Hopscotch, knucklebones, elastics, hacky sack, downball…there were so many great games that filled up our lunchtimes. Which was your favourite game to play as a child?
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Tag Archives: #play
The Arts Festival Revolution
David Binder is a Broadway producer, who found himself in a small Australian neighbourhood, watching locals dance and perform on their lawns uncovering new face of arts festivals, breaking the boundary between audiences and performers.
The best card games to play with the family
We’ve all been staying home safely for a while now and have been playing, reading, exercising, crafting and watching many things and we thought some of you may be running out of fresh ideas. So, we have scoured the internet and had a look at what’s popular and we have rounded up six fun and fabulous card games that you can play at home with the people you are staying safe with.
Did you know you can source LEGO, card and board games with Booko? If not, have a look at our ‘how to’ guide here.
Let us know what you are playing in the comments below.
This is a strategic card game that will destroy your friendships…but in a good way. It’s one of Kickstarter’s Top 50 Most Backed Projects of all time! You start with a Baby Unicorn in your stable (super cute). But don’t get too attached, because even Baby Unicorns aren’t safe in this game! There are over 20 Magical Unicorns to collect and each has a special power. Everyone is aiming to build a Unicorn Army as fast as you can, or be destroyed by one of your so-called friends! You can seek revenge or protect your stable using your magic. But someone could have a Neigh Card and send the game into madness. The first person to complete their Unicorn Army shall hereafter be known as The Righteous Ruler of All Things Magical..at least until the next game.
The use-your-noodle card game! Rush to prepare and slurp up delicious bowls of ramen filled with tasty ingredients. Collect combos of cards to score for different recipes while adding garnishes to boost your points. At the same time, watch out as other players throw spicy chilli peppers your way or swipe foods right from your bowls! It’s “take that” fun that will have you calling for takeout!
This is the social card game that is going to change your game days forever. This addictive game is as unique as its name. It’s a power packed quick and simple party game. Race against each other to SLAP a match between a card and spoken word. But – watch out! – your mind will play tricks on you.
As in Snap, each player places a card from their hand face up into a community pile while saying taco/cat/goat/cheese/pizza in player sequence. When the card matches the mantra everyone slaps their hand on the deck, with the last one to slap picking up the cards. Whoever rids themselves of cards first wins!
Strategy…Choices…Tension…the three essential ingredients to any great game. All of them play a vital role in this easy-to-learn and instantly engaging card game from first-time inventor Zachary Eagle. This game has a unique twist on set collection card games. In addition to the whimsical variety of donuts inside, part of what makes this game stand apart from the crowd is the secret bidding. This adds a delicious layer of tension that will surely tempt you to come back for another round! A tray of tempting treats awaits your bid, will you go for a stellar cruller or grab a glorious glazed? A double chocolate is sure to score, but in the long run Boston cream may be worth more. Choose carefully because if two or more players go for the same donut, nobody gets it! End with the highest score and victory will taste sweet.
How long can a dolphin hold its breath? At what temperature does popcorn pop? I’m Not Saying You’re Stupid is a fun and fresh game featuring over 400 questions that are random, hilarious, and almost impossible to answer just right. The answers are always numbers in this game, which sounds simple enough. But watch out! If your opponents think your answer sounds hopelessly wrong, they can stick you with an I’m Not Saying You’re Stupid…card. Correctly guess who will be furthest from the right answer and watch the points pile up!
The perfect game for anyone who loves new trivia, wild guesses, and uproarious laughter! A dynamic and entertaining game for an evening at home!
Trash Pandas – The Raucous Raccoon Card Game
In this super fun card game players are raucous raccoons, tipping over trash cans for food. Trash is treasure. In this raucous card game, paw through the deck to find sets of day-old pizza, half-eaten candy, and other luscious leftovers. Roll the dice to tip over the garbage or raid a rival’s rubbish, if there’s no Doggos standing guard. The more you roll, the more actions you can take, but get too greedy and your turn is scrapped. Stash the most trash and you’re pick of the litter.
Enjoy!
The clever way to buy Lego with Booko
We are mid way through the school holidays here in Melbourne and we thought it was the perfect time to let you in on a pretty cool secret. You can buy Lego through Booko. Oh yes, you read that right. Booko is now the clever way to buy Lego online!
What’s super exciting is that our handy alert function (where you get to set the price you want to pay for a book or DVD) also works with Lego! So if you’ve been eyeing up a Lego version of James Bond’s Aston Martin or Harry Potter’s Hogwarts set or something else special for Christmas for an ultimate Lego collector, you can now log in, set a price for the bricks you’re looking to buy and sit back while Booko hunts for the best price for you.
