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It’s hard to believe we have yet another school Summer holiday coming upon us and the concern for all parents on how we keep our children entertained for the 6-week break. This is now something that has become relevant to me as I have a child at nursery and they break for the 6 weeks as well. Going forward with the school years to come it will also be oh so relevant. I approached the Zatu team for ideas of games to play with our young ones and we thought it would be a great idea to produce an up to date feature for 2023, Summer Holiday Board Games. Every year new games are produced so we thought we would share our idea’s with parents everywhere and hopefully inspire you to pick up a new game or 2 that the children can enjoy this holiday. Here are the ideas from the Zatu blogging team.
Junk Art - Dan Street-Phillips
Age range 8+
My nephew (now 9) has loved board games for years. It has become an ongoing thing that ‘Uncle Dan will always have a new cool game to try when he visits’, and when I visit I try and push him as much as possible. When he was a bit younger he was incredibly fidgety, he still is now, but back then he really was uncontrollable and so it made it my mission to use his love of board games to try and focus him. Junk Art is one of my husband’s favourite dexterity games.
Not only are the wooden pieces very tactile and fun to play with but in the box are dozens of different types of mini games you can play. The basic concept is you are building sculptures for a worldwide wide art tour using a wide variety of oddly shaped blocks of different colours. Each game offers different victory and loss conditions but in general, build tall and don’t let it fall over.
I placed this in front of the then 7-year old and the first thing he wanted to do was build. Kids love building! Lego has made one of the most successful businesses out of that fact. Watching him get frustrated when things didn’t go to plan and then try again and again until he got the highest structure was so satisfying. There is something so creatively freeing about simply stacking strange shapes and finding new and creative ways to get taller than anyone else’s stack. I am not a dexterity fan, probably because of my giant clumsy hands, but there is something about Junk Art that charms its way into any age group and just works. It has that Jenga effect of schadenfreude but there are also cooperative mini games that allow you to celebrate the win together and what makes a better family game than that!
Sea Salt & Paper – Andy Broomhead
Age range 8+
There’s nothing that says holiday quite like being at the beach. The sea, the salty air and the er… paper you brought with you to practice your origami…
I think this ticks all the boxes for a good holiday game. It’s a small box card game so it’s easy to pop in a bag for a day out, it’s colourful and has some of the best artwork I’ve ever seen, and it’s easy to learn and play, being rated for anyone aged 8+.
It’s a set collection game, collect particular groups of cards to score points and points win you prizes, like on the arcades while you’re licking the sugar off your fingers after a donut. Points also win you the game of course. There are a few cards that you need to pair up before scoring, but these also offer an additional ability such as drawing another card, stealing from your opponent or taking a whole extra turn.
Rounds can end as soon as someone has seven points and games are played to 30, 35 or 40 points depending on player count.
But there’s a delicious twist, like the raspberry sauce running down your melting 99. You can initiate some push your luck by giving all your opponents one last turn each to beat the score you declare. If they don’t, you score extra points equal to the most number of cards with the same colour in your hand. If they do beat you, you only score the bonus. Knowing when to stop and when to push on is a skill.
Sea Salt & Paper is one of my favourite games of this year and it’s been on every trip we’ve taken. I’d encourage you to drop a copy in your bag too!
Azul – David Ireland
Age range 8+
I only learnt how to play this game recently at the UK board game Expo in June this year. I was hooked from the off and have played a few times since, as well as this game now being on my own personal wishlist.
It may look a little daunting at first as the first as the colourful mosaic patterns are stunning and really catch the eye. What then surprised me was how easy the rules were to pick up and get to grips with. By the end of the first game I fully understood what I was trying to do and was all set to play again! (sadly, I couldn’t as more people were waiting to try it.) It really was that good and easy to pick up.
The game is for 2 to 4 players. All players have a board of play in front of them, and pending how many players are participating will depend on how many tile factories are placed in the middle of the board. You have a bag full of tiles (5 different colours). Each factory produces 4 tiles at the start of a players turn, players then take tiles off of them to get ready to fit on their board and score points. The process then repeats until a player completes a horizontal row triggering the final round of the game. Count up final scores with bonuses and you will have your winner.
This is a game a really like, it has a reasonably simple set of rules but a lot of depth for strategy to try to win the game. This game notes for 8+ which I think is about right for this one. If your child is bright and good at problem solving then potentially 6+ with some support. However also a great game for teenagers at secondary school age. Give it a try this Summer.
