HowTo Network emblem How To: Gaming THE HOW TO CO. — EDITION 10
TITLE DEED — FAMILY & KIDS · SPACE 09 PATH 01 OF 03

Games by Age, read off the table, not the box.

Six things a turn can ask a child to do. Each one arrives on its own schedule, and a game is only playable once the last one it needs has turned up.

WHAT THE BOX ANSWERS
Choking hazards and reading
WHAT THE TABLE ASKS
How many decisions a turn
THE RULE OF THUMB
A game opens at its latest gate

THE NUMBER ON THE CORNER

The printed age is a real number. It is just the answer to a different question.

A publisher prints an age because somebody has to. It settles the things a regulator and a lawyer care about — whether a piece fits in a mouth, whether a child has to read the cards, whether a parent will call the company. Those are honest questions and the number is an honest answer to them. It is simply not an answer to the question you are standing in the shop asking, which is whether the game will work on Sunday afternoon with the people who will actually be in the chairs.

That question has one variable: how many decisions a turn asks for, and of what kind. A four-year-old can hold one. A seven-year-old can hold one that costs something. A ten-year-old can hold one they have to keep to themselves. Those are not the same skill arriving in a bundle at a birthday — they arrive separately, years apart, in an order that barely varies. So the useful move is to stop asking how old the child is and start asking which of them have arrived.

The chart below is the parent chapter's ladder taken apart. Six demands, each with the year it becomes reliable, and the six genres of family game stood on top of the ones they need. A genre opens at its latest gate, not its earliest — which is why a set-collection game lands a full year before a press-your-luck game of half the weight, and why the box telling you "8+" is right about both of them and useful about neither.

Six plain family game boxes stood upright in a stepped row on a lamplit table, chunky wooden pieces along the near edge
THE SAME SHELF, SORTED BY WHAT A TURN ASKS FOR RATHER THAN BY THE NUMBER ON THE CORNER
Six board-game box corners lined up along a tabletop with blank cream age roundels, lamplight raking across the printed card
SIX BOX CORNERS IN A ROW — EVERY ONE OF THEM PRINTING A NUMBER THAT ANSWERS THE LAWYER

Six gates, and the year each one opens.

THE DETAIL

Each row is one thing a turn can ask for. The dashed part of the row is the stretch where a child is being asked and cannot reliably deliver; the printed bar starts at the year they can. Every genre from the chapter above is dropped in as a vertical line at its own age, carrying a filled block on each gate it needs and an empty one on each gate it merely passes. Read it once and the ladder upstairs stops being a list of ages: a rung sits where it sits because that is where its last gate opened, and no earlier.

WHY A RUNG OPENS WHEN IT OPENS SIX GATES ON ONE AGE AXIS · THE PARENT CHAPTER’S SIX RUNGS STOOD ON THEM WAIT A TURN Sit still while others go AGE 03 COUNT THE MOVE Read a die, move that many AGE 05 TAKE A BAD ROLL Lose ground, stay in the chair AGE 06 HOLD A PLAN Want a thing two turns away AGE 08 KEEP A SECRET Know it and not say it AGE 10 BE BLOCKED Watch it get taken first AGE 12 AGE AT THE TABLE 01 MATCH AND MOVE · AGES 3–4 02 ROLL AND COUNT · AGES 5–6 03 PRESS YOUR LUCK · AGES 6–8 04 SET COLLECTION · AGES 8–10 05 HIDDEN ROLES · AGES 10–12 06 WORKER PLACEMENT · AGES 12+ THE RUNG NEEDS THIS GATE IT PASSES THIS ONE BY THE ARITHMETIC, WORKED ON 04 SET COLLECTION ASKS FOR WAIT A TURN AGE 03 COUNT THE MOVE AGE 05 HOLD A PLAN AGE 08 SO THE RUNG OPENS AT AGE 08 WHY A RUNG OPENS WHEN IT OPENS SIX GATES ON ONE AGE AXIS · SIX RUNGS STOOD ON THEM WAIT A TURN Sit still while others go AGE 03 COUNT THE MOVE Read a die, move that many AGE 05 TAKE A BAD ROLL Lose ground, stay in the chair AGE 06 HOLD A PLAN Want a thing two turns away AGE 08 KEEP A SECRET Know it and not say it AGE 10 BE BLOCKED Watch it get taken first AGE 12 AGE AT THE TABLE → 01 MATCH AND MOVE · AGES 3–4 02 ROLL AND COUNT · AGES 5–6 03 PRESS YOUR LUCK · AGES 6–8 04 SET COLLECTION · AGES 8–10 05 HIDDEN ROLES · AGES 10–12 06 WORKER PLACEMENT · AGES 12+ THE RUNG NEEDS THIS GATE IT PASSES THIS ONE BY THE ARITHMETIC ON 04 SET COLLECTION ASKS FOR WAIT A TURN AGE 03 COUNT THE MOVE AGE 05 HOLD A PLAN AGE 08 SO THE RUNG OPENS AT AGE 08 01 THE LAST GATE Someone takes the plan first 02 THE GATE IT SKIPS A set game never busts you 03 THE FIRST GATE Sit still while three others go

