+) – The only thing keeping the age range from going lower on this one is being able to hold all your cards. I suppose there is good fun to be had trying to bluff people into taking the old maid, but that is the ONLY part of this stinker that will get your pulse going.
Operation (4+) – As with adults, the gimmick wears off very quickly, but kids will still have fun with this one. Little hands not used to fine detail work will probably have trouble (and lose interest quickly), but there is still fun to be had here.
Pictionary (4+) – Adults will have to handicap themselves pretty well with this, but you can do all kinds of variants with very young kids (even just letting them guess what the picture is)…though most variants won’t need an actual game of this to play.
Tales and Games: The Pied Piper (5+) – Even though this is theoretically a “take that” game (a style I’d usually steer away from with kids), the theme of pushing a horde of rats in different directions around the table is evocative enough that I think most kids wouldn’t get too frustrated with a string of nasty plays. There is a fair amount of thinking ahead (hamstrung by luck of the draw), so I wouldn’t go too young on this one.
Pop Up Pirate (3+) – Not really a game, just another one of those “do random things until the jack in the box explodes” style games. Kids might have fun at least, if only stabbing pirates were appropriate for small kids.
Push a Monster (4+) – Using the two included cardboard pushers to slowly push monsters onto a platform without making any fall can be tricky for little hands, but you could always allow small children to just use their fingers. Otherwise, this one is quite a lot of fun, and can be easy enough to handicap yourself by going for hard sides of the board when pushing new monsters on.
Rhino Hero (5+) – Stacking game that uses bent playing cards to make a tower. Very cute, but in games against children the “empty your hand” win condition rarely seems to work as well as you would think it would as the game is usually over before you can use up your cards.
Rhino Hero: Super Battle (4+) – Supposedly this has been banned because kids were getting hurt standing on chairs to finish their towers. Not sure that’s true, but the big cards should be pretty easy (easier than the base game) for even very young kids to place. Whether than can handle the swings of the climb die emotionally is another story though.
Rivers, Roads, & Rails (3+) – It will take some tweaking (mostly you probably want to remove like 2/3rds of the pieces (otherwise this goes way too long), but even very young kids will have fun matching up their pieces and looking at the cool art.
Rumis (4+) – You could probably understand this pretty young, but the strategy for cutting off the board will be lost on the youngest kids. Played non competitively I could see kids having fun here.
Santa’s Bag (5+) – Christmas themed kid’s game of drawing/trading cards to collect sets of materials to build toys (worth varying amounts of points) for kids (worth varying amounts of points depending on their naughty level). It’s pretty decent as a kid’s game, although, the timing of trading (combined with the option to trade with the top of the deck) can be confusing (or at least takes some patience to learn the proper order) even for older kids. Almost there, honestly I think I might recommend doing a few rules tweaks on this one to make it a bit more kid friendly.
Sequence for Kids (3+) – This is still just Sequence, and as such, is VERY dependent on card draws. That said, the smaller board size and victory conditions actually makes for a much better game as it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Still very little actual choice to be had, but at least it’s good for very young children.
Sherlook (5+) – Not really a great kids game, the differences are king of hard to spot, and it can be frustrating to never get the right number turn after turn. Also there’s a big dead body outline in the center of each picture.
Silly Shenanigans (4+) – Roll a dice, draw an item out of the bag and either keep it or put it in the cave. Some dice rolls let you name items in the cave, if you are correct (and can use it), you get to keep it too! Pretty cool little game, and one that kids will love (if they can handle the “steal an item from another player” dice roll.
Skunk Bingo (3-5) – Very simple game where you put tiles in a line in a log so they can slowly get pushed out the other side in order to give a bit of a memory element to the bingo game it is built around. Perfect for early gamers as there are even a few decent decisions to be made and the whole game is very quickly grasped.
Slamwich (5+) – This is just Slapjack with a cute theme and a few extra bells and whistles–kids like it, and I suppose I don’t mind it. I’d advise playing without the “munchers”…they add almost nothing to the game for a bunch of unnecessary rules complexity.
Sleepy Castle (4+) – Yet another Memory variation, this time you are trying to flip two center tiles that match adjacent outside tiles (to put them to sleep and steal their coins). As memory variations go, this is a good one, and the theme is great (and the number of options seems to be just about right to keep the difficulty manageable), so I’d definitely recommend this as a good one if you can find it cheaply.
Smugglers (5+) – Even though the scoring system is a bit baroque, the simple act of rolling gems into clay balls and rolling them through holes in a cardboard fence is fun for all ages. Kids won’t be competitive, but they should still have fun with this.
Spot it! (3+) – Even though this is just a clever mathematical trick to create a deck of cards that each shares exactly one item with all other cards, there’s a decent game here as the common item is often surprisingly hard to find. And, like all “find x” games, it’s easy to throw the game to keep younger players competitive. I should point out my favorite way to play is to just draw two cards and race to find the common item…a variant that doesn’t seem to be printed in the rules.
Sticky Stickz (4+) – Kids will love this game of smashing a suction cup stick down on a face that matches the expression, number, and color rolled on a set of dice. It’s definitely hard to play the full game with younger kids, but removing one or both of the dice will open up the ages that can play quite a bit!
Stuffed Fables (7+) – For older kids this could be good, though I’ve found lackluster central games like this haven’t managed to maintain interest.
Sumo Ham Slam (5+) – You could probably play this game of slamming magnet-controlled sumo-hamsters into each other with younger children, but two things make it hard to do. One, the magnets are a little touchy, especially if you are trying to make fast, jerky motions (as one would do when trying slam their “hams”), and two, it takes a mature kid to be able to have their ham ruthlessly sumo-slammed into the dirt and still remain a good sport. Otherwise, this will definitely be a hit, especially when the hamsters accidentally “throw up” their food after an especially hard slam.
Tambuzi (4+) – Real-time games aren’t the best for young kids, but as long as your kid can handle some frantic urgency as the music counts down, there is fun to be had here.
Ugah Ugah (5+) – This is just another Yahtzee/King of Tokyo/etc game where you get three rerolls and all that to get a final array of dice for points. Honestly, there are enough twists (moving cavemen with some dice, bones which autolock as nothing) that this is actually a pretty good variation on the style. I like this one quite a lot, and it works great for kids too.

Children’s Game Reviews