Melissa Rogerson: When the Goal Is to Participate…

There’s an interesting thread on the Geek this week about playing games with children, questioning whether the “my two-year-old can beat me at World in Europe” claims are quite what they are cracked up to be.

Earlier this year, I posted about playing Cluedo (Clue) with both the kids. We dealt cards to me, Fraser and Biggie, and played what was really a three-player game, except that Otto rolled dice and moved her person, occasionally sucked one of us over into whatever room she was in, and was shown cards when she did. As I said at the time, by no stretch of the imagination was she playing Cluedo, but she was engaging in a family gaming activity (and loving it).

Over the past year-and-a-half, I have been asked several times about games that a much younger child (or a disabled child) can join in and play with the family—even if they are playing by different rules.

Here are some that I can think of.

Carcassonne: This one stands out as obvious. The younger child can enjoy the ‘co-operative jigsaw’ aspects of the game, while the rest of the family plays. Add a random element by giving the smallest player Meeples to play with and making the rest of the family comply with the ‘one meeple per area’ placement rules, or just ignore their Meeples and keep going.

The Bucket King: We actually tried this yesterday, by request. “I want to play the Buckets game.” Build your bucket pyramids, then each play cards in turn. But only the cards you play on your turn count. We played with hands of 7 cards and allowed play of 2 cards together to beat an 8. All stacking (and especially collapsing) rules applied. (This is a little different to the other games on the list, in that we weren’t playing by the “real” rules either)

Make ‘n’ Break: Children are surprisingly adept at building things with blocks. Don’t worry about the time limit, or give your youngest one a little longer—depending on the child, they may just be happy to build and knock down structures of their own devising until the timer rings.

Ingenious: More pattern matching—don’t bother keeping score, just take turns matching the patterns. Again, in a multi-player game, a very young child represents a random element but that can add attraction.

What other games can you think of? Remember, participation is the goal here.

Melissa

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