Top Ten Best Games to Play Outside!

Hi everybody. Hello. We are Ryan and Bethany from Ryan and Bethany Board Game Reviews. And today we have something special for you. We have a top 10. Yes, that's right. We have another top 10 for you. We are doing our top 10 games to play outside. Uh so it is springtime here in the Midwest and we have been locked inside.

Literally the government comes and locks our doors. We can't leave the house. It's crazy. Um that's not true, but it does feel that way sometimes. We are just locked inside in the cold and the darkness and the dreiness. We want to get outside, but we don't want to stop playing board games just because we want to be outside also.

So, we came up with a list of 10 games or even 10 kind of styles of games that work really well for playing outside in different situations. Uh so, we're going to go over the 10 games, but again, it's might be 10 categories almost in a way, and then uh we uh are going to alternate back and forth. Uh I'm going to let uh Can I go first this time?

Yes, I will allow it. Thank you so much. But before you go first, Ryan, I just want to remind all of you to subscribe so you don't miss any of our videos as they come out. Now you can go. Oh, we appreciate it. All right, number 10. Uh, this is Sky Team. Sky Team is fantastic. It's a wonderful game. It's one of our favorite two-player games.

It's this cooperative dice puzzle challenge thing. Uh, but really all this game consists of is um the the shared mat in the middle middle of the board, which is a nice kind of recessed board. It's nice and heavy. It's not going to fly away in the wind. And dice going to be rolled behind your little player screen.

And those are also not going to get wet or ruined. Um, say if they fall down in the mud or whatever, not a problem. They're just plastic dice. And you have your little shield. Uh, that's the one thing. It's probably why this is number 10 on the list, just because that that kind of shield depending on how if it's a windy day or not, might blow away.

you know, you have to keep a little handle on it or keep dice in it or whatever the case is. But this is a really nice relaxing kind of a porch style game that you can play on your porch under your backyard or whatever with another friend and uh try to try to land that airplane safely. You won't. Anyway, our number nine is Quirkle.

And so this is just a game that has those big chunky pieces. And that is the game. These big chunky pieces, if it's a little windy, that's not going anywhere. They're going to stay where they are in the middle of the board. you have the pieces in front of you. If they fall down, nothing bad is going to happen.

If they get on the grass or the ground, it's it's not a big deal. You're pulling the pieces out um of the bag. You're taking your own personal pieces and trying to put them on the board and that's it. And they're just big chunky pieces. So, it is great for an outdoor game. The one drawback is it takes up a lot of space.

So, don't play this on a little kind of, you know, you need a big picnic table or what outdoor table if you got which is why it's nine. All right. So, our number eight, this is Rolled West. World West is a great travel game. Uh it just consists of a few Delves and then a little scoring board that has uh a dry erase thing that you have in front of you.

That's all you have. You have your little in your hand you have your board and your dry erase pen and then you have the dice and then you have the that's basically all you're working with. So it's really nice for that. A lot of rolling rights would work in this situation, but some of them have paper or require a little bit more space or whatever the case is.

This one is one of the more compact ones in the fact that it's dry erase uh and not paper makes it a little more hefty so it's not going to be moving around on you. I really like World West anyways and I needed every chance I need to to talk about it. Uh this is one of our favorite travel games and it's a perfect one to play outside.

Um our number seven is teleustrations and this is just a goofy game where you're drawing pictures and then people are trying to guess what you draw and then goes around in a circle like that. There's a lot of games that could probably fit in this spot of games where you're drawing kind of um partish games where you're drawing things like that.

It it would work for this, but teleustrations really works. We I mean this is a game I can actually say from experience. I've played this outside and it works great. You do have that one card just in case if it's windy, but after you know what you're doing, you can just easily put it back in the box.

Like after you roll, you don't even need to keep the card anymore. you can just put it in the box and then people are holding the sheet and holding the pen the whole time. So you don't really have to worry about the um elements because none of us are just going to be sitting outside when it's raining in the rain.

So it's just Yeah. So this works really well. There's a couple of our games on this list that you could do that with fun. You don't you actually don't need a table for this one either. So this can be like lawn chairs and stuff like that. As long as everybody has that card and you can put it back in the box, you you don't have to have a table for this game.

The next one, our number six is Monikers. And that does the same kind of thing. You can do this around a campfire. This would be a great time to to play this kind of a game. Uh it's basically a game where you have a kind of a catchphrase round. You have a whole bunch of words. You're trying to play catchphrase to get people to guess your guess your team to guess what it is.

the second round you uh have boiled it down to just a single word of that you know it's basically it's a catchphrase right it's it's a it's a moniker it's a it's a I don't know boiled down simplistic version of the things you did in the first round and the third round is old school charades so you might have to get up a little bit and move around for that one but all can be done outside very easily all you have is that one deck of cards that one person's dealing with it as they're kind of going through the deck uh it is a great silly like I said campfire style game um many party games fit in that category including charade and catchphrase and whatever else, but this is my favorite version and combines several of those games into one.

