Raising a New Generation of Gamers

I have a confession to make. I am trying to brainwash my children. No, no, I'm not trying to make them vegan (or carnivorous for that matter). I want them to play games with me. I want to be able to sit down with my children years from now around a kitchen table while we play board games together. I want this not only because I desire for my children to enjoy the same things I enjoy, or because I just want to be able to have fun times with my family, but because playing games together facilitates open communication between its players and if those players are family, learning how to openly communicate will be an essential aspect of our relationship. If my children can call me out on a rules violation, can work together to fool me as the traitor in Avalon, can logically come up with a plan to save the world from disease in Pandemic, I will be arming my children with vital life skills, all while enjoying our time together. I love my family and with help from Haba I can brainwash them.

I discovered this company thanks to my wife's endless searching on Youtube for board games (good, so I don't have to brainwash her). It's a "wood manufacturing company" (their words, not mine) that claims to be a "single source supplier for children." So they supply children, do they? Brave of them to admit it, the Witch of Hansel and Gretel will be glad to have found a new supplier. But, this being a gaming blog, we are not concerned with plushies or wooden nesting toys. Being a father, I am concerned with plushies and wooden nesting toys, but that's a different blog. No, we are concerned with Haba's line of children board games.

Yes dear readers, that is a children's game. The production quality alone sets this apart from your grandma's Chutes and Ladders. They don't just phone it in when they create their games, thinking that because it's a children's game doesn't mean it can't have all the visual and mechanic polish that goes into any other tabletop game. That is a freaking gorgeous volcano. Knowing that their games will be played by children, all the games are colorful, made with large pieces to avoid having to pay for someone to put a choking hazard warning on all their boxes, and focus on easy to pick up mechanics. Knowing that the children playing their games will be younger and will need adults to play the games with them, Haba has made the games appealing for adults to play with their children, with genuinely fun games, if perhaps simpler than others. And that's not a bad thing, saying their games are simpler, because they HAVE to be. For kids that young (some go as low as 2+ years) to be introduced to gaming, by necessity the games must be simple. But that does not mean they cannot be fun. Take Fire Dragon, pictured above. You roll dice, fly your dragons around an active ruby-spraying volcano collecting the rubies that spew forth from the extremely functional aluminum volcano, and trying to land on a space with another dragon to steal their rubies. Kids love it because it is simple, just about counting spaces, picking up shiny objects, and experiencing the thrill of getting to take something from their siblings without their parents yelling at them. Grown ups love it because it teaches their children decision making skills (should you get one ruby off the ground or take one from your sister), because, as a competitive game, it can help children to be gracious in defeat, and lastly because of that volcano! Wait, I guess that one is satisfying to both kids and adults. It's an aluminum, two piece volcano that you will be filling with rubies and, at a specific roll of the dice, you will separate the two pieces of volcano and the rubies will spill out onto the board, cascading into the spaces around the volcano, ready to be picked up by the players. What a sound and sight smorgasbord for the adul... I mean children to be a part of.

But what I appreciate most is that the games are like small prep courses for entering the larger world of gaming once the children grow up and never leave their parents' basements. One game, The Orchard, is a cooperative game, where the kids play against the game itself and not each other and win or lose together. It's like Pandemic 101. Another highly popular game is Rhino Hero, a game that sees the children laying down card stock walls and roofs and the titular Rhino Hero in a larger version of a card house, seeing how high they can get the tower. It is like an Intro to Dexterity games.

Haba is the Pixar of the gaming world, understanding that the games they make are for children, but that it will be the parents who purchase them and who will be playing the games with the children. I cannot wait to add some of their games to my collection and get the world's next generation of tabletop gamers off to a good start.