Summary: <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Like many families around the world, we’ve been suddenly pushed into some kind of homeschooling with our kids.<br> <br> <br> <br> It’s a scary time, and it’s not made any easier by trying to juggle kids’ needs with working from home. But there is hope! We’re going to talk this week about things we can do to support our kids learning at home (mostly through games, of course!)<br> <br> <br> <br> But first, let us take a moment and thank First Move Financial for sponsoring The Family Gamers podcast. If you’re in an industry that may be hit by the current downturn, you may want to beef up your emergency fund. Specific investment advice is more case by case, but generally, try not to panic. If you need to have a quick chat to assuage your fears of the market reach out to First Move through the meeting link: <a rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank" href="http://firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers">firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers</a><br> <br> <br> <br> What We’ve Been Playing<br> <br> <br> <br> Animal Kingdoms from Galactic Raptor Games – an area control game with gorgeous art and randomized requirements. We’re really pleased that the dynamics feel the same at 2 players and at 3 players. We’ll see how it goes with more people.<br> <br> <br> <br> Kingdomino Duel – reviewed above.<br> <br> <br> <br> My First Stone Age – a really enjoyable game at any age. Memory plus set collection works very nicely. We discuss how much overlap there is between “real” Stone Age and My First Stone Age (not much).<br> <br> <br> <br> 5 Minute Marvel – a cooperative game based on 5 Minute Dungeon – but with Marvel heroes and villians! It’s timed but cooperative, and you’re not always dependent on the other players to keep moving forward. The flavor text and the details in the artwork are both fantastic.<br> <br> <br> <br> Everyone Loves a Parade – best at 3-4 players to balance out the uncertainty with the strategy.<br> <br> <br> <br> Catacombs of Karak (or just Karak) from Outset Media. “My first dungeon crawl”. Explore and create the map from tiles. Room tiles get a randomly-drawn “encounter” which could be treasure, but is usually an enemy. Roll dice to fight the enemy and if you beat them, you get a reward. We love that there’s very little reading required! (And we discuss our newfound love of two-layer player boards that hold tokens in place.)<br> <br> <br> <br> Keys to the Castle – also by Outset Media<br> <br> <br> <br> LOTS – a competitive game to cooperatively (?) build a tower. Sounds weird but it’s great.<br> <br> <br> <br> Kids of Carcassonne – feels like Carcassonne while being very simple.<br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="http://www.thefamilygamers.com/heist-review/">HEIST</a> – so gimmicky, but fun.<br> <br> <br> <br> Suspend Jr. from Melissa & Doug – in the interest of getting the kids to stop arguing<br> <br> <br> <br> Sushi Roll from Gamewright – review coming soon.<br> <br> <br> <br> Mountains from HABA – competitive but not bloodthirsty. You have to cooperate to get ahead.<br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="http://www.thefamilygamers.com/snap-review-kingdomino-duel/"></a><br> <br> <br> <br> SNAP Review: Kingdomino Duel<br> <br> <br> <br> Kingdomino Duel is a two-player dice drafting game that leans heavily on the scoring and drafting mechanics from Kingdomino. Read the transcript and see the pictures at the full <a href="http://www.thefamilygamers.com/snap-review-kingdomino-duel/">SNAP review</a>.<br> <br> <br> <br> Homeschooling, Supported by Boardgames<br> <br> <br> <br> We’ve talked about using board games in an educational context befor...