All right, our number five is Spyfall, and this is a social deduction game. Again, like a lot of the games we mentioned before, there's a lot of social deduction games that could fit in this category. Some of them have more components than you would want for an outside game, but with this, you just have um the cards that you're drawing from to figure out what your location is.

there's one person who doesn't know what your location is and you're asking each other questions to try to do two things. One, let everybody know, you know, you're not you're not the spy, but to also try to sus out who the spy is. So, this is a game where there's not a lot of components. You don't need a table for this.

You can kind of just be in the same place just just hanging out with this game. All right, my number four, our number four is Block Ness. And in this game, it's all the game is kind of contained in the box itself, which is really nice. You just need a small little little, like I said, a little porch table or whatever to play this on.

Uh you can even play it in the grass if you wanted to. Um then you have your own Yeah. And you have your own little selection of um monsters, I guess they are. Well, it's like the lockch nest. It's like the Loch Ness monster, right? these little monster um pieces that you're playing in kind of this puzzly area control style way, but you're always kind of growing your monsters either tail or head as it kind of wraps around the board.

Uh this is a really fun one. Takes hardly any time at all. Uh this is a great one to just kind of be outside, get some fresh air and play these silly monster games. Like that would work really well for a picnic, too, cuz you could just put it on the blanket. Everything's there. You don't have to worry about somebody knocking it and things going on because they lock into place.

They lock in place. Lock lock nest. I was not trying to do that. Oh my gosh. Let's carry on. So, our number three is can't stop. You do need a board for this one, but a lot of these um a lot of the versions of this game have like a lockin component as you're going. So, this is a push your luck game.

You're rolling dice to try to get your pieces to move all the way up on a track. You have um two through 11 rolling dice. You just move that way. But two to 12. two to you're right, not 11. Two to 12. Two to 12. Um, and so you're going up on this track, uh, trying to be the first one at the top of any of these individual number tracks.

You're trying to do that three times. So, you do need a space to put that, but outside of that, it's just the die that you're rolling. Um, and so you don't need a ton of space, just a space to put the can't stop board and roll. Um, this would even work if people were walking around and moving because they could just roll, do their thing, go do something else, and then come back and finish their turn as well.

So, it almost works if you're doing there's lots of kids around and you put it on a table in between dealing with the small children, you can come back to that game and it's going to be totally fine. All right, my our number two, this is a game called Skull. I've seen it under other names as well. Some people even call it just the coaster game, but basically every player has their own little stack of coasters.

uh they're all roses or different kinds of flowers and then one of them is a skull. On a turn, you're basically putting out one of your coasters. You get to choose whether you put out one of the roses or one of the skulls and then it becomes kind of like a betting game. You kind of try to see if you can figure out how many of the tiles you can flip over without getting a skull.

But of course, then people are going to try to put as many skulls out there as possible or maybe not because if you ever guess wrong, you have to lose one of your tiles and then it's kind of like it acts as one of your lives. Yeah. you know, but then uh you might lose your skull, you might lose one of your roses.

Nobody else knows but you what you've lost. So then it's kind of like keep on putting things out there. People assume you put a rose out there, but really all you have left is a skull. So they Yeah. You keep on trying to to burn them that way. It is a wonderful beer and pretzel styles game, playing this around um a campfire or around a table, whatever the case is.

All you need is just your stack of coasters in front of you and that's it. Um super simple and tons of laughs. All right, our number one, the last one. We're finally here. This is a game. This game is the reason why we came up with this list, and that is Hive. These have those big chunky acrylic tiles.

They are not going to get ruined. It is okay if they face the elements. Nothing is going to happen. And there's no board. You kind of create the board as you go. You could even play this on the ground if you wanted to because they are big enough that the shifting really isn't going to be that bad. you'll be able to figure out what's happening.

But when we think of games to play outside, this is a game that always comes to mind. Um because it doesn't need that board because you're creating your own space because the tiles are just very invincible. Yes, they are going to be okay. You may not, but they will survive. So, that is our number one hive.

Oh, I didn't even tell you what the game's about. So, I was just talking about how great the components was. It's just the tiles. So, this is a um a perfect information game where you have all of these tiles and there's bugs. The bugs have different movements on them. You are trying to completely surround your opponent's bee.

And so, you're moving your bugs around to protect your bee and you're also moving your um uh bugs around to try and completely swarm your opponent's bee. Yeah, I think that is a perfect example of this category. Uh did you guys like this category? Is something that would be helpful to you? Let us know in the comments below.

What are some games that you've tried to play outside? Was it successful? Was it fun? We want to know. Uh, this is going to be we're going to try to have bonfires weekly this whole summer. So, we want to maximize that time by playing games, having fun with the family, and get through our giant pile of wood in our backyard simultaneously.

So, we need game recommendations. These are some ones we'll definitely be using. We want to hear from you, too. Everybody, thank you so much for watching. Don't forget to subscribe so you can see our videos as they come out. Until then, you can find us in all of these places. Yes. Thanks for watching and we will see you next time.

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