Another Rael find! Cheapass Games — imaginative, simply-produced board, dice, and card games (and even a few computer games). From the site:
Cheapass Games come with the bare essentials: boards, cards, and rulebooks. If you need anything else, we'll tell you. And it's probably something you can scrounge from a game you already own, or buy at a hobby store for less than "they" are charging you for it. Heck, if you need to, you can even buy the parts from us.
Dip your toe in by downloading some free games. Hours of fun here.
We LOVE Cheapass Games. They kept us entertained through grad school. Everyone should read the premise of Kill Doctor Lucky to see how funny and different these games are!
Give Me The Brain and Lord of the Fries are fast paced card games that combine zombies with working in fast food restaurants.
I have a friend who swears by Cheapass Games. I bought Save Doctor Lucky (as opposed to the companion game, Kill Doctor Lucky).
They’re more interesting than the stock board games everyone else owns, and they take up little space. Doctor Lucky is a 6″x9″ box, only a half inch tall. Oh, and you’ll never see a Cheapass game branded with Dora or Thomas (out of principle, but also because they’re for an older age group).
Hooray for board games!
It’s great that this is made the PH. For excellent reviews of all 108 (yes, one hundred and eight) of their games, check out:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/publisher/12
One caveat is that most of these would not work with pre-school age kids. Reading, math and logic is required and they aren’t games designed to teach them.
… and while we’re on the subject of kid’s games, this is an excellent site for finding age/skill appropriate games: http://www.kidgameratings.com/index.aspx
It’s well reviewed and it offers much, much more than you can find at your local Target or even game/toy store.
I’ve been a board game enthusiast for years and am very excited that my son is getting to an age where we can start playing them together!
We love the Cheapass games too — they’re elegantly designed and fun to play. However, I really wish they’d use some of the great game mechanics in games whose art and themes are more kid-friendly. The zombie-in-the-restaurant ones mentioned above, for example, are really clever, but bright young kids who would enjoy the game may be a little freaked out by the art (I know ours would be).
Cheapass games rock! We’ve been playing them for years and now the ability to download some for free… wow!
Bob-
Thanks for taking the time to post those links! We are a family who loves to play games with our kids, but I’ve never thought of looking for reviews so that we can bypass the lame ones.