Dale Yu: Games at the Kids’ Birthday Party

Well, the boys are another year older… and the parents have managed to survive the birthday party!  This past weekend, we had the family and close friends over for a joint birthday party – as their birthdays are less than two weeks apart! 

The theme for this birthday party was “Mario Party!” as the kids have discovered a love of all things Mario.  So one night (probably induced by a fair quantity of wine), my wife and I decided that we would be able to generate enough stuff for a “Mario Birthday Party”.  After it was all said and done, I must say that it turned out to be a fairly decent success!

We were able to make party favors for the kids by going to Hobby Lobby and picking up some white painters caps, Rit dye, and some white adhesive backed felt.  We dyed the hats red and green and then made cutouts with the felt to provide the “M” and “L” insignias for the respective hats.  Unfortunately for us, we were unable to find appropriately colored overalls in red and green, so the kids were forced to wear their usual clothing.  Music was provided by a soundtrack of MIDI sound files downloaded from the Internet which played a continuous stream of Mario video game theme music.

The table was decorated with gold coins as well as some sweet homemade “question-mark boxes” that my wife devised.  There were gold stars hanging on the walls as well.  Finally, the cake was the centerpiece of the party.  It was a cutting board full of Mario Mushrooms!  The main cake was a huge “1-Up” green mushroom (get it? 1-Up?!) surrounded by a bunch of smaller red mushrooms.

Some pictures from the party:

Overall, the kids loved the theme, and the party was a success.  But what does this have to do with boardgaming?  OK, I’m getting to it… The boys are now 7 and 5, and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised with the games that they received.  First, the kids have received their fair share of traditional kids games from their friends at school – I think this year we got (another copy of) Operation and I Spy. 

However, they also received a few games that surprised me!  The boys received Blokus Trigon and Rumis (soon to be Blokus 3D).  Both games were opened quickly as the boys are huge fans of Blokus – which they received this past year at Christmas.  They seemed to get the idea of Blokus Trigon without much help from an adult.  They didn’t manage to finish the game as they were distracted by all the other toys and goodies, but I certainly am not worried that they will be able to play this one on their own.  Rumis proved to be a bit more difficult for the kids to wrap their heads around, and I suspect I’ll have to help them a bit with this one in the coming weeks.

In any event, it was nice to see that the kids game a good bit of attention to the boardgames when they got them even with Power Ranger figures and Mario-based Nintendo DS games amongst the other contenders.  Admittedly, the Nintendo DS games are getting more play than anything else right now, but I’m pretty sure that they’ll come back to the games soon.  If nothing else, it is a good sign that they have managed to keep a space in their day for boardgames!

So what did I give the kids?  I didn’t actually give them any boardgames as presents… but I did give them more access to the game closet.  The arrangement we have at home is this:  the kids have their own set of games that they are free to play with at any time.  Many of these games were given to them as presents and many of them have been moved from my game collection into theirs.  Generally, once a game gets moved into their area, I won’t get it back.  Though they’re great with the games, they are still young children and it is inevitable that a piece will go missing or something gets spilled on the board or a card manages to bend itself in half… “all by itself”!

However, the kids are running out of room in their game shelves in the kitchen (taking after their old man, for sure!) and I have been allowing them to play with some of the other games in the main collection.  The boys know which shelves they are allowed to get games from, and they pretty much leave the rest of the game closet alone.  This has worked out perfectly from my standpoint as the kids slowly are able to be exposed to new games while I don’t have to worry about the dreaded apple juice spill on my Big Boss!

This year, the kids were pretty much given free rein over the rest of the HABA games.  I had held back a few of the games which seemed a bit more advanced or that I wanted to keep in decent condition.  In the coming weeks, I’ll be able to introduce them (or re-introduce them as the case may be) to Drops and Co., Shiverstone Castle and Berg Appenzell.  Additionally, there are a few other games that I’ll likely graduate to their collection.

Well, time to re-learn the rules to Rumis so I can teach it to the boys!

Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor

© 2008 Dale Yu

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Comments:

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The mushrooms are fantastic! (And the “One Up” is very clever.) What a terrific idea for a party. Posted by David Lund on Mar 5, 2008 at 10:56 AM | #

I… love it!  I’m hiring you for my and my siblings’ birthday parties, Dale! Posted by Nathan Morse on Mar 5, 2008 at 10:03 PM | #

The kids look like they were having a ball. Way to go, Dale! Posted by William Baldwin on Mar 5, 2008 at 10:55 PM | #

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