Yesterday, my car thermometer clocked 104°. Granted, our car is black, which means it regularly measures temperatures about ten degrees too warm, but still, that’s too damn hot.

Like everybody else descended from pioneers who decided to settle in the desert, we’re always on the lookout for ways to beat the heat. Our answer, like our answer to every other apprehension, has been board games. What follows are the ten titles that are helping my family cope with the Great American Bake-Off.

The most kid-unfriendly title on this list.

#10. Corps of Discovery

If Meriwether Lewis and William Clark can handle the heat, and slay buffalotaurs while doing it, then by Lady Columbia so can we. Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim’s latest comic book adaptation leans into the brutality of its source material, and we’ve been marching through all six scenarios, one fungal zombie and head-stealing pterodactyl at a time. What makes this selection so appropriate to the summer season, though, is the weather. While there are plenty of beasties out there, a full half of the threats faced by your intrepid expedition are climatological in nature. Incoming heat wave? Rub yourself down with wet mud. Cold snap? Hope you know how to spark a fire. Mmm, that’s the life.

Preview: Corpse of Discovery

Hey, we can imagine we’re cooling off in the pool!

#9. Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders

The kids are out of school. The sun goes down near to midnight. You know what that means. That’s right: trumped-up charges that get them into bed by 9:30. Also campaign games. My eleven-year-old insisted we race through Tidal Blades 2, often tackling two or three scenarios per week. During the school year, this would have taken us six months to complete. Instead, it took, oh, two months, give or take. It helps that this is one of the most vibrantly realized campaign settings out there, with charming characters, colorful monsters, and so much water. Cool, clear water.

Review: Wet Behind the Gills

Tongs with hot coals. Very summer.

#8. Wilmot’s Warehouse

What does a memory game have to do with summer? When it comes to Wilmot’s Warehouse, that’s wholly up to your imagination. This has become my six-year-old’s most requested board game. She doesn’t remember the title. She calls it “the story memory game.” That’s apt enough, kiddo. The stories we create together invariably include bugs, slapstick injuries, and poop (again, she’s six), but that’s also what makes this game so charming. Every time we correctly remember the placement of another thirty-odd tiles, she brags about how good her memory is getting. At least her gray matter isn’t atrophying in the absence of school. (Too much.)

Review: Ars Wilmot

You think you’re hot? Spare a feeling for these poor teenagers.

#7. Hot Streak

Can you imagine donning a mascot suit for a summer sport? I can, but I really do not want to tell you why. Jon Perry’s Hot Streak positions us on the outside looking in. Also, placing bets. There’s something marvelous about watching your children become gambling addicts in real-time. When both of my kiddos placed considered wagers and then doubled down by announcing a risky bet, I started setting aside some cash for their inevitable bail fund. Here’s the good news: Hot Streak is so funny that we don’t even notice when the sweat is trickling down the back of our knees.

Review: Ready Set Brat

Yes, this is prone to cataclysm.

#6. Homeworlds

Summer is a great time to take up new hobbies. Like, for example, a diminutive board game that plays with abstract pyramids but offers a lifestyle game’s worth of strategy and consideration. I’ve been curious about Homeworlds for years. Now I’m finally learning the ropes. Like a universe nested within a black hole, this little thing is not as little as it appears. I’m very bad at it.

Mid-shot.

#5. Crokinole

If a game necessitates regular waxing, it’s a summer sport by default. Look, that’s just International Olympic Committee rules. Everybody already knows that Crokinole is heckin’ great. What you might not know is that… okay, you know it all. But hey, Crokinole has become an unexpected hit at any “optional” summer parties, the ones with roll-calls and deans peering suspiciously at any clusters of gossiping students. It looks expensive (because it is), teaches in something like twenty seconds, and in a pinch you can sit and slide the discs around the board’s periphery. It doesn’t get much summer-er than that.

Article: Four Complaints about Crokinole

What we wouldn’t give for a gentle rain.

#4. A Gentle Rain

Not many board games are designed explicitly for cooling off. But while Kevin Wilson had mental wellness in mind when he created A Gentle Rain, we’ve found it’s also a pleasant way to calm down after some time on the playground. Its simplicity and focus on movement have been described as mindful, perhaps even kinesthetic, emphasizing repetitive motions and simple matching. But every detail, right down to the color palette and its evocation of a droplet-ripped pool, have helped the six-year-old recenter herself when things get a little too stimulating.

Review: A Mindful Rain

Check.

#3. Chess

We’ve found a place in the city where the whole family loves to eat, a food court in a refurbished granary that has just enough dining spots for everyone. Outside there are games. Cornhole and table tennis, mostly, but the one that appeals to my kiddos is the gigantic chess set. One match at a time, Cate has been honing her skills. Against me, against her cousins, sometimes even against her younger sister. Those last matches tend to be closer to dexterity games than one of mankind’s most enduring tournament pieces, but that’s fine. She’s learning. At least she’s stopped kicking over the bishops because of their weird mouths.

Sizzle sizzle. Where’s the vegetarian edition?

#2. Barbecubes

I never would have guessed that Barbecubes would become our second-most played board game of summer. And yet, and yet. My six-year-old is to blame for this one, although it’s swiftly caught on with the rest of the family as well. Of course, it helps that the whole thing only occupies as much space as a tin of curiously strong mints. But for a rules-negative balancing game, this one is hotter than a gas grill. It features little strips of bacon, produces a weirdly effective narrative arc about an overstuffed range, and everyone gets to laugh at daddy’s shaking hands. What’s not to love?

Review: Fire Hazards

The most pleasant of summer games.

#1. High Tide

It’s only been a couple of weeks since the completed version of High Tide showed up on my doorstep. I took a look at this thing in its original incarnation back in October, Marceline Leiman’s hand-stamped indie market production, all of twenty sets in existence. Now, sniffle, it’s all grown up… into an adult that’s the spitting image of its juvenile self. Some acne has disappeared in the intervening months, especially where setup is concerned, but this remains the same lovely low-stakes experience it was back when I first met it. Best of all, I know we’ll keep it around — after all, we never even stopped playing the original. This one is perfect for an after-dinner duel, taking only twenty minutes to play best-of-five. The only item left on my summer bucket list is to play it on some actual sand.

Review: Intertidal Zone

And there you have it! Our ten recent summer board games. What have you been playing this summer?

(If what I’m doing at Space-Biff! is valuable to you in some way, please consider dropping by my Patreon campaign or Ko-fi. Right now, supporters can read the first part in my series on fun, games, art, and play!)