Quarantine Tested Games

Name: Kiteboarding, Slack and Acro Retreat in Madagascar (SOLD OUT)
Start: 2024-10-26
End: 2024-11-02
Location: Madagascar

Home | Blog | Quarantine Tested Games

What do we do when we are not slacking, acroyoging, handstanding or climbing mountains? We play games!

Here is a growing list of our favorite games.

We’ve tested all these games on and off the road with adults and children. While traveling to distant places, with multi language players and lately during six months of quarantining and counting.

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Our ranking system

Portability

We live in a van, plus we like to travel internationally. Being able to pack a lot of fun in a small space is super important for us.
Fun and engaging for all ages

And we mean truly fun and engaging. We want to be able to play within a group of adults, children or a comp and have a very similar amount of fun. Not fun pretend here!
Works in multilingual settings

Games we can play with people of multiple languages without highly affecting or benefiting a group. A good example of not a good multilingual game is... you know it... scrabble.
Fun Factor Is Independent of Group Size

Do we need a determined group of people to play it? Can it grow or shrink depending on the group size? Would the game session be ruined if someone decides to walk away?
Transcends Time

Is this a game we will play for ages without loosing its appeal? Is so, it is a keeper. If not, it gets send to the consignment store.
Laughs per dollar

Simple. The more we like the game in relation to how economic it is.

The Games

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza

#1 In Laughs Per Dollar

Hand slapping fun. We have played hundreds of games and we still laugh so hard that our cheeks hurt more than our hands. Slap my hand away! we – mostly – don’t mind.

The Game

#1 In Collaborative Games

All players must work together to beat The Game. Players need to organize, strategize and communicate. Plus they will need to accept the fact quite often the game (life) deals you or your friends a bad hand. What would you do with that?

The same set of cards and premise can be played in different ways.

Ravine

#1 In Most Games Played in a Row

Ravine is another cooperative game. A favorite among children and teens in our family. As an adult, we also appreciate playing Ravine. But kids… kids love this game! When this game makes it to the table, we need to set a limit on the number of games we will play or we would never stop playing it.

While it can be played as a cooperative game, players get to choose to cooperate or to play ‘independently’. It sparks interesting conversations.

Ravine allows for house rules and variations which makes it extra fun and engaging.

Spot It

#1 In Transcends Time

This games transcends both time and groups size big time. One person shows up late, doesn’t matter, the game only lasts a few minutes before a new variation starts. Meaning that new players can incorporate quickly without having a disadvantaged for starting ‘late’. The set of cards offers over six different variations. Making it engaging and balanced between players. While language does makes it a bit harder, it not impossible to play it among multilingual groups.

It also comes in a waterproof edition.

Set

#1 In Multilingual Groups

The only common word you need for this game is Set. That’s it. When we were introduced to this game, the house played the game continuously for 4 days straight. If there was someone sitting at the table, they were playing the game.

Can be played alone or in large groups. Highly addictive among competitive people.

Jungle Speed

#2 In Laughs Per Dollar

Similar to Taco Goat Cheese Pizza this games is all about hand/eye coordination. We particularly enjoy playing them together, as the rules are slightly different and it makes your reactions a bit less automatic and the laughs much louder.

Dominion

Our Favorite Game of All Times

With over 5000 cards in the entire set, Dominion breaks almost all the rules we set above. It is not easy to play with large groups, is not easy to play unless you speak a common language, it is not easy to play socially, it is not necessarily fun to play with small children and is so large that is almost impossible to travel with it. But it wins on most possible ways to play. If you own all the expansions there are over 10ˆ19 or 1 quintillion possible game variations.

Yes we love Dominion.

So while it breaks almost all the rules, we felt a responsibility and a sense of duty to add it here. A good reminder that rules or guidelines are just that… feel free to break them and enjoy fun the way you want it.

We’ll let you know how we deal with all our Dominon expansions on a future article.

That’s our list!

Please let us know of any games we should try. We are always down to play a game or ten. Particularly if nachos and ginger beer are involved.