The best family days out in London and beyond rated by kids and teens
Published: 15th December 2015
Christmas is the perfect time to get the family together and enjoy some of those traditional board games to work off all that Christmas turkey! But if the kids are more interested in their video games than sitting round the table, don’t despair as a lot of the age old board games have been making a comeback in the digital format.
Digital Christmas games are the 21st century version of fighting over Monopoly and Quality Streets in 1982 – although you might still have to fight over the chocolates!
You don’t even have to sit at the table, you can all huddle on the sofa and play on your tablet or PC, and there’s no fear of losing any of the pieces! So you can still have a traditional family Christmas as well as embracing the digital era.
But where do you start as there’s a huge variety to choose from. There are the obvious board games such as Risk and Monopoly, but there are also some really good ones that you may not have come across.
So we asked Becs Bate who works in the Games Industry to come up with her top 10 digital board games for Christmas – guaranteed to entertain the whole family this year!
Talisman is a magical quest game (1-6 players), where you embark on a perilous adventure to find and claim the Crown of Command. You can choose to be one of many characters such as a Warrior, Sorceress, Wizard or Troll, and each has unique special powers to use throughout the fantasy land. Travel to magical places, fight dragons and witches, search for hidden treasure and collect magical artefacts along the way.
Dads may recognise this one as it’s a classic board game that’s over 30 years old, published by Games Workshop. It a great family game and parents love it because it encourages the kids to read as the cards pop up!
As it’s our Top Pick, Nomad Games have kindly provided us with a unique promotional code for 70% off the PC version.
SImply visit the website by clicking here and put in the code KIDR70 when you check out. (Valid 14/12/15 – 21/12/15).
Ticket to Ride has various missions and in order to complete the mission players must build a railway by collecting cards and connecting cities across America. The longer the routes the more points you earn, but beware your opponents can block your path.
A brilliant transition from physical to digital, Carcassonne is a tile-placement game where you build a medieval landscape by matching up the features on the cards. Points are awarded by completing structures and landmarks. Up to 5 people can play.
Another great digital version of the original board game. You spin the wheel to travel along a track, representing ‘life’, getting married, having children and retiring. Unexpected twists happen along the way, and at the end of the game you must pay off your debts and add up your wealth. Up to six players can play on this game.
Delve into the dungeons of the Old World in search of treasure and glory in Warhammer Quest, a digital adaptation of Games Workshop’s dungeon crawling fantasy board game. Lead a party of fantasy adventurers into the darkness to gain treasure, magical items and valuable experience as you face orcs, goblins, trolls and other monsters.
If you’re worried about the family falling out over losing a game then this is the one for you. It’s a wonderful co-operative board game in which everyone works together to cure four diseases that are spreading across the face of the Earth.
At the start of the game you’re allocated one of seven roles (medic, scientist etc), each with different abilities to help stop the spread of disease.
Forget Minecraft, here you get to build a farm! It’s all about ploughing fields, planting crops, building fences and breeding livestock to make your farm thrive. The aim is to have the most developed and well-balanced farm, house and family at the end of 14 turns.
But beware there are dangers across the way including the potential to starve your fellow players – but I’m sure this won’t happen on Christmas day!
You may have heard of Catan if you’re into gaming as it’s a popular classic. It’s a tactical tile-based conquest game, the aim is to get the most settlements, the longest roads and the largest army!
The best bit is no one gets knocked out and everyone has stuff they can trade with each other. But beware it can still get vicious between players!
Lords of Waterdeep is a more abstract game, as in Agricola you have a certain number of workers (in this case, ‘agents’), and you and your competitors will be placing them in what you believe to be the key action spaces on the board. The difference in this case is that instead of collecting wood and bricks, you’re collecting wizards and warriors.
You’re the manager of a fantasy quest, getting your wizards and warriors to do the work for you.
You can’t beat a good old British game and this is a true detective story, tracking down Mister X who’s traveling around London by bus, tube and taxi. Discarded tickets give clues as to his whereabouts and the detectives use their allocation of tickets to travel around and try to catch him at a station or stop.
Tags: Games
