February 18, 2024|Game School
Are you looking to add some critical thinking and strategy to your Gameschool or Family Game Night? Introduce some fun to your child’s learning and help them to expand their critical thinking skills. Here are some award winning critical thinking and strategy games that are favorites of both kids and parents.
Carcassonne – A tile-placement game that encourages strategic thinking and foresight.
Review of Carcassone
Ages 7+
“Carcassonne” is a tile-placement board game designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published by Z-Man Games. It is named after the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne in southern France, famed for its city walls. The game is celebrated for its simplicity, yet it offers considerable depth and strategic complexity.
In “Carcassonne,” players draw and place a tile with a piece of southern French landscape on it. The tile might feature a city, a road, a cloister, grassland, or some combination thereof, and it must be placed adjacent to tiles that have already been played, in such a way that cities are connected to cities, roads to roads, etc. Once a tile is placed, the player can choose to station a piece on one of the areas: knights on the cities, robbers on the roads, monks in cloisters, or farmers on the grassland. Each role scores points differently, and the landscape will evolve as the game progresses.
Here are some key points about the game:
Ease of Learning: “Carcassonne” is known for its straightforward rules, making it accessible to both casual gamers and families. The rulebook is concise, and most players can learn the game within minutes.
Strategy and Tactics: While the rules are simple, the game requires players to think strategically. Decisions about where to place tiles and how to deploy followers can have a significant impact on the final score. Players must balance short-term opportunities against long-term planning.
Replayability: The game has high replay value due to the random nature of tile drawing. No two games are the same, and there are always new strategies to explore.
Expansion Packs: There are numerous expansions available that introduce new rules, tiles, and follower types, which can keep the game feeling fresh and offer new challenges for experienced players.
Aesthetic Appeal: The game features charming artwork and sturdy, well-made tiles and pieces. The visual appeal of the expanding landscape adds to the enjoyment of the game.
Player Interaction: “Carcassonne” includes a fair amount of player interaction, as individuals compete for control over cities, roads, and fields. Smart placement of tiles can disrupt opponents’ plans, adding a layer of competition.
Scalability: The game typically supports 2 to 5 players, but it scales well in terms of enjoyment and gameplay dynamics.
Blokus – A spatial reasoning game made up of different configurations of squares that requires players to use strategic thinking and problem solving.
Review of Blokus Board Game
Ages 5+
Blokus is a strategy board game that offers a variety of educational benefits for players of all ages. Here’s a review of its educational value:
Spatial Reasoning: Blokus challenges players to fit all of their pieces onto the board. The pieces are made up of different configurations of squares, similar to Tetris shapes, which must be placed corner to corner. This encourages players to visualize spatial relationships and plan ahead, which can help develop and improve spatial reasoning skills.
Strategic Thinking: Players must think strategically about how they place their pieces to maximize space while minimizing opponents’ options. This involves foresight, planning, and sometimes, predictive reasoning about opponents’ moves.
Problem Solving: As the game progresses, the board becomes increasingly crowded, and players must solve the puzzle of how to fit their remaining pieces into the available spaces. This can foster creative problem-solving skills as players evaluate multiple options and make decisions based on the current situation.
Math Skills: The game includes geometric shapes and the concept of area, which can help reinforce geometry skills. Counting squares and understanding the grid layout can also contribute to a better grasp of basic math concepts.
Color Recognition and Differentiation: For younger players, Blokus can serve as a tool for color recognition as they learn to differentiate and identify the four different colors used in the game.
Social Skills: While not directly educational, playing Blokus can help develop social skills such as taking turns, good sportsmanship, and cooperative play if players choose to work in teams.
Concentration and Focus: A successful game of Blokus requires players to concentrate and focus on the board and their strategy, which can help improve attention span and cognitive control.
Patience and Perseverance: Players often face challenging situations where their initial strategies might not work out as planned. This can teach patience and the importance of persevering through difficult tasks.
In conclusion, Blokus is a board game that not only provides entertainment but also has significant educational value. It promotes critical thinking, problem-solving, and various cognitive skills that are beneficial for learners of all ages. It’s a great tool for educators and parents looking to enhance learning through play.
