8 fun board games for dad

Most of us have a history with board or card games. Whether it’s that time on the beach where we beat the whole family in Rio de Janeiro – all of them, of course – including our grandmother -, those weekend games of dominoes on the desk or the endless nocturnal rounds of A. These games, whether simple like memorizing or more complex like Catan, have the ability to unite us and generate moments that we will remember forever. So, if there’s a playful spirit, gifting a board game this Father’s Day—next Sunday, June 19—can be a great option.

“Board games are an ideal opportunity to share with the family, since many of them can be played by boys, girls, fathers and mothers, since they have no gender”, explains Gloria Cárdenas , creator and helmsman of the specialized podcast. the in-between . “The most important thing is that you don’t just offer a game, but that you commit to coming together and playing it,” he adds. “The gift is not only for the person who receives it, but it is also in a certain way a gift of oneself, since the idea is to accompany the person in this playful activity.”

In Gloria’s case, it was precisely her father who introduced her to a taste for board games. Since I was seven years old, whenever they could, they ran away to the countryside with their families. “We played a lot of card games, brisca, dominoes and chub.” As it was an isolated place, it was the only entertainment for many afternoons and evenings. The one who took the initiative, gave the ideas or spread the desire has always been his father, who opened the doors to this dimension he adores. “For me, when you give a game to your mom or dad, the important thing is that it comes with the desire to play it together, and thus generate an experience full of meaningful memories,” says -he.

The approach to board games for Daniel Guzmán Campos, creator of the channel playful deluge —which has many followers both in Youtube as in instagram – was in adulthood. While board games have always caught her attention, it wasn’t until a few years ago, when she attended a friend’s birthday party, that she had a mind-blowing experience: playing multiple board games in one night. “My life has changed forever,” he says. He had such a good time that he felt he had to dedicate himself to discovering this “wonderful world, where one can share a space of pleasure with others in a stimulating context and with varied themes. “.

As Gloria Cárdenas said, board games are cross-generational, and there are several games that can appeal to both children and adults. Ferpect Package is one of them: a collaborative game that unleashes creativity. What is it about? “With certain components, each player must create a plan and thus invent a story,” he explains. For example, you have to go around the world and you have a nail, a bicycle, chewing gum and a chair. “Each person creates a story based on what they have, which is why it’s so fun, because you generate weird memories like ‘do you remember the day we robbed a bank?’, ‘or the day we climbed on an ostrich to run a race?’ It’s a lot of fun,” he added.

Thinking of a game that both parents and kids can enjoy, “a title with a driving component in the middle is always a good idea, like rhino-hero, animal on animal That is Panic Mansion“says the driver of playful deluge, because these are games that children generally enjoy very much. “Although adults try to be won over, do not trust; winning will be harder than it looks.

“Ideally, for children under six years old, games should last a maximum of 20 minutes, because “their attention spans and concentration tend to be shorter. The good thing, yes, is that you can repeat the same game many times,” Daniel said in an interview we did a while ago about board games for Children’s Day.

In the same article, Cárdenas recommended rhinoceros, a game where the objective is to get rid of the cards in hand in a very simple way: build a building. The rhinoceros is personalized by means of a sculpture and hinders the construction. The loser is the one who knocks down the building and the winner is the one who gets rid of the cards before the others, without knocking down the tower.

Time is up it is a guessing game and a large number of participants may be involved. “There are cards with different concepts and it has three stages: in the first you have to define the concept and let others guess; in the second, you have to say a single concept and the rest guess, then the previous round is repeated. And the third step is mimicry,” says the voice of the in-between. There is a version of To partyfor players over 12, also an edition Familyfor over 7s, and some with specific themes, such as Harry Potter.

story cubes is another narrative game, in which by rolling the dice each player creates a story. Although the cubes are very well made, the animation depends more on the creativity of the participants than on the game itself. Its dynamic ensures that everyone participates in the same way, adults and children alike. Gloria Cárdenas recommends it, for whom its grace also lies in the number of expansions and variants the game has. “There are themed dice with different concepts, such as puzzle dice, exploration, story , sports, myths, powers and other things, and there are also many franchise dice, so you can create a story including the characters of star wars, of Batman or of adventure time”.

“Recommending a game is like recommending a meal: there’s something for everyone,” says Daniel Guzmán. The important thing is that the father in question likes to sit and play and share, which are the only requirements that cannot be compromised. For the rest, there are different sizes and varieties, more or less demanding, and which require more or less creativity. “For those inexperienced parents in this world, the game train adventurers (That is ticket to ride, in English) never fails”. It is a game for 2 to 5 players, with a suggested minimum age of 8 years and an approximate duration of between 30 and 60 minutes. It is a large map in which each participant must establish railway routes that connect different cities and meet certain objectives.A beautiful game in its details, nostalgic in its design and very entertaining in its dynamics.

If the father has extensive gaming experience and the goal is to find him a challenging title, Guzmán recommends Terraform Mars or experiences escape room, which would be “great gifts”. In the first, the story is about a colonization mission to Mars, where the participants must work together in the process of transforming this planet into a habitable, Earth-like planet, but at the same time they compete for the victory points as your gift of contributions to this new world. For more advanced players. escape roomon the other hand, is a title that can be played individually and its objective, just like in the escape rooms, is to solve riddles, riddles and puzzles in the shortest possible time.

“When I was little, I played many board games at home with my family, including brisca, a game closely associated with old people, very rural,” explains Gloria Cárdenas. If the idea is to reproduce this folkloric aura, a game with the mechanisms it suggests is Crew. “You start at a very low level, but then progress through the missions. If I’m not mistaken, there are 50. It starts out easy and then it gets complicated but very addictive, because you want to get to mission 50 quickly… But there are a lot of them! “, he expresses. For her, it’s an “incredible game, an incredible experience”.

“The UK it’s also very simple,” says Cárdenas. Here, each player must build his kingdom by removing a tile consisting of two parts. “Part of it is to make it coincide with an already localized terrain, very domino,” he explains. It is an “easy game for those who have experience in traditional games”. The good thing is that kids can play too and usually games last 20 minutes or less.

Anyway, before you go there and buy the creator of playful deluge He suggests going straight to the stores and asking the sales people, who can give better advice regarding the dynamics of each game and the audience they are targeting. “The people who work there have the best availability and the best knowledge to guide them in the best possible way,” he advises.

*Prices for products in this item are current as of June 10, 2022. Values ​​and availability subject to change.