By age, in five pieces.

5 PIECES · ON THE TABLE

What this path is holding room for. Nothing here is a link yet — these are the pieces being written for this space.

01

How to find the gate a child has just walked through

Four things to watch for at the table that tell you which demand has arrived, without asking them a single question.

BY POPPY · 6 MIN

02

How to buy for a five-year-old who will be seven

The boxes that grow a gate at a time, and why buying a year ahead usually costs you the year you are in.

BY POPPY · 5 MIN

03

How to run one game for a six-year-old and an eleven-year-old

Split the gates rather than the teams: give each child the demand they can hold and let the game do the rest.

BY IRIS · 7 MIN

04

How to tell a hard game from a slow one

Length is not weight. The box that takes ninety minutes may ask less of a child than the one that takes twenty.

BY IRIS · 5 MIN

05

How to move a child up a rung without losing the evening

One new demand at a time, introduced in a game they already know, before the heavier box comes off the shelf.

BY POPPY · 6 MIN

THE REST OF THIS TRACK

Learning Through Play PATH 02 →House Rules PATH 03 →

BACK TO FAMILY & KIDS →

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SPACE 09 / 16 · CHAPTER 04 · FAMILY & KIDS

How To: Board Games REGION 02 · SIXTEEN SPACES · ONE TABLE START HERE GO ↺ CHAPTER 01 LEARNING & TEACHING HOW GAMES WORK · TEACH FAST · FIRST GAMES PRICE: 3 PATHS ◆ SNACK BREAKWASH YOUR HANDS FIRST CHAPTER 02 GAME NIGHT HOSTING · PARTY GAMES · TWO-PLAYER PRICE: 3 PATHS TIMEOUT RULES ARGUMENTIN PROGRESS ★ DRAW A CARD CHAPTER 03 STRATEGY & SKILL BASICS · EURO & HEAVY · DECK & DICE PRICE: 3 PATHS ↻ ROLL AGAIN SHUFFLE NEW GUIDESEVERY WEEK CHAPTER 04 FAMILY & KIDS BY AGE · LEARNING THROUGH PLAY · HOUSE RULES YOU ARE HERE ◆ HOUSE RULES IN EFFECT ▲ FLIP THE TABLE(DO NOT) SIDE QUEST POPPYWAS HERE CHAPTER 05 COLLECTING & CARE STORAGE · SLEEVES · EDITIONS & KICKSTARTER PRICE: 3 PATHS ⇄ TRADE ANYONE ANYTHING ▸ HOME STRETCHONE MORE TURN
How To: Board Games SIXTEEN SPACES GO ↺ CH 01 LEARNING 3 PATHS ◆ CH 02 GAME NIGHT 3 PATHS TIMEOUT ★ CH 03 STRATEGY 3 PATHS ↻ SHUFFLE CH 04 FAMILY ◆ ▲ SIDE QUEST CH 05 COLLECTING 3 PATHS ⇄ ▸

Every chapter in this region is a space on this board. This one is 09. Back to the board to roll for another.