Spotlight July 2021 | Summer Vacation

What better joy is there in the summertime than to venture out into the world, unwind, and have fun with people you love! Do some Yoga in the Park in the Pursuit of inner peace. Take a break from Work and enjoy living in the present. Whether you explore far and distant Citadels, or whether you stay home with your super great Cat, we all need the occasional break from the Mayhem of life. Relax now, there’s plenty of time to Get Wild later. 

Of course if you need help getting started, these travel-friendly games are a great start for connecting with friends and having fun!

Goat Yoga

Inner peace and outrageous parties coincide in this hilarious take on yoga. You and your friends perform yoga poses while contending with an inflatable goat. Can you perform downward dog while balancing the goat on your head? Or warrior pose while bouncing the goat in the air without dropping it? Goat Yoga is hilarious and simple, a perfect addition to any party - think Twister but even sillier.

Parks & Trivial Pursuit National Parks

Vacation is not about where you go but about the memories you make - and in Parks, you win by curating the most memorable year! Take control of two hikers gathering resources, buying equipment, and taking pictures as you travel across the country’s national parks - whoever has the best trip is the winner! Bonus, 1% of sales of this beautifully illustrated game goes to our National Park Service.

Pair Parks with Trivial Pursuit National Parks to test your knowledge of our national parks, with over 600 questions in a travel-friendly case!

Mint Works

The smallest game on our list, Mint Works is a teeny-tiny introduction to worker placement games. In worker placement games, you choose from a limited number of actions to earn resources and points. If you are looking to get into heavier strategy games, or are a tried-and-true fan of the worker placement genre looking for something more casual, Mint Works lies squarely on the line of easy to learn but pleasantly challenging.

Citadels

Citadels is a strategy game that almost passes as a party game! Recruit characters and use their special abilities to accrue resources in your bid to show off your city-building skills and become the Master Builder! Citadels incites direct competition between players as special abilities allow you to skip or rob other players, or swap cards. At the crossroads of simple strategic resource management and sabotage-inspiring hand management, Citadels is a great addition to game nights! 

If size isn’t an issue, the newest edition of Citadels includes updated art, streamlined rules, and additional roles to rejuvenate your games of historical city building.

Super Cats

You either die a hero or live long enough to become RoboDog. -Harvey Dent probably

In Super Cats, you play through two acts of a thrilling super hero story. In the first round, you and the other players try to transform your five regular house cats into super cats, using a Rock Paper Scissors type system of declaring an action by picking a number 1 through 5. Once one player has all five super cats, the others team up to become RoboDog! The hero cat must declare a number each round. If one of the other players chooses the same number, they begin losing cats. But if they choose a unique number, they begin to whittle away at RoboDog’s defenses. 

Super Cats is incredibly fun, super cute, and easy to learn. Super Cats is purrfect as a family game with kiddos or for a wacky adult party game. 

Dungeon Mayhem 

Choose your champion! In Dungeon Mayhem, you take up the deck of a brave character dueling others in a free-for-all battle. In this fast-paced card game, you will take on one of four characters, using either the raging Barbarian, the protective Paladin, the sneaky Rogue, or the charming Wizard deck to aid you in combat. Each  character’s deck is unique, highlighting each one’s magical equipment and special abilities. The Rogue uses cunning actions, sneak attacks, and disguises; the Paladin can banish and re-summon cards; the Barbarian hits hard and heals as it causes damage; and the Wizard can charm other players to protect them and trade health points! 

With every deck featuring different abilities and strategies, Dungeon Mayhem is dynamic and fun, and easy to learn - just pick a character and play!

Get Wild

The largest game on our list (though still lightweight and easy to bring along), Get Wild celebrates our National Parks with a fun twist on simple dice games like Left Right Center! Each player picks a National Park and rolls dice to send animals from their park to the other parks - the first person to have only their native animal in their Park wins! You start with every animal but your own and roll Animal, Number, and Direction dice to determine how many of which animal moves in which direction - so if you roll a 2, a Buffalo, and Right, you move 2 buffalo to the park on your right!

What makes Get Wild especially wild is that all turns happen simultaneously! Each player is rolling dice and moving tokens at the same time, so as you move tokens off your board, more tokens appear, meaning that you never have to wait to take your turn. Pleasantly chaotic and rather addictive, Get Wild is an easy to learn game that can be played with any group!

 Written by Johnni Medina