My top 5 dexterity games

I have a theory that in the realm of video games, where I worked for several years, physics is king. Nothing makes the otherwise repetitive loop of practising a skill more satisfying than the feeling after many repetitions that you are beginning to understand the system - what subtle variations you can use in your technique to eke out tiny advantages. (We will revisit this thought in a future article where we discuss deck building in trading card games!)

Whether it’s frames or milliseconds gained in a speedrun, pixel perfect zoning and reactions in Street Fighter, your first Aerial in Rocket League - the point of physics is that it takes a situation where you tactically and strategically know what you want to do, and adds an execution layer that makes it difficult to achieve what you want. Whilst you can simulate this in a role playing game with randomness provided by a dice roll, the point is that your mastery over the physics is not random as your skill grows over time as you learn to recognise and react accordingly to more situations. At least until you start drinking - alcohol, the great leveller!

The pub game of pool makes this hit home for me. There’s something about the skill level required to look at a table and work out not just how you are going to use the cue to hit the cue ball into the target ball to pot it, but where are you going to leave the cue ball for your next shot, and the one after that? Spin applied to the cue ball is a great way to extend your ability to make a break, but how can you be sure how much cue power to use and how far from centre to strike the cue ball, to achieve the effect you want?

I think the answer is that you cannot be sure without having trained to know - the more shots you’ve hit ever, the more likely you are to understand what you need to do in this scenario. You also probably know that certain shots have a greater degree of difficulty than others, but on top of that you can also have a backup plan. How large is the window of opportunity that you are aiming for? If you miss precisely the shot you were going for in your head, what direction will you fail in, and will that leave a different opportunity to continue play?

However, not many people have the room to fit a pool table in their house, let alone the space around the table for the cues, and the budget to get a quality table in the first place. What is a boardgamer to do?

Luckily for us, there are a number of games that let you apply physical skill in various ways, from games built around dexterity as a central tenet, to games that use dexterity as just one of the skills being tested. We can balance things on other things, flick things at other things, push things into other things, and other unique takes, or perhaps all at once!

I think the poster child for this subgenre of dexterity is Jenga, but there are several other worthy contenders. Tier Auf Tier, or Animal Upon Animal is a game from HABA, a much loved publisher of children’s games. Rhino Hero, TinderBlox, and Barbecubes all have at their heart the same stacking idea, the main attraction for these being their much reduced size - all great travel games, Rhino Hero makes the most use out of stacking folded cards so the game travels very compactly, where Tinderblox and Barbecubes come in delightfully small tins, use tiny pieces and ask you to use tweezers to place them, sometimes with your non-dominant hand!

Recommendation: I love Tier Auf Tier and highly recommend it, but if you’re looking for a travelling game Rafter 5 is difficult to beat.

I wasn’t quite sure where to put this game, but Gulo Gulo has a similar idea to the stacking games in that you need a steady hand to not make something collapse, but instead of stacking things to make a more and more unstable situation, in this game you’re removing items, eggs from a nest, and trying not to make the alarm stick drop in the process. I guess it’s closest in feel to Operation or the classic fairground game of moving something along a wire without touching it, but the opponent here isn’t the electrical connection with a border, it’s the gravity of the central alarm that’s being held in place by the very things you’re stealing.

I played Gulo Gulo a lot when my kids were much younger, and I probably would have played it even more if we didn’t break the egg-alarm stick that came with the game. We tried multiple fixes, but nothing quite restored the physical feel of the original alarm.

Recommendation: I have a soft spot for Gulo Gulo, but the axe from Click Clack Lumberjack just gives that game a bit more heft.

An honourable mention has to go to Kluster here - it’s not a game about balancing things on other things, but there’s something magical about placing strong magnets and trying to predict just how far and wide those magnetic fields reach. The game is definitely testing the same skill of careful placement with fine motor control.

As fun as magnets are, I don’t quite think the supporting game is solid enough out-of-the-box, but there is an encouraging looking variant called Persistent Kusters posted on BGG by Sammo Hoi that could well be worth your time. It seeks to fix the main flaw with Kluster - namely that immediately after a cluster is formed and removed the next player has a very easy turn, such that you’re more likely to win by happening to sit to the left of the worst player than by actually being better than anyone else at the table.

