Educational board games for adults
Board Games for Adults? Yes.
The world of modern board games isn't just for kids anymore. Board gaming has evolved into a serious hobby, so it's no surprise that young adults and adults have become an important target group for publishers. What sets games for adults apart isn't just the theme, but also the complexity of the game mechanics and the specificity of the skills and abilities required by the gameplay. A communication party game based on associations, for example, demands a certain level of abstraction and vocabulary.
Take, for example, a game like 'Outfoxed!.' Although it's a delightful game, its simplicity and easy-to-play mechanism may not fully engage adults and meet their gaming expectations. (Of course, we are always happy to play with children too.) Thus, it’s crucial to find games that challenge adults while being enjoyable and engaging at the same time.
When putting together the following list, we focused on popular games that also provide a proper challenge for adults. We've gathered links, brief rule descriptions, and basic characteristics for each game, helping anyone find their preferred path to dive into the world of modern board games. Additionally, we've included a few true classics that may not always hold up in the modern world but still have a strong nostalgic value for many.
From Successes to Children's Games
In recent years, it has become increasingly popular to create children's versions of successful games originally aimed at adults. And many of these have turned out quite well.
Cascadia
Cascadia is an engaging and accessible board game that invites players to explore and enjoy the diverse habitat of the Pacific Northwest. With its easy-to-understand rules and mechanics, players, including bigger kids, are quickly captivated. The game involves selecting a tile/token combination on each turn and placing it on your individual landscape board. By organizing the tiles and appealingly rendered wildlife tokens to form contiguous patterns, players increase their scores and really get a sense of developing a lush, interconnected ecosystem.
One of the strengths of Cascadia is its straightforward gameplay which offers fun and educational experiences, even for beginners. It delivers simple but meaningful decisions, which can cultivate strategic thinking. However, the scoring process can be a little complex to grasp at first, particularly for younger players.
All you need comes neatly packed in the game box - vibrant landscape tiles, wildlife tokens, along with player and scoring boards. Even though it's easy enough for bigger kids to learn, even adults will find it captivating. This balancing act ensures that Cascadia delivers an enriching gaming experience across different age groups, fostering knowledge and appreciation for nature's delicate ecosystems.
Dixit
Dixit is a wonderfully crafted, imaginative board game that fuels creativity and interpretation through storytelling. During gameplay, players take turns being the 'storyteller', describing a card in their hand with a phrase, word, or sentence. The other players then select a card from their hands that best match the description, and the cards are shuffled and revealed for everyone to vote on which card they believe was the storyteller's.
A prominent advantage of Dixit is its encouragement of creative thinking and communication skills, making it both educational and fun. However, for those who struggle with interpretation and abstract thought, the game may initially be challenging.
The game box includes everything you need to play: a pile of gorgeous, large-format cards imbued with dreamlike illustrations, voting tokens, and rabbit-shaped scoring tokens for each player.
Recommended for bigger kids and adults, Dixit can be enjoyed by those who love using their imagination, thrives on subtlety, and enjoys a light-hearted, creative gaming experience. In my experience, it's an excellent game to cultivate storytelling and interpretation skills in a fun and unique way.
Pandemic
Pandemic is a unique, cooperative board game where players team up to fight global disease outbreaks and work towards the shared goal of discovering cures. The game progresses by players drawing cards representing various abilities and infections. On each turn, a player can take up to four actions: travel, treat diseases, exchange knowledge, or cure a disease.
The standout advantages of Pandemic are its emphasis on teamwork and cooperative strategy and its high replay value due to the unpredictability of outbreaks. It also has educational benefits by increasing awareness about pandemics and diseases. However, it can be quite challenging, and a string of bad luck can make a game feel frustratingly impossible to win.
Included in the game box are a world map game board, cards for player actions, infection rates, and epidemics, as well as cubes representing diseases, and game pieces (pawns) to represent each player.
