BONUS: Evan's Favorite Family Games

**Transcript Auto-Generated**

00:00:12:11 - 00:00:33:21
Matthew Krekeler
Welcome back to Girl Dad Nation. I'm here again with Evan as Porter. He's an author, and we talked about his book, Dad Camp on the last episode. But I have him back because he loves to play games with his daughters. And I think that's an amazing way to bond with your daughters. My daughters and I love playing games.

00:00:33:22 - 00:00:51:18
Matthew Krekeler
We play board games, card games and starting to get into some video games. Mostly the Mario style games, but, Evan, welcome back. And yeah, wanted to dive into that topic. How do you like to connect with your daughters over games?

00:00:51:20 - 00:01:09:01
Evan S. Porter
Yeah, I think at the tail end of the episode I said, like, fun and laughter are just like core values in our house. I think we're always we're always trying to do that, always try to find ways to have fun together. So, let's see, we got a nine year old and a four year old. Not always easy to to make everybody happy in the game selection.

00:01:09:01 - 00:01:31:21
Evan S. Porter
Yeah. You know especially at four you know it's a little bit hard. But for the four year old games that other people also enjoy, not just her you know is a is a favorite. So you can play it. You know sometimes you have to bend the rules a little bit. But you know, the a favorite and it's a, it's a good one for like, counting and color color matching and that kind of stuff.

00:01:31:23 - 00:01:51:21
Evan S. Porter
We getting into some of the Nintendo Switch games with our four year old, like, you can actually do like bowling on the switch, believe it or not. Like on okay on some Nintendo sports, like she can do bowling and like, racket ball or, you know, some of the ones like that. It's just you got to put the wrist strap or else she's going to fling that controller.

00:01:51:21 - 00:02:13:09
Evan S. Porter
But, Mario Party is a is a good one. She's not ready for, like, Super Mario Brothers yet. That's a little bit too much coordination, but, Mario Party is one of our favorites. You know, anything where, like, you can do it, and it doesn't really matter if she's doing it. Well, like, you know, the, like the little mini games, you know, there's no pressure.

00:02:13:09 - 00:02:22:23
Evan S. Porter
Yeah. So. So it doesn't really matter if she doesn't win. Another game we love is happy salmon. I love if you haven't played Happy Salmon. It's,

00:02:23:01 - 00:02:24:11
Matthew Krekeler
That's the card game, right?

00:02:24:13 - 00:02:42:04
Evan S. Porter
There's a card game where you have these cards in your hand, and each card corresponds to, like, a hand motion that you have to find. Somebody else was a matching one. And you're running around the table constantly, very fast. It's fun, very, very physical. And, tons of it's hilarious. It's tons of laughter. So happy. Salmon is a favorite.

00:02:42:07 - 00:03:05:02
Evan S. Porter
Four year old is a little young for that one. But we we play when she goes to bed. If that's, our nine year old, we're really into like sequence, sequences like, oh yeah, strategic card game a little I'm not sure what to liken it to, but it, it, it requires like strategy and planning and teamwork and that's a really good one.

00:03:05:02 - 00:03:19:22
Evan S. Porter
We play with her and, my mother in law, so her grandma, we kind of like team up two, one two. And, sequence is a ton of fun, a little slower paced, more of a thinking game. And it's a it's a really, really good one. And she's a smart cookie, so she's able to do it pretty well.

00:03:20:01 - 00:03:20:09
Evan S. Porter
Yeah.

00:03:20:10 - 00:03:34:10
Matthew Krekeler
There's different versions of sequence two. So the base game is just card. So you're kind of matching cards or card numbers. But then there's like kids sequence which is more like I think like animal shapes is a little bit simplified.

00:03:34:12 - 00:03:34:22
Evan S. Porter
Okay.

00:03:34:22 - 00:03:42:21
Matthew Krekeler
That's cool. Yeah. And then I think there's like numbers ones. So there's yeah. Yeah. More kid friendly.

00:03:42:23 - 00:03:59:20
Evan S. Porter
Match. Yeah. I got to look for those. Maybe that's a good way to teach the little one how to play. Yeah, we played recently. We were out somewhere and they had it. We don't own it, but guess who my my four year old love. Guess who? It's a really fun one. You know, like bat and battleship with people or sort of.

00:03:59:20 - 00:04:12:04
Evan S. Porter
I don't know what. It's how you would explain it, but it's a it's a good one. I we have a whole closet full of games that we just rotate through, but those are I think those are the tops that we keep coming back to you again and again.

00:04:12:06 - 00:04:30:02
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, a lot of the games like Guess Who where there's like a physical component, like you're flipping down the things like kids love that kind of toy aspect in games. And then when you said the Mario games, yeah, that made me think of, my kids and I, we play Mario Kart, which is classic. Yeah.

00:04:30:02 - 00:04:52:13
Matthew Krekeler
And there's Mario Kart across a whole bunch of different things. We've we're playing it on the Wii, but oftentimes there's like, there's certain settings on Martin Mario Kart, that allow you to basically like, turn the controller. So then it's like motion activated instead of having to use the thing which is sometimes more, accessible for kids.

00:04:52:19 - 00:05:13:23
Matthew Krekeler
And then there's like directions to where, like, it auto goes. So instead of having to, like, press the gas button, it will just. Yeah, hold the car. And then there's ones that also keep it going in the proper direction. So it, eliminates the ability for them to, like, turn the wrong direction, so to speak. In the game.

00:05:13:23 - 00:05:30:03
Matthew Krekeler
So, yeah, if you're kind of new, to Mario Kart or those kind of games. Yeah, it's it's great to see developers having those kind of family friendly features, where you can optimize it to make it easy for kids of all levels, to join in.

00:05:30:03 - 00:05:35:10
Evan S. Porter
Yeah, I love that, I love it, it's like, kind of like, if you go bowling in real life, you can put the bumpers out there.

00:05:35:10 - 00:05:36:04
Matthew Krekeler
Oh, absolutely.

00:05:36:04 - 00:05:40:22
Evan S. Porter
And it's like, it doesn't matter what they do. That ball will hit the pins eventually. Yeah.

00:05:40:23 - 00:05:51:02
Matthew Krekeler
But the one thing is, kids always find a way, so. Yeah, because you can make it, the ingenuity of kids sometimes will. Surprise.

00:05:51:02 - 00:06:02:09
Evan S. Porter
Oh, yeah. Yeah, they will test the system for sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a good one. Mario Kart is is a favorite. To say anything on the Nintendo Switch, we have a blast.

00:06:02:11 - 00:06:25:20
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah. Evan, thank you so much. Yeah. And if if you have a favorite game to play with your kids, I'd love to hear about it. Send me a message or comments. On the social media posts, Girl Dad Nation, you can also email me directly at Girl Dad Nation podcast at gmail.com. And until next time, go be a dad.