I must also mention Polarity, which is less available than Kluster but still employs those wonderful magnetic fields. This time the magnetic pieces are contained in flat discs but thanks to the wonder of physics those discs need not lay flat - often the best play in this game is to position the disc magnet on edge, precisely where the magnetic push can counteract gravity, and dare your opponent to upset the field enough to have those magnets clack together.

Safety Warning: Please don’t play games with strong magnets around people who might eat them!

Space Cadets is unique amongst games that I’ve encountered for including a dexterity element in a game that would otherwise not be a dexterity game at all - in general Space Cadets is a real-time co-op game in which players take different roles on a ship and each player has different mini-games to play to ensure a successful mission. Amongst these roles is the weapons officer, who must solve a polyomino puzzle to load torpedo tubes, and later, for each successfully loaded torpedo, shoots that torpedo by flicking a counter along a long thin piece of cardboard, aiming to get as near to the end of the board as possible without falling off, precisely like a single shuffleboard shot. I think it’s a genius move to have one player at the table taking shots like this, as it’s an easy way to involve someone in a game who might be scared at taking on rules - flicking at a target is about as simple as it gets!

In PitchCar (or the later, smaller PitchCar Mini) you assemble a track to race around, and each player flicks their wooden car disc aiming for maximum distance without leaving the track. After a qualifying round to set grid positions (and warm up your flicking finger!), each racing round players get 1 flick, starting with the lead player and continuing in racing order, setting up dramatic overtaking manoeuvres. The player currently in last benefits from a slipstream and gets a second shot to help get back in the game, and the race ends once a predetermined number of laps have been raced.

At the deep end we have Crokinole and Carrom. These games do require investment in a nice board, and either polish or some special powder to overcome friction, but they replace the action of striking a ball with a cue and instead ask you to flick discs that glide along the surface on a small air pocket like hockey pucks or curling stones. On BoardGameGeek Crokinole gets talked about more, but I suspect this is an American bias showing through.

Crokinole is played in two phases, as the game starts with an empty board, initially you only need to pocket your piece in the central hole for 20 points. Succeed and your opponent gets the next attempt. Fail and we get to the second phase - now a legal shot is to bounce your incoming piece off any piece on the board. You’re still aiming to score 20 for pocketing your piece, only now it’s much harder due to the required ricochet. Once all the pieces have entered play the game is scored, with 15, 10 or 5 points awarded for each piece, closer to the centre being better.

For me Carrom is the better investment - not least because there are different games you can play with the pieces. Early on new owners of a Carrom table will play the simpler game Money (also known as Point Carrom), where all pieces can be potted with 1 point for black pieces and 2 for white pieces. Covering the queen is introduced right away - the queen is a red piece that can be potted for 5 points, but in order to count the queen must be covered by pocketing another piece on the next turn. With 32 points available in the game covering the queen is far from an assured win, but it’s worth considering the queen when you feel like you might be able to manage it. Once the Money game becomes too easy players can graduate to Carrom proper, a game much closer to pool as one player tries to pocket the white pieces whilst the other takes black. This is a very similar progression to that on a pool table, where you might start with Killer Pool before progressing to 8-ball.

The best thing though about either Carrom or Crokinole is that, as flat wooden boards, it’s possible for the boards whilst being stored between games to be hung on the wall as decorative pieces.

Recommendation: If you’ve got the money to source a great Carrom board, I doubt you’ll regret it! But if racing is more your jam, and you can find a copy of Pitch Car (even the mini version) it’ll be well worth your time.

Add an extra dimension to your flicking game and the main force you’re fighting against isn’t friction any more - it’s gravity.

Also I’m just now coming to the realisation that this is probably the closest boardgame to Beer Pong, which I’ve only ever seen played in the movies!

Cube Quest makes the flicking a more directly adversarial affair. Behind a privacy screen each player lays out their army of cubes, which can be pre-built from the rulebook or custom made to a points value formula. After revealing each player takes turns flicking one of their cubes at the opponent. Ultimately you seek to remove the opponent’s king from the board, but strike too hard and too wildly and you could send your own cubes flying instead! Special abilities allow for cubes to lock down others with ice, potentially take double flicks, or just be so cheap you can overwhelm your opponent through sheer force of numbers!