Pandemic is a great fit for bigger kids and adults due to its complex strategy and higher difficulty level. My experience with this game in various learning groups has shown me that it's an excellent tool for teaching players about cooperation, strategy, and decision-making, contributing to both their cognitive and social development. Plus, it's always a lot of fun when everyone gets into the spirit of saving the world together!
Patchwork
Patchwork is a two-player game that merges the calming art of quilting with strategic gameplay, an interesting dichotomy that sets it apart. Primarily, players are tasked to build the most aesthetically pleasing and point-efficient quilt on a personal game board representing the "quilt board".
To play it, players take turns choosing and buying patch pieces with time and buttons—the currency of the game—and placing them on their game board. Strategy comes into play when choosing which pieces to buy and where to fit them on your board. The game concludes when both players reach the center of the "time board," and the player with the most buttons wins.
The game holds many pros, such as simple rules that are easy to understand, a modest playtime, and an engaging 2-player gameplay that can help facilitate a healthy competitive spirit. The cons are minor in comparison, with occasional slow start times and it being primarily a 2-player game, limiting larger group participation.
The tools you need come with the game itself, which includes quilt patches (polyomino pieces), the time board, button tokens, and two quilt boards.
Even though Patchwork involves strategic decision-making, its simple rules and playful theme make it incredibly accessible and fun for bigger kids, effectively blending education and entertainment. The pleasingly challenging gameplay also keeps adults engrossed, making Patchwork a compelling choice for some one-on-one family game time
Wavelength
Wavelength is an innovative and social guessing game that tests your ability to connect and think in sync with others. At the heart of the game is an intriguingly designed dial that oscillates between two opposite ideas. The game's rule involves a team's "psychic" getting a card with a spectrum-based topic (for example, "dry to wet") and spinning a dial hidden behind a screen to a specific point. The psychic must then give a clue linked to where they have set the target, and the team guesses where the target is.
One notable pro for Wavelength is that it encourages creative thinking and can lead to profound and amusing conversations, making it a fun and educational group activity. The only con might be that the gameplay can be quite subjective and not everyone might agree with the given 'clues'.
In terms of game materials, Wavelength comes with everything you need to play the game, including the dial game board, a screen to keep your target hidden, cards with the spectrum topics, and scoring tokens.
Designed to engage and challenge larger groups, Wavelength can certainly be enjoyed by bigger kids who can read and string abstract ideas together, all the way to adults. From my experience, it sparks lively debates that reveal much about others’ thought processes, building understanding and connections. Whether it's a family game night or a casual group meet, Wavelength promises to deliver an intriguing blend of intuition, deduction, and loads of laughter.
The Benefits of Board Gaming in Older Age
Discover the joy and benefits of board gaming for the older generation. In this article, we explore how board games can sharpen the mind, enhance social interactions, and bring a new depth to family relationships. From engaging strategy games to creative storytelling, find out how these games can be a source of fun, cognitive stimulation, and bonding for players of all ages.
Classics
Blokus
Blokus is an engaging strategy board game that is as vibrant and competitive as it is brain-teasing. This easy-to-learn game, while aimed at bigger kids and adults, provides an ideal pastime for families too. The goal of the game is rather simple - each player has 21 pieces in different shapes and sizes and has to strategically place as many as they can on the game board. The catch is that every subsequent piece must touch another piece of the same color but solely at the corners.
What I value most about Blokus as a board game aficionado and educator is that it offers the perfect blend of visual spatial skills development and strategic planning in an enjoyable format. However, a word of caution, the game can get intensely competitive with more players, which might not be to everyone's liking.
Included within the Blokus game set are the game board and 84 vibrantly colored game pieces in four distinct colors—blue, green, yellow, and red. There's no need for any extra gaming accessories.
In my experience, Blokus is an excellent selection for a diverse age range. The straightforward yet captivating rules can quickly attract younger players, while adults will appreciate the growing complexity as the game advances. As an educational tool, it promotes strategic thinking while ensuring loads of fun, making it a go-to game for many, myself included.