Here’s a little guide to help you along with six of the most inspiring Lego books for budding brick master builders.
Lego Ideas by Daniel Lipkowitz
You have what it takes! Did you ever wonder what you can do with all of those Lego bricks after you have created the project they came with? Now with The Lego Ideas Book, you can take what you already have and make something new. This book is divided into six themed chapters; transportation, buildings, space, kingdoms, adventure, and useful makes, each with basic templates of key models and spreads to inspire you to create your own. Hints and tips from Master Builders can help you turn your classic car into a race car or add a bridge to your castle.
Don’t be concerned if you haven’t got all the bricks you need: this book also shows how to simplify details, making this a great user-friendly guide for any building ability. Featuring all-new Lego building projects, tips to supplement and enhance your Lego creations, inspirational builds, and expert advice from Lego Master Builders. The Lego Ideas Book will keep kids of all ages creating for hours.
Awesome Lego Creations With Bricks You Already Have by Sarah Dees
This book creates hours of fun, new worlds and new toys from the collection of Lego kids already have. Each project includes a parts list so you can verify that you have all the pieces and even buy supplemental pieces if you want, but most projects avoid specialty pieces and feature ones likely to be in most people’s collections. The book engages kids with fun, kid-friendly language and cool facts about the things they are making. Like other popular Lego idea books, this book is packed with characters and life-like scenes, but takes the next step with detailed step-by-step instruction photos to help you build more complex animals, robots, vehicles and buildings. The book features full-size photos of life-like scenes that are simple enough for children to build on their own. Also included are a few no-instruction challenges where kids can create a unique toy using only the photo as inspiration. This family-friendly book is sure to spark the imagination for everyone.
365 Things to Do With Lego by DK (Dorling Kindersley)
365 Things to do with LEGO Bricks inspires you to look at your Lego bricks in new and exciting ways and enjoy Lego fun every day of the year. Featuring imaginative play and building ideas, from Lego games that take just a few minutes and require a handful of bricks, to inspirational build ideas and activities to keep you occupied for hours. 365 Things to do with Lego Bricks is packed with fun and quirky activities, such as: build your own Lego pet; challenge your friends to make the tallest Lego tower against the clock; and learn how to make a stop-motion Lego movie. 365 Things to do with Lego Bricks includes a countdown timer and activity selector, allowing you to choose an activity at random, to time your activities and to race against the clock.
The Lego Neighbourhood by Brian Lyles and Jason Lyles
In The Lego Neighbourhood Book, you’ll create buildings with real world details like cornices and facades, and try your hand at interior design by filling your buildings with furniture and light fixtures. Then add the finishing touches to your models with plants, traffic lights, scaffolding, and park benches. Snap together a few houses, shops, and apartment buildings to create your own neighbourhood! Inside you’ll find step-by-step instructions for four multi-storey buildings, dozens of inspiring ideas to use in your own models, mini builds for a recliner, old-time lamp post, traffic lights, and more.
The Lego Animation Book by David Pagano and David Pickett
Have you ever wondered what your toys would look like on the big screen? In The Lego Animation Book you’ll learn how to bring your creations to life with the art of stop-motion animation. Before you know it, you’ll be making your mini figures walk, talk, jump, and fly. Inside you’ll find step-by-step guides for making your first animation, techniques for creating special effects like explosions and flying mini figures, acting methods for your mini figures and the secret formula for bringing inanimate objects to life The book also offers advice for dealing with practical problems like lighting, framing, and capturing consistent photos. Along with building ideas for Lego-based camera dollies and rigs there are instructions and inspiration on the filming process, from storyboarding to post-production, recommendations for cameras, software, and other essential animation tools This book will help you dive into the world of animation and discover a whole new way to play!
Lego Minifigure: Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle by Gregory Farshtey and Daniel Lipkowitz
One of the most iconic toys happens to have the cutest little people – the Lego Mini Figure. This book features more than 2,000 of the most significant, popular, and rare mini-figures, this engaging reference guide explores mini-figures chronologically by theme. Fans will learn little-known facts about their favourite mini-figures in this first-ever publishing of the evolution of the famous Lego mini-figure. This visual history shows the evolution of this classic toy for the first time ever, with exquisite photography and fascinating facts about each and every mini-figure included.
Enjoy!
Play is more than just fun
A pioneer in research on play, Dr. Stuart Brown says humour, games, roughhousing, flirtation and fantasy are more than just fun. Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age. This Ted Talk is an oldie but a goodie and watching it will make you want to play a little more.
