Clubhouse Games is the family board game night on the Switch I needed

Clubhouse games toy baseball — Toy baseball at clubhouse games: simple and addictive.
Nintendo / screenshot by Scott Stein / CNET

My family is not going anywhere this summer. Our months at home become more months at home. We play board games, go for long walks, have fun in the yard and try to eliminate stress in a world that is overwhelmed by it. Hello, clubhouse games, nice timing.

Such as Animal Crossing: New horizons seemed to be coming Exactly when everyone is stuck at home and longing for human connection, clubhouse games could become the new quick fix for summer for people stuck in the house. I was interested Great family multiplayer games on the switch, and this has a lot to offer. It also has some of the games that have made Nintendo old Wii sports games So great. This is not Wii Sports … but in a way it is spiritually closer than you think. And the warm spirit of this game is exactly what I need right now.

Nintendo’s latest game, released on June 5, is a collection of 51 family games, all classic. Card games, solitaire games, board games, some silly, super simple games, retro replicas of mechanical games and … a piano. Just a digital piano. Hey why not

I played Clubhouse Games in its first form on the Nintendo DS about 15 years ago. I still have it. It was a lot of fun, because back in 2005, the iPhone didn’t exist yet. A portable board game package was something special.

clubhouse-games-switch-ds — Clubhouse games on the switch and the older version on the DS (on a 3DS).
Scott Stein / CNET

Now there are many ways to play card games, backgammon, chess or whatever on a screen somewhere around your sofa pillows. With this in mind, Clubhouse Games packs ideas that you might get elsewhere.

However, Nintendo’s design and presentation are great, and almost all of the 51 games are fun enough to keep coming back and distracting yourself for a long time. Most of them have two-player modes, and some have three and four-player modes. Games can be played on one counter, huddled in a tabletop touchscreen mode or with detachable controllers. Or docked to a television.

Clubhouse games chess table — Playing touchscreen chess with my child on the switch.
Scott Stein / CNET

Some use Joy-Cons with motion controls like bowling or darts – and here it feels like the return of Wii Sports. Suddenly, that casual feeling of standing in front of the TV again and waving your arms around is back. The switch has surprisingly few games that use this type of gameplay.

The old clubhouse games on the DS were deeper in card games and had hearts and even contract bridge. The new Clubhouse games have a more diverse range (but unfortunately no Hearts or Bridge) and even a Mahjong educational game (which I wanted to learn to play). Some international games like Carrom, Shogi and Hanafuda (the card game that started Nintendo in 1889) are here and games I’ve never played before, like Nine Men’s Morris, which dates back to Roman times. Would you like to learn the rules of the game for billiards? Spider Solitaire? The games can serve as instruction kits for real things that you might have lying around. There is a version of Mastermind called Hit and Blow.

Clubhouse Games Nine Men Morris — Morris of the nine men. I’ve never played it, but now I want to give it real marbles.
Nintendo / screenshot by Scott Stein / CNET

A number of retro-style “toy” games had long been forgotten Wii Party U.. You better fit here on Switch. There’s a simple baseball, tennis, and rock ’em sock’ em boxing game here – the Toy Soccer game is like table football. Air hockey is perfect with touch controls. They are easier to insert or quickly play on a television. Some arcade games – a main battle tank game and even a competitive Tetris-like puzzle game called 6-Ball Puzzle – are welcome extras.

The games can be played online and I’ve tried some pre-game versions that started quickly (Mancala is one of my favorites). Games also play well on a TV (my family was very interested in Ludo, and the Shooting Gallery game uses the switch controllers like small Wii remote zappers). Local gaming works across other switches with a free bridging app that I haven’t tried yet, but I love this idea: only a few switch games allow multiplayer mode this way, with no additional copy fees. There’s a wacky multi-switch “mosaic” mode that offers additional scope for some games like slot cars, a holdover idea from the Wii Party U game if you remember.

At $ 40, a little less than most switch games, this is a great package of board games and multiplayer games. Nintendos Super Mario Party is also a kind of board game for families, but this game – although a lot of fun too – is based on arcade-like mini-games. The patient and even educational turn to Clubhouse Games is particularly fun. If you get stuck in the house for a while and have lots of people to play with, this may be your next good contact. And maybe it’s a small way to get in touch with friends or family.