Catan
Catan, previously known as "Settlers of Catan", is a multi-player board game designed around building, gathering, and trading resources in order to establish dominance on the island of Catan. Players collect resources such as wheat, wood, brick, sheep, and ore depending on the result of a dice roll and the placement of their settlements and cities on the game board which is filled with hexagon tiles representing these resources.
The beauty of Catan lies in its strategic depth coupled with simple gameplay mechanics, offering a rewarding experience that balances elements of luck and strategy. However, the reliance on dice rolls and the necessity of trading with opponents can sometimes lead to uneven pacing and moments of frustration if luck doesn't favor you.
The Catan game box comes with all the required elements: a modular game board, cards representing resources, and wooden game pieces depicting roads, settlements, and cities.
While the game is simple enough for bigger kids to understand, it also offers a level of complexity that keeps adults engaged, making it great for a wide age range. My experience using Catan in teaching environments has shown it to be both fun and educational, fostering critical thinking, decision-making, and negotiation skills among players.
Monopoly
Monopoly is a classic board game that combines strategy, chance, and the principles of real-estate trading. Players roll two six-sided dice to move around the game board, buying and trading properties, and developing them with houses and hotels. Players collect rent from their opponents, with the goal being to drive them into bankruptcy.
The pros of Monopoly include stimulating strategic thought, negotiation skills, and financial literacy. However, the game tends to run on the long side and can test the patience of younger players. It can also elicit competitive behavior which could lead to disagreements, albeit in a game-related context.
Monopoly comes with a game board, two six-sided dice, tokens representing players, cards for "Chance" and "Community Chest", title deed cards for each property, play money, plastic houses and hotels.
Ideal for bigger kids due to the level of strategy involved and the financial concepts at play, Monopoly also enjoys popularity among adults, due to the nostalgia factor and its capacity for deep gameplay. From my experience of using board games as educational tools, Monopoly offers a fun, interactive way to teach kids about money management, property investment, and strategic planning.
Risk
Risk is a classic strategy board game focused on world domination. Players start with armies assigned based on the number of territories they own, and they strive to conquer additional territories through battle, which is dictated by dice rolls. The ultimate goal is to capture every territory on the board and eliminate the other players.
Pros of playing Risk include the development of strategic thinking and planning skills. The game also encourages diplomacy, as forming temporary alliances can be crucial for success. However, a significant disadvantage is its long play time, which can often stretch into hours. Plus, the luck involved in dice rolling can sometimes overshadow player strategy.
Required tools come within the Risk game box, which includes a world map game board, dice, and different colored tokens representing each player’s armies.
Recommended for bigger kids and adults due to its militaristic theme and complex strategy, Risk offers an immersive gaming experience. In my experience of teaching kids with games, Risk can be a great choice to help them understand the implications of strategic planning, the balance of power, and the unpredictability of outcomes, all while providing robust entertainment.
Scrabble
Scrabble is undoubtedly a classic in the realm of board games, combining language skills with strategic thinking. The game revolves around creating words on the game board using letter tiles. Each player starts with seven tiles, and on their turn, they must form a word on the game board, attaching to the words already played in a crossword-like fashion. Each letter has a different point value, and the player who gets the highest points wins.
A few advantages of playing Scrabble include improving vocabulary and spelling, encouraging strategic thinking, and providing an entertaining and sociable gaming experience. However, it can be challenging for those not so confident in their language skills, hence potentially discouraging younger players. Additionally, games can sometimes be slow, especially when players take a long time to think of words.
Scrabble comes complete with a game board, 100 letter tiles, a bag for storage, and four tile racks for players. For keeping score, you'll need a pencil and paper, which are not included in the set.
Scrabble is an excellent tool for bigger kids to learn new words in a fun environment and also suitable for adults looking for a thought-provoking game. From my experience, it is not only an entertaining way to engage kids, but it also helps in teaching them strategic decision-making and spelling skills.
