Recently, I played Ebbe & Flut.
I was so taken with the game that I decided to try and print-and-play it.
@garygarison came up with a clever re-design of the game using poker chips and posted a
picture on BGG.
Using ChatGPT1, I whipped up a quick prototype of something similar using $\LaTeX$ and tikz.
This is all pretty geeky. What was really remarkable about all this was what happened when I put the pieces out on the table and let Mira play with them. We discovered a couple games together by accident, and had a wonderful time. It turns out that a four year old can happily play various games with these cards.
Initially, we separated out all the light cards from the dark cards. Then we played at matching up corresponding light and dark cards. (Sam would call this an activity, rather than a game.) After playing a few rounds of that, Mira asked how one wins the game. We decided that whoever collected the most pairs the fastest should win. This made a proper game of playing with the cards. The next game was to mix all the cards together, and match them up. We built on that game by adding the condition that the player collecting the cards needs to name them as they pick them up. Eventually, she got bored of the cards and we moved on to other games.
And so, I accidentally made some print-and-play games that are suitable for a four year old. This is the first step in a long journey of family board gaming.
Published: Aug 6, 2024
Last Modified: Aug 6, 2024
Thanks for reading! If you have any comments or questions about the content, please let me know. Anyone can contact me by email.