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A Fun Board Game for Couples Date Night

It’s date night and you’re looking for a great board game for couples. What will you choose from the many possibilities? Choose Kingdomino Duel!

In case you aren’t familiar with the Kindomino realm, Kingdomino Duel is a two-player spinoff “roll and write” game of the infamous Kingdomino board game.

Board Game For Couples Date Night: Kingdomino Duel Roll and Write

In Kingdomino Duel, players take turns rolling custom dice to choose how the images on those dice will form a domino, but not like the old dots you see on regular dominoes. These images represent possible kingdom sections that each player chooses in order to score at the end. So if you look at both of the die together, it forms a domino. Interesting concept, right?

Kingdomino Duel dice as dominos as a board game for couples date night

scoresheets and dice board game for couples date night Kingdomino Duel

So why is Kingdomino Duel perfect for couples date night? Here are a few reasons:

It is easy enough to begin playing, yet takes a strategy to win, adding to that push-pull type of gaming where the competition is there, in a friendly way. This makes it a great game for couples who are looking for a fun and engaging challenge.
It’s a pretty fast game. Kingdomino Duel takes around 20-30 minutes to play, which is great on date night. Plus, the game’s smaller size and its easy to take along with you, so you can play at home, or wherever your date night might take you.
It’s visually stunning. The artwork in Kingdomino Duel is has 0vibrant colors and charming illustrations that bring the game’s world to life and brings a relaxing mood to your date night.
It’s competitive and fun! Race to see who gets to use the wizard’s help with bonus abilities! When it comes to competitive games, keeping it playful helps to elicit that push-pull mechanism of interaction which is great for a date night.

There’s much more to say, but why read when you can be on a date, and playing a great game?! Enjoy!

board game for couples date night Kingdomino Duel scoresheet and dice

King of Tokyo Board Game: Developing Empathy Social Skills for 10 Year Olds

King of Tokyo is definitely one of our favorite games due to its simplicity and constant action.

It also has some great potential in terms of developing social skills for 10 year old’s. Empathy is a key social skill that develops during this age and here are some ways that King of Tokyo helps develop the social skill of empathy:

Perspective Consideration: Since each player controls a character/monster, there is the opportunity to explore distinct abilities and reactions. The variety of different character play helps children better understand how we are all different in many ways. We all have different weaknesses, strengths, abilities, etc. And learning while playing makes the environment fun! The benefit from this is empathy development through understanding various perspectives of others.
Collaboration: King of Tokyo is a competitive game by design, however, there are opportunities of collaboration where players can choose to work together to team up against a common enemy (in gameplay with more than 2 players). This can be to defeat the other player or to defend against that other player in an agreed upon alliance. This can really benefit children by helping them understand that others have needs as well, and that there can be mutual benefit from alliances.
Good Sportsmanship: Since the object of the board game King of Tokyo is to have a single winner, it is considered a competitive game. Some players will lose while one player will win. Experiencing both can help define how a 10 year old learns to respond to that fact. One idea to help support this kind of thinking is to understand that it is a game and fun should be had by all regardless of who wins, and to learn to be happy for others when they win, and support them. And to expect that same kind of response from others is a good focus that helps to overall build a sense of fair play and good sportsmanship.
Emotional Intelligence Development: Due to its fast paced nature of decision making and risk analysis, King of Tokyo can create an emotional experience for children. This creates the opportunity for recognition and self-regulation of their own emotions while observing the emotional response of others playing the game.

For these reasons, King of Tokyo is a great way to explore the social skill of empathy not only for 10 year old’s, but players of all ages!

King of Tokyo: Board Games for 10 Year Olds

King of Tokyo is a fun, fast paced game that we enjoy having our on shelf and it also a great game for social skills development for 10 year olds.

And these same social skills can also be developed in players of all ages!

Here are some social skills that this game helps to develop:

Taking turns: Players will learn how to take turns when playing the game, which is an important social skill.
Patience: Each time it is another player’s turn, this teaches other players to wait for their next turn.
Communication: In this game, communication occurs throughout the various stages from working out a strategy with another player to defeat a common enemy or some good ol’ fun loving (and not mean) trash-talking, such as, “Alienoid is going to totally smash Gigazaur!”
Sportsmanship: Notice the game is called KING of Tokyo, not “KINGS”, meaning there will only be ONE winner. This mechanic teaches players how to win and lose, gracefully, and remember, there can always be a rematch!
Strategic thinking: Personal strategy as well as “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy development can unfold and helps players with problem solving and a bit of negotiation.
Empathy: By playing the game and putting themselves in the shoes of the monsters they are playing, children can develop empathy for others.
Decision-making: All of the strategy in the world won’t help until a decision is made, such as attack, or defend. This game is full of opportune moments in which to develop this valuable skill, and quickly.
Negotiation: When playing with more than 2 players, negotiation skills come in handy to decide if a temporary truce and alliance might be made to take out the current monster within Tokyo City.
Adaptability: With each battle comes the need to develop the skill to adapt to the situation that just occurred and what situations might be about to occur as well. For example, one monster might cause another monster to want to leave Tokyo City, and this can force a previously made strategy to be re-examined before the next round.
Socialization: It would be an odd game if King of Tokyo was played in silence, and why would anyone do that when there are lots of opportunities to socialize, make monster sounds, declare victories, and more! This game leaves plenty of opportunity for good socialization skills to develop.

