278 – Top Travel Games – The Family Gamers Podcast

We do mention travel games regularly, but we haven’t devoted an entire episode to them for over six years! We’re getting on an airplane this week, and it’s about time to revisit this topic. What makes a good travel game?

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What we’ve been playing

60 Second City (Buffalo Games, by Ken Gruhl and Quentin Weir)
Royal Visit (IELLO, by Renier Knizia)
Chai (Steeped Games, Dan & Connie Kazmaier)
Andor: The Family Fantasy Game (KOSMOS, Inka & Markus Brand)
Tapple (The OP, reviewed below)
The Goonies: Escape with One-Eyed Willy’s Rich Stuff (A Coded Chronicles adventure – partial…)
Rolled West (TMG)
The Little Prince: Make Me a Planet (Ludonaute, Bruno Cathala & Antoine Bauza) – very simple tile drafting.
Unmatched – we played with Sun Wukong / Bloody Mary / Little Red

For Science!

Thrills soap-flavored gum. To us it tastes like old lady perfume. This “For Science” is sponsored by Kids Table Board Gaming!

SNAP Review – Tapple

Watch the video and read the transcript here.

The Family Gamers community

Welcome to our new members – Stop in and say hi!

Travel Games

It’s been a really long time since we’ve focused on games that are good for traveling – all the way back in episode 11 in 2015!

It seems like being a parent invariably involves a lot of traveling. Anitra is glad she doesn’t have to sit in a school pick-up line every day anymore, although it was a good opportunity for compact solo games.

What makes a good travel game depends on what kind of traveling you’re doing. But generally:

• A small box
• A small footprint (doesn’t take up too much room while you’re playing it)
• Not too many pieces / small pieces – you don’t want things getting lost in the car or on an airplane!
• Easy to stop or to put away (for bathroom breaks, transfers, airplane turbulence, etc.)
• Not needing much of a common area (ie. small individual tableaus, or simply a hand of cards with a central draw/discard)
• good at 2 players, or even solo!

Trivia games and “shouting” party games are good for car travel or waiting in lines, but bad for other kinds of transportation (bus, train, air travel)

The Family Gamers’ Top Choices for Travel

Royal Visit (maybe with a clipboard to bridge the gap between airplane tray tables)

Tussie Mussie

many roll-and-write or flip-and-write games, especially ones with only a few cards/dice that don’t need to be arranged any special way: Silver & Gold, Qwingo, Hex Roller, Metro X (one card at a time and handheld dry-erase boards!)

Use a Card Caddy with a traditional card game – they give a container for your deck & discard

Cinco Linko

Get the MacGuffin – can play with no table if necessary.

Tiny Ninjas is perfect for travel!

Story Cubes is a non-traditional game, but perfect for travel and for encouraging kids’ storytelling creativity.

Maybe you could try an Unlock! box – they’re designed to be reusable and not require laying out lots of cards at once.

Of course, don’t forget about app implementations of board games (pass-and-play on a phone or iPad).

And we didn’t even mention car-specific games like Cow, Tiger, Santa Claus!

What are some games you take with you traveling?

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