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Cabbage patch kids, marbles, knuckle bones, Lego, Star Wars, Matchbox cars, Viewmaster…there are so many great toys we had as kid.
Which was your favourite?
Monday Inspo
They say that play is the highest form of research…so what are you waiting for? Time to get your coloured pencils out and scribble your way through this mornings meetings! Or Lego…maybe pop a bowl of it in the middle of your boardroom table and see what you can create. Did you know you could buy Lego through Booko? Oh yes you read that right! Stick around and we’ll show you how on Thursday’s blog.
Are athletes really getting faster, better, stronger?
When you look at sporting achievements over the last decades, it seems like humans have gotten faster, better and stronger in nearly every way. But is that really the case?
Monday Inspo
Summer is in full swing here in Melbourne which brings with it copious amounts of sport! This week on the blog we’ll share our top sporting books but for today we have one of our favourite quotes for you.
The best board games to play this Winter
For some, the idea of playing a board game is met with thrill as the excitement of taking on an opponent is just too strong to pass up. For others, it dredges up dark memories of many a Christmas Day afternoon where monopoly got a little out of hand.
It seems the world of board games is springing back into life as there seem to be more and more games available to play and what’s more, they aren’t all competitive…in fact some of our favourites promote collaboration amongst players.
Here are our top five picks.
Four diseases have broken out in the world and it is up to a team of specialists in various fields to find cures for these diseases before mankind is wiped out. Players must work together playing to their characters’ strengths and planning their strategy of eradication before the diseases overwhelm the world with ever-increasing outbreaks. For example the Operation Specialist can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases. The Scientist needs only 4 cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal 5. But the diseases are out-breaking fast and time is running out: the team must try to stem the tide of infection in diseased areas while also towards cures. A truly cooperative game where you all win or you all lose. As skilled members of a disease-fighting team you must keep four deadly diseases at bay while discovering their cures. You and your teammates will travel across the globe treating infections while finding resources for cures. The clock is ticking as outbreaks and epidemics fuel the spreading plagues and you must work as a team to succeed. Can you find all four cures in time? The fate of humanity is in your hands!
If you’re interested in board games that keep you thinking and reward strategic planning with a victory, then we highly recommend you consider Power Grid. The objective in Power Grid is to be the person who can supply power to the most cities in the network when the game ends. And the end of the game is triggered by the players. Keeping an eye on the other players, their progression, their city network, their power plants, and their resources is key to doing well in the game.
Players mark pre-existing routes between cities for connection, and then bid against each other to purchase the power plants that they use to power their cities. However, as plants are purchased, newer, more efficient plants become available, so by merely purchasing, you’re potentially allowing others access to superior equipment. Players must also acquire the raw materials (coal, oil, garbage, and uranium) needed to power their plants (except for the ‘renewable’ windfarm/ solar plants, which obviously require no fuel), making it a constant struggle to upgrade your plants for maximum efficiency while still retaining enough wealth to quickly expand your network to get the cheapest routes.
Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle is a cooperative deck building game for 2 to 4 players that, depending on which game you’re playing, could take 30 minutes, or well over 90 minutes.
Players are taken on a journey through the seven films adapted from the books. They span the years of Harry Potter learning at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, meanwhile encountering the likes of various villains and one particular villain who-should-not-be-named. Players achieve their goals through some pretty standard deck building mechanisms and combating villains with spells, items, and companions along the way. It is a wonderful introduction to cooperative games and deck building for new gamers.
Think you have what it takes to make Mars habitable? Well well have we found the game for you!
In the 2400s, mankind begins to terraform the planet Mars. Giant corporations, sponsored by the World Government on Earth, initiate huge projects to raise the temperature, the oxygen level, and the ocean coverage until the environment is habitable. In Terraforming Mars, you play one of those corporations and work together in the terraforming process, but compete for getting victory points that are awarded not only for your contribution to the terraforming, but also for advancing human infrastructure throughout the solar system, and doing other commendable things.
The Settlers of Catan is a highly rated board game that has won several awards and members of the Booko online community highly recommend. Between 3 and 4 people can play the base edition, but a 5 to 6 player expansion is also available if you want to play with more people. You can use multiple strategies to win, and there are lots of variations to the rules. Picture yourself in the era of discoveries and after a long voyage of great deprivation, your ships have finally reached the coast of an uncharted island. Its name shall be Catan! But you are not the only discoverer. Other fearless seafarers have also landed on the shores of Catan and the race to settle the island begins!
Enjoy!