My First Castle Panic – Jacob Dunkley
Age Range 3+
My son has always taken an avid interest in my board game collection so I made sure I did plenty of research on what would be a good starting point for his board gaming journey, settling on My First Castle Panic. What initially drew me to this game was the co-operative nature of the game, and the lack of in-game text meaning for reception year children this is perfect.
Like its bigger brother, simply titled Castle Panic, the ‘My First’ edition sees you stopping hordes of monsters from following a patch trying to reach your castle. In this game, each player will draw a card to add the one already in their hand and they can choose to play one of their cards or ask a friend at the table to use a card they have. These cards have a combination of either a circle, triangle or square (or some with all three), and a colour matching the colours and symbols the tiles monsters may be occupying on the board. When you play a card matching an occupied space, that monster is thrown in the dungeon, and at the end of the turn a new monster is drawn and all those that are left move towards the castle. If both the wall and castle are knocked down, the monsters win and if you send all the monsters in the pile to the dungeon you collectively win.
Despite the age rating on the box which is 4+, my son was able to pick up the rules at 3 and a half and is able to play independently and make his own decisions, or sometimes already trying to make our decisions when we play with him. This game is a fantastic entry point at teaching both strategy and co-operation and although there is an element of luck this game doesn’t feel as random as other games aimed at a younger audience where everything comes down to the roll of a die. This hits the table regularly with my son and he absolutely loves it which is the only seal approval I need.
DODO – Favouritefoe
Age range 6+
School holidays were the best of times and the worst of times in my house. 9 weeks of hot, lesson free days sounded fun, but it was tricky to fill them all with excitement! Had DODO by Kosmos Games been on my shelf back then, however, there would have been no reason at all to moan!
DODO is an absolutely brilliant family game. Colourful and co-operative, you’re working together to save the silly bird’s wibbly wobbly egg from doom. It’s a super fun race against gravity and combines dexterity and memory as well as the chance to work together. The rules are super simple and it’s one of those games where parents and older kids will definitely want to join in too. Dice rolls determine what tools you need to place a bridge along the mountain side, but you’ve got to remember whereabouts the matching icons are on the table! As such, hopefully someone was paying attention when tokens were flipped last turn!
You might be out of luck though because the way in which the wibbly wobbly egg speeds up and slows down as it makes its way down towards the watery depths below is both mesmerising and mega exciting! It’s like watching fire crackle on a bonfire…you want to draw your eyes away, but you can’t! So, if fellow players have no idea where those tools are, you can’t really blame them! Haha.
As the egg keeps a pace and threatens to overtake the bridge building efforts, it’s hand in your mouth tense in the most fun way! And I wish I had school holidays right now so that I could spend my days DODO-ing crazy!
Molkky – Max Davie
Age range 6+
When the weather gets warm, most 'normal' people gravitate outside. Of course, as dedicated gamers we see no problem with remaining indoors, undercoating some orcs on the sunniest, most pleasant day of the year.
One excuse we could plausibly offer for our mole-like aversion to the sun is that outdoor games are usually just… bad. Pure contests of dexterity or agility, which can only be described as a 'great leveler' by someone who has never been picked last for football. And we gamers all have.
Thank heavens therefore, for Mollky.
Mollky is a form of skittles, with its origins in Finland. Twelve numbered skittles, valued from 1 to 12, are packed in a tight formation, and either individuals or teams take it in turns to hurl a baton at the skittles. A score is calculated, the skittles are placed upright where they fell, and someone else has a go. The flow of the game really couldn't be simpler.
So what's the hook? There are two things really.
Firstly, the progression. From a tight ball of skittles, the game progresses over time so they become more spread out and, sadly, further away. So after a while a decision needs to be made as to which particular ones to target.
This decision is determined by a deviously clever scoring system. If you knock over one skittle, you score the value of that skittle. If you knock over several, you score the number of skittles you knock over. This has two effects. One is that isolated high value skittles get targeted, and frequently pushed progressively further away. The second is that even if you're not great at throwing, whacking it into the main group is a safe (but unspectacular) bet until quite late in the game.
The endgame conceals a further twist. The winning score is exactly 50. Any higher and your score gets reset to 25. This means that a clear winning margin can be instantly overturned by an overambitious toss. So what starts as a breezy chucking session becomes tense and exciting, before a final moment of triumph when someone manages just the right throw.
It’s so much fun, you will forget you are engaged in a contest of physical skill. So put down that orc and join in!
Have A Great Summer
We hope the team have inspired you to try a new game this school Summer holiday. Have a wonderful break.