AT Family Games

The thread about "Game Length and Box Size" might be related to this one.

Bang!
Pirate's Cove
Prophecy
Nexus Ops (not in print but pretty easy to get a hold of)

Neuroshima Hex
Cosmic Encounter (even my grandma likes this one)
Cave Troll
A Touch of Evil, And some older games like:
Crossbows and Catapults
Fireball Island (I still love both of these games despite their obvious flaws)

Wings of War.

I love Inn Fighting. Dollar for dollar, about as good as a B&P game gets in my opinion. Haven't played it with the kids though. My oldest boy is certainly ready for it.

Sag.

Drakon

ubarose wrote:

Your mention of Cave Troll made me realize that two of the games on my list are Silver Line games. Interestingly, the Silver Line description on the FFG website is definately targeted at adults playing with adults. They mention "game nights" and "co-workers." There is no mention of family (i.e. kids), although these light games are easily played and enjoyed by famlies.

It seems to me that many light Euros are marketed as family games. Is it that AT gamers are turned off by "family games"? Or maybe FFG's market is younger and aren't parents? Or maybe their market is kids, and when you market to kids, you always portray an older age group using the product?

Some families may not consider dude-killing to be an appropriate theme for a family game. Fortunately, I do [edit] not belong to such a family.

How about Risk Revised?

-Will

ubarose wrote:

I find Prophecy to be a little bit too much to be an entry level family game. What have other people experienced?

Prophecy seems more simple to me than Talisman, but I've only kind of played a Java version of Talisman, so I guess it's not a fair comparison.

ubarose wrote:

It seems to me that many light Euros are marketed as family games. Is it that AT gamers are turned off by "family games"? Or maybe FFG's market is younger and aren't parents? Or maybe their market is kids, and when you market to kids, you always portray an older age group using the product?

I think it is a combination of all the above. If you leave your descriptions vague, then people will read the vague terms, apply it to themselves and read it the way they want it. For example "game night". If a person's game night is with the family, they'll read "family game night" since that is what applies to them. If a person's game night is with peers, then they'll read "My weekly game night with friends".

Some games that I think are AT Family Friendly:
Mississippi Queen
Hellas
Babel
Okko: Era of the Asigari (sp?)
Maneouvre
Tomb
Ogre
A&A

Of course my definition of AT might be different from others.

LvT

ubarose wrote:

Your mention of Cave Troll made me realize that two of the games on my list are Silver Line games. Interestingly, the Silver Line description on the FFG website is definately targeted at adults playing with adults. They mention "game nights" and "co-workers." There is no mention of family (i.e. kids), although these light games are easily played and enjoyed by famlies.

It seems to me that many light Euros are marketed as family games. Is it that AT gamers are turned off by "family games"? Or maybe FFG's market is younger and aren't parents? Or maybe their market is kids, and when you market to kids, you always portray an older age group using the product?

I defintely think that Euro's are today's "family games" and generally AT games are for hobby gamers or teens. That is a great point. Now there are some families (like shellhead's) that do play AT games with the family. But in general the Euro's are non-threatening games that the family, the whole family (including mom and dad), can enjoy and play but I really believe that AT games are more fun for the children (if not the parents) especially these lighter ones we're talking about here. When I have my private students come over for their music lessons they eye the AT games with visible drool seeping from their pupils. You just know that they really, really want to play LNOE, or ATOE, or even Descent/Doom (what is cooler to a twelve year old boy then a big plastic mimi of a cyber demon).

These are things things that appeal to children. None of my students ask me what Agricola is about. But when they see Cosmic Encounter they all want to know. Dex games are similar. The kids I know LOVE dex games.

When I play games it's the kid in me that gets suckered in. I am looking to re-create that early experience with crossbows and catapults that I had. But today I am more discerning and I demand more game for my dollar so they have to come up with all these complicated rules that serve to further abstract my experience and eventually allow me to fall into this world and give me the feeling of that earlier experience, but not the experience itself.

These are some of the things I love about games. I'm not playing games to prove my intellectual superiority to others. I am playing them for fun. I want to have fun and I hope that all players have a roughly equal chance to win because then more people are having fun. AT games give me a chance to do that and light AT games let me do that with a wider variety of people (is there anyone who doesn't like Ca$h and Gun$?) in a shorter time period (lunch for example, just finished a quick Arctic Scavengers during my lunch here at work). I hope that Flying Frog does well as a company because I think they are doing good work for the light AT market.

This is a great topic, Uba. I remember you had a few articles reviewing these games for families, and it was great.

Memior '44
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Shadow Hunters
Ca$h & Gun$

And to add three more:

Battleball

Cutthroat Caverns

MicroMutants


Family games I view as games that don't take long to learn and anyone can learn with someone having read the rules. MicroMutants might be a bit more dexterity game--but mixed with AT. A blast with friends and kids.