I think it’s probably clear by now that we love playing games as a family. During our staycation, we got into a card game called Heart of Crown that I had brought with us when we moved here in 2019. It is very similar to Dominion, for those who have played that, but with the player’s goal being to back a Princess and help her take the throne as Queen. The player who succeeds as ‘Queenmaker’ is the winner.

One of the nice things about a game like Dominion or Heart of Crown is that the experience can be tailored based on what cards are selected for play. I’ve kept ‘attack’ cards and anything that’s overly complicated out, so that the girls can play on their level. We can also slowly increase this as they get better (I knew Charlotte was ready but I’ve been really surprised by how fast Catherine’s gotten the grasp of the game). I’ve also excluded a few cards that were over the top visually or that had themes that I didn’t like (the witches, for instance, were over the top visually and the theme of dark magic is one we don’t need).

• 

• 

• 

• 

As we were preparing to move to Cambodia, I researched family games of various types and difficulties looking for ones that could keep the girl’s interest as they grew here and that they’d be able to play with people we host. Of course, I also looked for games with good gender roles and that had themes that were interesting to the girls. The Tea Dragons Society Game, which I’ve mentioned before, is a simpler game in the same vein as Heart of Crown and was a good stepping stone to this.

---

Now we’re just starting to play a new collaborative game – stepping up from the Fairy Game – that Catherine calls the COVID game.

I had quite the double take the first time she called it the COVID game but then I realized that it’s because it’s a Pandemic game. I didn’t know that she had made the connection between COVID and pandemic. Fortunately, I didn’t bring one of the standard Pandemic games – which are about the players collaboratively stopping a pandemic – but a spinoff called Rising Tides where the players collaboratively work to stop the Netherlands from flooding. We have enough pandemic in real life right now. I don’t think we want to play it.