Are hitpoints needed?

Most battles ended quickly at the start with the occasional jumping jacks thrown in for bad rolls. When harder monsters appeared with roll bonuses, my kids seemed to get lucky rolls and won those, too. The final battle was another story. Both Owen and Sasha both had trouble defeating the Giraffe Snake with his +2 to attack. They must have done 100 jumping jacks each before I finally rolled a one. They were so exhausted after the fight they almost forgot to open their treasure (2 hershey kisses!).

In this variant, treasure food obviously didn't restore their HP but they enjoyed them anyway. There was a party dispute when Owen opened the first treasure chest and ate 3/4 goldfish crackers. His 6 year old sister and fellow adventurer was NOT pleased, but in the end they saved Pokey and a princess and had a blast.

A multi-level dungeon we built

1. Rescue someone - Your favorite pet/friend/princess has been captured and you need to save them! There are lots of variations to choose from, but my daughter gets the most motivated whenever we're saving someone's baby.
2. Recover something - A crucial artifact has been stolen or needs to be recovered in order to make everything ok. These plots always remind me of the original King's Quest where Sir Graham had to recover a magic mirror, shield, and treasure chest.
3. Kill the Beast - A dragon/monster has been ravaging the locals and you need to take him down. Whenever I use this plot I let the players join forces with an adventurer they find along the way who's also heading for the beast.
4. Escape - You start out trapped in a dungeon and have to escape. Two of my favorite RPG's of all time, Baldur's Gate II and Planescape: Torment, start out with this plot mechanism and it's a nice change of pace from the other plots.

8. Battleship - I struggled whether to include Battleship on this list because according to my rules, it definitely nails 2/4. It forces you to make decisions and the game doesn't depend on the theme at all. It's on this list because I can't imagine a kids game more boring than Battleship. Growing up, we had Electronic Battleship which gave you the advantage of not having to tell your opponent where your shots were headed. Of course, this meant you had to program all your ship locations into it ahead of time. There was a very good chance you or your brother programmed the thing wrong and you both just wasted an hour.

7. Operation - Who isn't scarred for life by the sound of that buzzer? What operation requires two doctors to remove every vital organ from a human being? Sounds fishy to me. If the game was fun these could be overlooked, but if you stripped away the theme it would be a game about picking things up with a tweezers.

6. Trouble - The gimmick here is the pop-o-matic bubble, which is actually a great idea. Do you know how often my kids roll the dice off the table? Unfortunately, they stuck it on to a horrible game like Trouble. The game should be called, "Waiting to Roll a 6." There are choices to be made, but for the most part they are obvious.

5. Hi Ho Cherry-O - Use the spinner to determine how many apples to pick from your tree. First one to clear their tree wins, but occasionally you'll spill your apple bucket and have to start over. No decisions to make at all. The only thing saving this game is that theoretically it could be over in 5 or 6 spins.

4. The Game of Life - As a kid I liked Life, but later on I realized how bad it was. There's only one real decision to make in the whole game, whether or not you go to college. Honestly, now that I think about it I'm not even sure you get to choose. If you don't go to college, you're screwed. What I do remember is the spinner jamming frequently as you moved along collecting a family and various material possessions you can't actually enjoy. The cynical side of me thinks it could be a nihilistic commentary on the pointlessness of life. I'll be an optimist and play something else.

3. Hungry Hungry Hippos - Technically there could be decisions to make in a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, like how many times per second to bash the lever down to grab the eggs. I think they're eggs. I will grant that Hungry Hungry Hippos may be fun for the first game, which lasts about 4 seconds, but by the 3rd you will be done with it forever.

2. Chutes and Ladders - One of my favorite games to pick on. It's way older than you think and was created to teach kids about karma the importance of doing good vs evil. I can't think of a worse way to teach kids about make the right choices by playing a game that offers no decisions at all.

1. Candyland - The only popular game I can think of that fails all of my good game commandments. The winner is determined as soon as the deck has been shuffled and playing the game is just going through the motions and revealing the winner. Candyland exists in a deterministic universe. I've also written about Candyland before and how it could be saved (deal out three cards to each player and let them play one card per turn).

The most common argument for why Candyland and other deterministic games are useful is that they teach kids how to play games and take turns. I agree, but why not pick a game that also allows them to make choices and see the effects of their decisions? The answer is that every board game I've ever played is adversarial. If you play a game with a 5 year old and the choices you make are meaningful, the 5 year old doesn't stand a chance. If I play a game with no choices, the 5 year old can win but can't explore meaningful cause and effect. I created Dungeon Adventure as a way for my daughter to both enjoy playing games together. I'm not playing a game with her, we're playing a game together. It's her playing against the world I created for her. Occasionally it's been the other way around. I think there should be more games like this and I challenge game designers out there to create them.

A good game should present interesting, definitive choices. Should you play it safe or take a risk? Do you defer short term gain for a big payoff later on? Save your strength or make your move? Don't make the choices arbitrary.

A good game is good all the way through. It should be fun at the start, during the middle, and at the end.

A good game doesn't need its theme. If you numbered chess pieces instead of using a royal court, it would hardly lose its appeal. Turn Candyland into VegetableLand and kids will run away screaming from Lord Legume.

Not sure what this pic of Owen tied to a rocket has to do with the game theme, but it's still awesome.

In honor of the one year anniversary of launching Dungeon Adventure, we're DOUBLING the number of monster cards it comes with. You'll now get 48 pre-made monsters instead of 24 for the same price of $5.99. If you've already purchased Dungeon Adventure, shoot me an email and I'll tell you how to get the new cards.

You're not going to want to miss out on the new monsters, like this favorite in my household: ANGRY CORN

I've also totally redone the landing page for the site. It now includes lots of pics and reviews all in one page. I built it in a weekend using Bootstrap.

You should also notice the new logo above designed by the awesome Glenn Mason.

I think Angry Corn might need his own game.

Hope you like the new logo. It was designed by the awesome Glenn Mason.

The landing page was built using the awesome Bootstrap framework.

We learned about this game about a year ago, and wondered if it was worth the $6 cost. I mean that's literally a six of dollars. For a couple .pdf files of instructions?!

So we tried it out, and it was so awesome. It's worth the $6. You can take that to the bank. The bank will endorse our endorsement, because banks are in the business of knowing how many dollars things are worth.

Read the whole story here.

Kraddo (a huge Bumblebee Transformer toy), the giant robot stole a gem and was keeping it in a treasure chest inside the dungeon. Izzo and Bash (a Lego X-Wing pilot and TIE Fighter pilot, respectively) armed with blasters, a flying potion, and a trap detection potion (the potions are represented by Gummi Bears), were recruited to get the gem back by it's worried owner.

Alas, they didn't take any pics. Maybe next time. Read the end result of the story

Created by Ben Garvey and his 4 year old daughter, Sasha, it is a download, print and play rpg that has everything you need to share the fun of role playing with your children. You just print up instructions, card and hitpoint sheets, build a dungeon with your child’s blocks or legos and you’re off to the races. It adds a visual element to rpgs that younger children need to enjoy a game like this. And as they get older, it serves as the perfect gateway into games like Dungeons & Dragons and Rifts.