Recommendation: Whilst Cube Quest gets a lot of credit for adding fantasy style special abilities to a flicking game core, Coconuts is by far the more satisfying and addictive game to play in the moment. The base game supports up to 4 players, but Coconuts Duo, whilst being a standalone 2-player game, also acts as an expansion to take Coconuts to 6 players. Whichever you go for though, watch out for lost cubes and coconuts. These things can and will fly far!

Sumo Ham Slam asks you to train your hamster in the art of sumo, and feed them to give them extra weight, before taking on rival hamsters in the ring. The central game is to control your hamster using a magnetic rod that goes under the playing surface, using it to knock your opponent’s hamster over whilst they attempt to do the same to you.

Kabuto Sumo and Nacht Der Magier have completely different takes on a very similar looking mechanism. In both games there are wooden discs packed into the playing area, for Nacht Der Magier you try to push a cauldron bearing your symbol into the hole in the middle of the playing area, but first it has to be uncovered by pushing away the magical fire that resides there. The playing surface is crowded however, and causing something to fall off ends your turn. As the game progresses the field becomes emptier and emptier until the goal becomes possible.

By the way, the intended way to play this game is in the dark with some of the key pieces - the cauldron, fire, and magical ring - being glow in the dark! You can’t beat that for sheer atmosphere, as everybody listens for the dropped piece that signals the end of the current player’s turn.

In Kabuto Sumo your moves are limited by being performed in a straight line only, but can continue knocking off as many pieces as they can in that one move. Remove your opponent’s wrestler, or the title belt, to claim the win!

Recommendation: Der Schwarze Pirat wins this category for me on account of being a more substantial game of skill, but Nacht Der Magier, if you can find a copy, is a lovely treat to play for that glow-in-the-dark ambience.

DroPolter is a recent take on the dexterity game, asking you to pick up and hold in one hand a variety of objects, then when a card is drawn from the deck quickly ascertain which objects the card is telling you to drop, and drop exactly those items. The first player to do so earns a bell, and crucially must place that bell in their hand alongside the other items as a handicap - don’t drop it or you’ll lose it!

Smugglers tested a skill that I don’t think I‘ve ever seen tested in a boardgame before - the ability to roll out a ball of putty that’s large enough to conceal a gem but small enough to be rolled through whichever archway is in play this round. The heaviest ball that fits grants the moulder the best turn order position, but there’s still a mind game for that round’s inspector guessing what colour gem another smuggler hid. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen dexterity combined with bluffing before or since!

I have seen it combined with betting though in Igloo Pop, a crazy idea for a game which involves shaking plastic igloos, listening to the sounds they make, and betting on how many balls you think are contained inside - all in real time, whilst the other players are frantically shaking the other igloos to do the same thing!

Recommendation: Loopin’ Louie, a game that I never initially considered would make it into this newsletter when I imagined writing for Curious Lynx Games, is the clear winner in this non-category. It’s even been recreated in giant form!

Wrapping up my take on all things dexterity we have 2 games that can’t really go into any of the other categories because they are all of them. Each round of these games asks you to do something new, and it’s this variety act that keeps them enjoyable and playable.

Beat That is a party game containing a variety of props - balls, cubes, cups, and so on - and a deck of cards with different games and challenges to perform using them. My favourite part of this game is that you have coins of different values to wager on each activity. The most valuable coin you have will have to be wagered on some game sooner or later, but you don’t know what’s coming up. Do you feel confident that this game right now is your best shot at a win? Or should you hold on a little longer for something that’s more obviously in your wheelhouse?

We have also played Mini-Game Party from Big Potato Games, which has the same many-games-from-a-small-collection-of-items feel as Beat That, and includes an interesting scoring mechanism where players use a would-you-rather question to line up into teams to take each other on for 1 game, but the winning team scores points based on how many people are in the other team. The smaller team therefore has the harder job, but the most to win if they pull off an upset as the underdog. Best played in odd-numbers to exacerbate this!

Recommendation: Beat That is the better game in my opinion due to the betting rules and the components just being a little more varied and fun. However, either game is more than acceptable for entertaining a disparate group of players looking for an evening’s entertainment.

So, that’s a round up of the many subgenres that get lumped together as “Dexterity games”. I hope I’ve convinced you that there is a lot to look at in the dexterity genre, even if you’ve played and not enjoyed such games in the past.

For my final wrap up, I’m going to rank my top 5 across the categories.

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