Found this great board game selection tool and I tweaked it a bit to help parents pick a great board game for their kids

[toohuck]

I figured with xmas coming up, lots of people are looking for gifts for their kids, and I think boardgames make a great gift. But a lot of the most popular board games are horrible, so how do you find the best games? boardgamegeek.com has this great tool on their forums:

The boardgamegeek optimum game selection tool v2.0

To make it a bit easier for us to use it to pick out toys for kids, I gathered the links for children's games here:

• 1 players
• 2 players
• 3 players
• 4 players
• 5 players
• 6 players
• 7+ players

When you finally get to a list of games, the # before the game is the ranking on the bgg website, so a smaller # indicates a more popular game.

If you have older kids and are looking for "family" games, check out the link above to the
original game selection tool, and select 'family' instead of 'children' when you get the
chance.

 

[laurapalooza]

@toohuck The world is full of mediocre boardgames, and worse. You can find many of these games at your local K-Mart/Target/WalMart.

I recommend giving a serious read or watch to 'best boardgame' lists at boardgamegeek.com and dicetower.com. Do a Google search such as "best boardgames 4-year-olds" or "best boardgames 2012." You'll see certain games that keep showing up again and again. Buy those games at coolstuffinc.com, Amazon, etc., unless you have a good indie game shop in your town.

Of course, beforehand, get a good understanding of how a game is played, and how complex it is. You can search for virtually any modern boardgame at Youtube, and add the word "review," to find a succinct explanation of how the game is played. Tom Vasel's (Dicetower) reviews are pretty good. But, when he says he likes a game, well, he likes lots of games, so that's where the 'best of' lists on websites come in handy. Get a lot of opinions.

 

[1gospel]

@toohuck It's a real challenge to find games that the WHOLE family can enjoy.

It's always a pleasure to find games that mom and dad aren't just trudging through for the benefit of the children.