Today is Earth Day and the staff at Engaged Family Gaming wants to share some games you can play to celebrate! Below are our picks for board games (and a video game) to play today (or any day) that will help you learn about, cherish, or save the only home we have ever known.
EcoFluxx
The Fluxx series of card games, by Looney Labs, provides a pretty simple set of rules: The cards are the rules. The games start with a draw-one, play-one rule, but new rule cards can be played to change that, goal cards can change the victory conditions, and players get “Keeper” cards that help them reach the goal conditions. EcoFluxx is fast (5-20 minutes) and chaotic, with ever changing rules and win conditions, but great silly fun for the family. Lots of themes are available for the game, but the Eco theme is the perfect fit for your Earth Day game table.
Takenoko
Takenoko is a gorgeous looking game that puts players in charge of a shared Japanese bamboo garden. Players work to complete individual goals, either by building out the colored, hex-shaped tiles into a certain layout, moving the gardener to encourage the gardens to grow a certain amount of bamboo, or moving the adorable panda figure to eat a certain amount of bamboo shoots. Multiple concurrent goals allow players lots of choice in how to score points, and the brightly colored and beautiful components will keep interest for both kids and adults alike. This gardening game is fast becoming a staff favorite.CO2
Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game
Koi Pond is a card game we haven’t talked much about on Engaged Family Gaming before. In it, players compete to create the most beautiful Koi Pond they can by collecting numbered fish cards (which are gorgeous by the way) and place them either in your public pond or private home.This gorgeous, set collecting game is fun to play, but requires a small amount of bluffing since you have hidden cards.
Flower
Flower, by That Game Company, is the only video game to grace our list today. The reason? It was simply too beautiful to leave out. This is a game where players control a cluster of flower petals as they are blown by the breeze around a number of beautiful environments. The story is told without words, but it is a wonderful allegory about the destruction of nature by our industrialized society.
It is currently available for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PSVita.
Pandemic
Yeah. Yeah. Pandemic doesn’t fit the typical Earth Day vibe. But, we figured: “What better way to celebrate the world than by saving it!”
We’ve spoken a ton about Pandemic before (One of our writers MIGHT have a small obsession with it), so you can check that out here.
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Kelly Allard