King of Tokyo is a great board game for 10 year olds and all ages above 8 according to the box and our experience : )

Dice Board Games: Dice City

A roll of the dice can change everything in this fun dice board game of strategy to build the best city in the land.

And why build the best city? So that it can become the new capital of the Kingdom of Rolldovia by decree of the Queen. That kingdom’s history includes a former capital that was ransacked by bandits and now it is up to you to gain the most victory points in order to be recognized by the Queen.

And this is achieved by simply managing your resources, constructing buildings, and even building your army as needed, so that your city shines brighter than your competition’s.

What will YOUR Dice City be like?

Dice Games: Go Nuts!

The things we really like about dice games is that they are usually quick plays and can also be a good warm-up game before diving in deeper to a more involved board game.

Who doesn’t love a face paced game where each roll of the dice leads to victory…or defeat?!

“Go Nuts!”, by Gamewright Games, will not disappoint, and is fun for all ages due to its simplicity. Gamewright is one of our favorite game publishers and we’ll have to do a post just about our collection here soon to show our true fandom, right?

Roll the dice to see how many acorns you can get, but any cars you roll get taken away, and then if you roll only squirrels, you shout “Go Nuts!” and competing players role their “dog die” until it lands on the dog, not the dog house, and they shout, “Woof Woof!” and at the same time, the person who just rolled all squirrels is now starting from zero to see how many acorns they can roll before the shout of “Woof Woof!” is heard.

It’s lots of fun and easy to play!

Star Wars Clue: A Space Board Game

Looking for a different spin on the classic game of Clue? Check out the Star Wars version, making the classic version now become a space board game!

In the Star Wars Clue space board game, your detective skills must remain sharp to figure out three important things:

What planet is Darth Vader planning to destroy next?
What room on the Death Star has the plans?
How will you escape the Death Star once you have discovered the above 2 items?

C-3PO shown with the winning guess from our last game: Darth Vader plans to destroy Tatooine, the plans of the Death Star are in the Docking Bay, and the escape method is the Y-Wing

We really love the 3 dimensional aspect of this game shown below:

Characters in the game are:

Princess Leia
Chewbacca
Han Solo
Luke Skywalker
C-3PO
R2-D2 (my favorite!)

Characters to choose from in Star Wars Clue

Flatline: A Space Board Game Emergency!

Beep…Beep…Beep…Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep……

This is the sound of an emergency room…on your space ship…in outer space!

Flatline is the sequel to the ever popular space board game/space dice game Fuse! For the explosives you weren’t able to defuse in Fuse, you now must tend to the aftermath of those explosions on your ship in the form of an Emergency Room team!

In this cooperative game, take a look at the carnage, make a plan, start the 1 minute timer, roll the dice and do your best to save as many patients as you can each round.

Just like its predecessor, Fuse, Flatline is intense and requires quick decision making skills to save as many of your crew as you can within the amount of energy your ship has, and with the resources you and your Emergency Room crew have at their disposal.

We love the fast paced action of this game, and its dice rolling mechanic as well.

Emergency room layout which has changing resources each round to make this a fun high energy game for all ages

Space Board Game Dice Game: Fuse!

A favorite quick playing space board game/space dice game of ours is

Fuse: A Cooperative Game!

In Fuse, intruders have landed on your space ship and have planted explosives that you have to defuse, and quickly! How quickly? You have 10 minutes!

space board game coop game solo player game

So what do you do exactly in 10 minutes? Use your quick thinking in this cooperative game to make the dice rolls useful for defusing the explosives, and watch out! There are cards that make them explode even more quickly than expected!

This game is packed with lots of action in just a short amount of time. We usually play it at least twice, and get better with each time we play.

With 1-5 player modes available, this makes for a great gateway game for newer players since it is short, yet intense, leaving lots of room for replay and solo play.

In this photo, you can see that different cards (bombs) have different requirements for defusing them (using dice combinations)

Note: There is an app that you CAN use for this game, but any 10 minute method of timing will do the trick. I do like the app though so it is worth checking out, and it is free!

A Space Board Game of Epic Proportions

Space board games are a lot of fun for us because we really enjoy sci-fi and space exploration. Tiny Epic Galaxies allows us to go on an adventure of exploring unknown planets while conquering territories and ultimately becoming the best space explorer of the day!

The fate of each galaxy per round is determined by selecting the right options from dice rolls at the right time, while paying attention to competing galaxies and ultimately becoming the winner

So what is so epic about it? For us, it is so much game play possibilities packed inside a small package that is sure to please.

And, it can be played as a single player board game, all the way up to 5 players!

In Tiny Epic Galaxies, by Gamelyn Games, you have:

a home galaxy card
rockets used to explore multiple planets (up to 4 rockets as you upgrade your home galaxy)
the ability to maintain energy levels
the ability to piggy back off of competing explorers actions
and so much more, all in less than an hour of game time on average

Gamelyn Games once again does not disappoint due to their high quality of pieces, artwork, and overall experience. If you don’t own a copy of this space board game, you need to get it today, for less than $30!