Having a time consuming hobby as a parent is hard. With a preschooler who now goes to bed later and a baby who still wakes up in the middle of the night, our time to game as a couple starts later and ends earlier. That means that any games taking longer than 90 minutes or so are really hard for us to get played right now. We are fortunate that Sarah’s mom, henceforth known as Nana, volunteers to take the kids for 1-2 sleepovers per month, which is one of the few times we can squeeze in one of our favorite long games.
Here is our “Top 10 games to play while the kids are at Nana’s”
Note: we have a lot of games on our shelf that fit this category and that we haven’t played yet. Here are some we think could rearrange the below list once we play: Arkwright, Antiquity, On Mars, Vinhos, Mage Knight, Fields of Arle, Cerebria, Underwater Cities, Dinosaur Island, Yokohama, The Colonists
Honorable Mentions
There are so many games we love in this category, we had to stop ourselves from adding 10 more honorable mentions. Here’s the ones that didn’t make the top 10, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave out entirely.
Food Chain Magnate
Food Chain Magnate is a card driven resource management and network building game. You play as a restauranteur hiring staff, advertising your products, and serving up dinner to guests. Rules and gameplay wise, this is not a complex game. The complexity comes in needing to time everything perfectly and the unforgiving nature of the game. It is possible to make a key mistake on the first turn of the game that is nearly impossible to overcome. At the beginning of the game, players secretly select a small, medium, or large bank reserve card. The pooled value of the cards dictates the length of the game with a smaller bank = shorter game.
Food Chain Magnate comes in as an honorable mention for us because we have played so many times that we’ve got game play down to about 60-90 minutes for a 2 player game. Food Chain Magnate also works better at higher player counts (3 or 4) than 2.
The Great Zimbabwe
In The Great Zimbabwe players gather resources and build a connected network in order to build monuments to please the gods. Like other Splotter Spellen games, The Great Zimbabwe does not have overly complex rules, but rather it is the decision making of sharing resources or doing things that mutually benefit your opponent that makes it a hefty game. As experienced gamers we can get this one played in about 60-75 minutes, but that play time will increase significantly with new players and at higher player counts.
The Great Zimbabwe has so many of the mechanisms we like in games: logistics, variable economy, drafting, and a small auction for turn order. There’s a ton of player interaction and you constantly have to assess what your opponent needs and make sure you are setting the market appropriately.
10. Great Western Trail
We are cheating a little bit with this one. We don’t actually own it, so it has to be played with friends that have it, which means it’s always a 4 player experience for us. At 4 players Great Western Trail comes in at about 2.5 hours.
Great Western Trail is a game of herding cattle from Texas to Kansas City. This is done via elements of deckbuilding and movement along a rondel (circular loop with action spaces) allowing players to build buildings and take actions on the trail.
As with most euros, Great Western Trail offers a ton of options and ways to score points. We like it because the “race” element along the rondel adds an interesting interactive mechanism, so you need to keep an open strategy and be ready to react to other players quickly. We could give or take the theme, but the gameplay itself is what makes this one special.
9. Kanban
A list of great games that can take a whole afternoon wouldn’t be complete without Kanban. One look at the board in Kanban can make you want to turn and run. Kanban is a heavy worker placement game where players are managers in an automotive factory working to develop and improve parts, upgrade vehicle designs, and stay in the good grace of Sandra, the boss. Sandra gives VPs to the most productive player. The game can be played with Sandra in either “nice” mode or “mean” mode. “Nice” Sandra will reward players for good performance and productivity, while “Mean” Sandra will punish players for poor performance. Best of luck!
Don’t let your first impression make your decision, since the board is not as overwhelming as it looks at first. After you as you get comfortable with the game the sections and iconography make a lot more sense and the flow of the game becomes natural. Analysis paralysis can really bog things down, especially with “Mean” Sandra. This is solidly a 2 hour game for us. Plan on 3-4 hours if you’re learning for the first time, or playing with more than 2 players.
8. Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization
Through the Ages is one of our long-time favorites, but it is a looong game. So long that we shudder at the thought of playing it at more than 2 players. We have played this many times and are fairly efficient, but it can still take >2 hours including setup/takedown.
Check out our in depth review HERE.
Note: we had to compromise on #8 for this one, Emily would rank it much higher (better), Sarah lower (worse).
7. Dungeon Lords
When we think of a heavy game that’s just plain fun, Dungeon Lords is one of the first to come to mind.
Dungeon Lords is a game with a whimsical theme that will kick your butt into last week. It takes the theme of a dungeon crawler and turns it on its head: the players are (you guessed it) dungeon lords doing their very best to keep meddlesome adventurers from trespassing. It is a simultaneous action selection game played over two years (in the game, not real life – it’s long, but not that long). Each year contains four seasons where you build your dungeon and fill it with monsters, traps, and your crew of imps.
At the end of each season the heroes of the nearby town come to try to defeat the dungeons. Each hero has a special ability or characteristic that you can try to plan against. Seriously, this game will beat you at first. The first time we played we both finished the game with negative points. As in less than 0. It was humbling, to say the least.
But even if the mechanics of the game were so-so (they aren’t, it’s super fun and interesting) the art and theme would more than make up for it. It’s quirky, fun and unique with detailed thematic immersion that’s rare in worker placement/action selection games.
The base game for Dungeon Lords at 2 players could probably be eeked out in 90 minutes or so, but we add in the Festival Season expansion that adds a fifth season to the game, Festival Season. This adds at least another 30-45 minutes, putting it squarely in the 2 hour plus range. There are also a few mini-expansion and other games set in the same world (Dungeon Petz is a tiny bit lighter and has the same fun factor).
Also, if learning for the first time and you usually skip the rulebook in favor of other methods like video tutorials, at least give the rulebook a glance. It’s adorable and actually teaches the pretty complicated game in a way that feels more like an immersive story than a dry rule explanation. We were literally laughing out loud going through it the first time back in the day.
6. Anachrony
Credit: BGG User @ComtriS
Anachrony is a future post-apocalyptic, time travel, worker placement game from Mindclash Games. And in typical Mindclash fashion it’s a game that takes up ALL the space on your table. Our game table is ~3.5ft x 5ft and it can take up most of that space if we want to spread out.
Anachrony has a lot going on and it sure shows in the time it takes to set up and take down. But that time investment is worth it for the brain-melting fun. The art is amazing and the components are high quality, which always adds just that extra something to a game you will spend hours playing.
In Anachrony, players represent leaders of four different “paths”, essentially clans of people, on post-apocalyptic earth trying to escape the Capitol before it’s impending collpase. To do this players recruit different types of workers and then send them out exploring in super awesome exosuit minis (literally in the exosuit in a really awesome slot that each worker token fits into). Seriously, we are not huge mini-people but these are super cool and actually functional!
While in the exosuit, workers can collect resources, construct buildings, do research, and more. After workers return from their adventures in the exosuit, they must be refreshed on the player board costing either resources or points.
Anachrony has a ton of different buildings and objectives that make each game unique and has a ton of re-playabiltiy. One of the most unique mechanisms is the time travel mechanic which is essentially taking a loan of resources from your future self. You then have to pay back the resource loan by sending it back in time through a time warp. It’s a really cool way to incorporate a loan mechanic into the theme of the game.
Play time in Anachrony can vary, but generally speaking due to set up time and breadth of decision making (not kiddo interruption friendly), it falls solidly in the category of play while the kids are away. We can spend a whole afternoon on just this game.
Great choices! I haven’t played Kanban, but seeing it in with these other games makes me think I ought to take a look. Lacerda’s rep is a bit daunting.
It’s a pretty great game! If you’re used to playing heavy games and okay with accepting that the first play is not going to be your best showing, then you’ll be okay. Lacerda’s take about 3/4 of the way through the first game until it starts to click for us.
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