Board and card games for 11-year-old (play, daughter, school, video)

[Winter Sucks]

Originally Posted by WalkingLiberty1919D

Those adventure games Winter Sucks look interesting. Fox in the Forest might be perfect since it's designed for two.

Bohnanza has rules for two players...it is the hardest to learn...but once you do, it's super fun!

Lost Cities is specifically for two players and is the easiest to learn.

None of these games will take an hour to play, though.

[sheena12]

Banana Gram! Fun for people of all ages. Sort of a faster paced Scrabble. My son gave it to us for Christmas. We all had a blast playing it.

https://www.target.com/p/bananagrams...83#lnk=sametab

They also have a junior version for younger players. Educational and fun.

If you are looking for a game for two, the classic Battleship can't be beat.

[Tzaphkiel]

Mastermind
Super Mastermind (even better, and harder, if she likes regular master mind)

Backgammon

Jigsaw puzzles, let her pick a design she likes when you take her shopping; Hallmark store has (or used to have) great jigsaw puzzle designs, high quality.

And then as another project, for completed puzzles you can paint them with Mod Podge, and mount on foamcore to hang on the wall.

Boggle (if you both like word games)

Krypto (a math card game)

i absolutely love Dominion, and you can keep adding different sets and it is never the same game twice and is always interesting.

I also love the card game Set, it is challenging and fun. It was years before i finally was able to beat my son, he was really good at it.

Uno

I am envious you have a kid to play games with! My kids are in their 30s now, so we only get to play games occasionally on visits. I miss it a lot.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by WalkingLiberty1919D

I hope this is the right place to post this. I am moving and will live next door to my brother and sister-in-law. I have an 11-year-old niece there too. Every time I am there moving stuff into my new place, my niece wants to play games with me. She lives in an isolated, rural area and doesn't have many friends on top of that. So she really looks forward to me playing games with her. I have a few that are okay for a kid that age: Avon Hill games, Risk, Life, Scrabble, Monopoly, Othello, and Mille Borne. I played these games a few times with my own daughter when she was younger, but we were in a more suburban area and my daughter has more friends. So she played with friends mainly and only with me if we were snowed in, rained in, etc.

The Avon Hill games are strategy war games and take hours to play and there just isn't the time (and my niece gets bored). She won't play Scrabble for some reason and gets bored with Monopoly after a bit. My niece does play the other games I mentioned. By the way, she has and tries to play chess too, but plays by her own made-up rules that she stubbornly sticks to (and they make the game difficult, but not in a fun or challenging way). I gave up trying to play chess with her.

I need game ideas since I am getting bored with Life, Mille Borne, and Othello. But what kinds of games would be fun for an 11-year-old these days? Especially ones for just two people that last about an hour or so before she has to go home. Any suggestions of a few I can pick up? She's not allowed to play video games so those are out. I am looking for board and card games.

Thanks!

War games, for a girl? OP, 11-yr-old girls are perfectly happy with old classics, like Parchesi. It doesn't take an hour to play; you can repeat it 2-3 times to fill up the hour. That way, hopefully, each person will get to win, and one person will win twice. The variety in the different ways the game plays out, and the process of getting in gear to strategize after going through it the first time, is what keeps the kid's interest.

Monopoly takes much longer than an hour. And Scrabble isn't for everyone, OP. I hate Scrabble. Never was any good at it. Checkers might be work; it probably takes close to an hour? It also involves strategy (on a lightly higher level than Parchesi), but is easy to learn.

I also endorse Backgammon.

[Honeycrisp]

Interesting thread - I second (and third) Backgammon, my hub and I (kids too) used to play it many yrs ago when it first became popular - unfortunately we havent played in years and probably wouldnt remember but it was a lot of fun and the game(s) didnt last too long. Boggle was fun too, also Othello. My hub played Pinochle as a teen a few times, then didnt play for many years and now plays whenever they can get a group together - Mexican Train (dominos) is fun too but you need a bigger group to play but it's pretty easy to learn

[Frostnip]

Blokus is super fun. The rules are easy but the game is challenging and it goes fast, so it's good for preadolescents.

If she's into strategy games but Risk is just too much, maybe try a themed version of the game in some theme that she likes? Like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings? Usually those have a "fast mode" version of the game, and it makes it a less dry for a kid than the standard world war version.

Catan is a classic for a reason and if you guys get into it there are a bunch of expansions you can add. If you guys like Catan you should also try Carcassonne.

I haven't played "Wingspan" but I've heard great things about it.

[WalkingLiberty1919D]

Thanks everyone! I need to make a list from these responses. And I thanked everyone with reputation that I could think. Some of you, I think I’ve repped recently.

I’ll be honest, I’m a bit surprised by the resistance to strategy war games for a girl. I know I was an anomaly back in the late 80s and early 90s when I first started playing these games. I was the only girl for the longest time. But once other girls saw me playing, those girls joined our group in college. I would think, 30 years later, there’d be less stigma to these games. I taught my daughter to play when she was a little kid, and she and I also played these games for a while. The only reason she doesn’t play with me anymore is because she rather hang out with her friends and play video games on her PC with her friends. Which I get. She’s going off to college this fall. I wonder if I should convince her to take one of my Axis and Allies games. They’re great games to play in college when you have no money I just wanna hang out with friends. The original version is one that I actually bought in college. It will come full circle if she takes it.

My niece does like the strategy wargames a lot. That’s always her first pick. But these games literally take hours to play and we can never finish. I suppose if any day I am asked to watch my niece overnight or for a weekend so my brother and sister-in-law can go away for a weekend, that might be a good time to set up the old Axis and Allies game.

Thanks again for the ideas. I’ll check this thread out after I’m completed with my move and make a list of games and go over them with my niece to figure out which one she might want me to purchase. And then we’ll set our game dates. It would be nice if I could get my brother and sister-in-law to come over and play as well. I always find it a lot more fun to play games with a bigger group of people.

[Okey Dokie]

Don’t have any other suggestions but had to smile when I read about Mille Borne. We played that as a family when I was a kid (I’m 67 now). Great fun.

[loves2read]

Most of the games mentioned are ones my grandson who is 10 has played with his parents—
He lives in a neighborhood where there are few kids his age
He likes a game called Rummikub which involves sets and runs of numbered tiles—teaches strategy and how to see groups and organize—fast moving and while I enjoy playing, he usually wins 3 out of 4….he is in an advanced group at his school…

[WoodburyWoody]

FWIW, we have a 16-year-old daughter. At 11 or so, she liked to play these games with us:

Sleeping Queens
Spot It
Uno
Phase Ten
Exploding Kittens
Clue
Telestrations
Tokaido

Monopoly - she hates (HATES!) anything competitive and avoids conflict at all costs, but, man, she is ruthless in Monopoly games.