4 Dexterity Games To Bring A New Energy To Your Game Nights
Are you tired of having your game piece move EXACTLY where you wanted it to? Are you bored with rolling dice to determine success, instead of your own manual skill? Then check out these dexterity games!
Dexterity games are any game which require the player to really interact with the game board or pieces in some physical way. They often use physics in some way, either through flicking a disc or toppling over a tower or trying to balance a thing on another thing. But, I’m here to show you that’s not all dexterity games can be. …Although that is a lot of it, actually.
Loony Quest
Loony Quest is a competitive drawing game where players draw a path on a transparent draw-erase sheet, then overlay the sheet on the board to see which path they’ve taken. Players attempt to gather powerups and bonus points while avoiding crashing into walls and avoiding obstacles.
Players will make their way through multiple levels and worlds each with their own goals and objectives. After players reach the end, they tally up their points and whoever has the most points wins!
Flick ’em up!
Flick ’em up! is a team based shooter game which, unsurprisingly uses a flicking mechanic. Each team controls a team of 5 cowboys, either Lawman or Outlaws. The game comes with many different scenarios, each with its own set of rules and objectives. But in general, players take turns moving and shooting at each other by flicking tokens at each other.
The game comes with a number of cardboard buildings which can act as scenery, but also sometimes used within the scenarios. They can also be used as a location for a showdown duel, which pits two or more cowboys against each other in a standoff where only one makes it out alive.
Little Wars
If you’re a fan of wargaming, you might already know about Little Wars. Little Wars was the first tabletop wargame and was invented by author of War of the Time Machine of Doctor Moreau, H.G. Wells. The full title of the game is Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books. …….So……. let’s just call it Little Wars.
Little Wars plays much like the Lego and Playmobil castle games I made up with my friends as a kid. Each unit in the game had a different method of firing its weapon, but didn’t use dice or charts or tables to determine success, it used wooden dowels and string.
Players would fire actual projectiles from their units and if they struck the target, the target was hit. Might seem silly, but it gets rid of needing buckets of dice. The game has been reimplemented as a game called Wood Wars 3D, if you’re at all interested in giving it a shot. …..Get it??
Space Cadets
Space Cadets is an amalgamation of multiple dexterity games all rolled into one. In this cooperative game, each player is a different officer on the ship controlling their own systems. Each system requires a different sort of ‘mini-game’ to activate to different degrees.
The weapons officer, for example, needs to grab tiles to fit within each of the missile cards to ready each missile. After they ready their missiles, they have to play a shuffleboard type of game to determine the amount of damage dealt. Each system’s minigame plays very differently and is runs on a short timer, adding to the hectic and frantic nature of the game.
Final Thoughts
Dexterity Games have always been a strange sort of outlier in the tabletop gaming world. I understand why. They are often very strange and require a very particular set of skills.
…not what I meant.
If you’re looking for something new and different from the typical sort of game, check these out and maybe you’ll find you’re better at flicking things than you thought.
Thanks for reading!