Pandemic – A cooperative game that requires players to work together to solve a global crisis, which can teach teamwork and problem-solving.
Review of Pandemic Board Game
Ages 8+
“Pandemic” is a cooperative board game designed by Matt Leacock and first published by Z-Man Games in 2008. The game is set in a world where several deadly diseases have broken out simultaneously, and players take on the roles of various specialists working together to treat infections while researching cures before the diseases spread too far and cause a global catastrophe.
Gameplay: In “Pandemic,” players must collaborate, using their unique character abilities to plan their strategy against the game’s mechanics. The game board depicts a world map with cities connected by lines, representing travel routes. Players use these routes to move between cities, treat infections, discover cures, and build research stations.
Each turn, a player can perform four actions, such as traveling between cities, treating infections, sharing knowledge (cards), or building a research station. After completing their actions, they draw two cards from the player deck, which can include city cards, special event cards, and epidemic cards that intensify the spread of diseases.
The game’s difficulty is determined by the number of Epidemic cards included in the player deck. When an Epidemic card is drawn, it increases the rate of infection and spreads the diseases more aggressively, making the game more challenging.
The diseases are represented by colored cubes, and each city on the board can hold a maximum of three cubes of a single color. If a fourth cube should be added, an outbreak occurs, spreading the disease to adjacent cities and moving the outbreak marker up a track that can lead to a loss if it reaches the end.
Winning and Losing: To win the game, players must discover cures for all four diseases, which is done by collecting and turning in sets of five like-colored city cards at a research station. The game is lost if the players run out of disease cubes to place on the board, if the outbreak marker reaches the end of its track, or if the player deck runs out of cards.
Reception: “Pandemic” has been widely acclaimed for its engaging cooperative gameplay, which requires players to work together closely to formulate plans and adapt to the ever-changing situation on the board. It has won numerous awards and spawned several expansions and spin-offs, including “Pandemic Legacy,” which adds an ongoing story and permanent changes to the game over a series of playthroughs.
The game is praised for its replay value, as no two games are the same due to the random setup and unpredictable nature of the card draws.
Catan – Teaches resource management and strategic planning.
Review of Catan Board Game
Ages 10+
Catan, formerly known as The Settlers of Catan, is a highly acclaimed board game designed by Klaus Teuber and first published in Germany in 1995. The game has since become a worldwide phenomenon, beloved for its mix of strategy, luck, and social interaction.
Gameplay Overview: Catan is a resource management game for 3 to 4 players (with expansion packs allowing for up to 6 players), where the objective is to be the first to reach a set number of victory points, typically 10 in the base game. The game board represents the island of Catan, composed of hexagonal tiles that produce five different resources: brick, lumber, wool, grain, and ore.
Players begin by placing two small settlements on the corners of the hexes, with roads leading away from them. Each turn, players roll two six-sided dice to determine which hexes produce resources. Players collect resources if they have settlements or cities adjacent to the hexes with the rolled number. These resources are used to build roads, new settlements, upgrade settlements to cities (which yield more resources), and purchase development cards that provide various benefits.
Strategic Depth: One of the key elements of Catan’s enduring appeal is its strategic depth. Players must balance their resource collection and usage, as well as strategically place their settlements and roads. Trade is a critical aspect of the game, as no player can hope to have access to all resources at all times. Negotiating with other players for key resources can be the difference between winning and losing.
Luck vs. Skill: While strategy plays a significant role in Catan, luck is also a factor due to the dice rolls that determine resource production. This can sometimes lead to frustrating situations where a player may be blocked from progress due to no fault of their own. However, this element of chance also ensures that no two games are exactly alike and allows for come-from-behind victories that keep all players engaged until the end.
Social Interaction: Catan is inherently social, as players must talk to each other to trade resources. The game fosters a dynamic atmosphere of alliances and rivalry. The infamous robber piece, which players can use to hinder opponents’ resource production, adds a layer of direct conflict that can be both fun and challenging.
Components and Design: The game’s components are well-crafted, with sturdy cardboard tiles and wooden pieces for settlements, cities, and roads.