Summary: <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> It’s the week of Valentine’s Day, and it got us thinking about games that work well for date night.<br> <br> <br> <br> What makes a good game for date night? What are a few of our favorites?<br> <br> <br> <br> Thanks to listener Kyle Nelson for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/familygamersaa/permalink/2526902284265913/">asking a question</a> that inspired this topic.<br> <br> <br> <br> What We’ve Been Playing<br> <br> <br> <br> We’re finally catching up from Andrew being sick, so not a lot of time for games.<br> <br> <br> <br> Bon Appetit! (see below)<br> <br> <br> <br> Kintsugi – one of Anitra’s favorites to carry around<br> <br> <br> <br> Filler – one of Claire & Anitra’s favorites to play together (<a href="http://www.thefamilygamers.com/snap-review-filler-game/">our review</a>).<br> <br> <br> <br> Pocket Ops – a tic-tac-toe game where you predict where the other player will go.<br> <br> <br> <br> Tussie Mussie – coincidentally, a great date game!<br> <br> <br> <br> Dungeon Academy – fast-paced roll and write game from the OP (our review).<br> <br> <br> <br> Andrew also taught Sagrada, Drop It, Quacks of Quedlinburg, and Spaceteam at our hosted game night.<br> <br> <br> <br> For Science!<br> <br> <br> <br> We tried Mountain Dew Maui Burst (it’s pineapple flavored). If you enjoy Mountain Dew, you’d probably like it – we certainly enjoyed it but wouldn’t seek it out again.<br> <br> <br> <br> “That weird yellow flavor that Mountain Dew has… It tastes like yellow 5!”Anitra<br> <br> <br> <br> (Correction: we called it Maui Blast, but it’s actually Maui Burst.)<br> <br> <br> <br> SNAP Review – Bon Appetit!<br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="http://www.thefamilygamers.com/bon-appetit/"></a><br> <br> <br> <br> We review this short but fancy bidding game from Strawberry Studio. Can you accumulate the most exquisite meal by bidding at the right time with your hand of gems?<br> <br> <br> <br> See our <a href="http://www.thefamilygamers.com/bon-appetit/">SNAP review</a> for a summary and more pictures.<br> <br> <br> <br> What makes a good date night game?<br> <br> <br> <br> Generally we’re thinking about games that are fairly portable and play very well at two players. But there’s more to date night than just portability and player count.<br> <br> <br> <br> A good game for date night:<br> <br> <br> <br> Fosters communication<br> <br> <br> <br> You have to be able to talk to each other while you’re playing. The whole point of a date is to interact with each other!<br> <br> <br> <br> Perfect information games (nothing hidden) can be really good for this. If you get caught up in conversation and later return to the game, it’s less of a struggle to remember your strategy and what information you knew before.<br> <br> <br> <br> Isn’t (too) combative<br> <br> <br> <br> On date night, we stay away from themes that are heavy or combative. Growing the best trees or feeding your “flock” has a different feel than a fighting game where you beat down your opponent. Especially stay away from games where you “bleed” your opponent slowly.<br> <br> <br> <br> For example: Onitama is a two-player game where you will take your opponent’s pieces, but that’s not the main goal.<br> <br> <br> <br> Doesn’t dominate the table<br> <br> <br> <br> We circle back to portability. “The box could be big, but the table presence can’t be.” Date night games are not just about the game, so you don’t want it to take over the table.<br> <br> <br> <br>
