How We Use Board Games to Decide Chores
My wife and I started a new tradition in our house a couple of months ago. We call it the Sunday Laundry Battle. Once a week we play a 2-player board game, and the loser has to fold the laundry that week. It’s not exactly high stakes, but it’s a fun way to keep us consistently playing some of our favorite games while also injecting a bit of competitive spirit into the proceedings.
Unfortunately we haven’t been keeping track of our total number of wins, so I can’t tell you what our all-time laundry battle record is. I did have one unfortunate 3 week losing streak that still haunts me, but I think our record is actually quite close. And that’s ideal, because you obviously want some parity and unpredictability in an arrangement like this.
The board games we choose are almost exclusively 2-player only games, because of course they’re optimized for head-to-head battles, although there are some exceptions. We include games like Azul, for instance, because they still play very well with only 2 players. And the loser always gets to choose what game we play next week.
We definitely have a small stack of 2-player games that we’re loyal to - as you can see in our article about 2-player board games for date night. And, for the most part, we don’t stray too far from that list. Occasionally, however, we get our hands on a new game that we fall in love with - and we’ll happily add it to the mix. Splendor Duel and Boop are a couple recent examples of that.
And, come to think of it, the Sunday Laundry Battle is actually a great way to ensure we are tracking down all of those wonderful 2-player games out there we’re yet to discover. There are only so many times we can play the same games over and over until I’m googling 2-player games and asking readers for more recommendations!
The board games with the most plays in our very tight rotation at the moment are:
Azul
Splendor Duel
Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle: Defence Against the Dark Arts
Blokus Duo
Spirits of the Wild
Home Alone
The key to our enjoyment of all of these games is that there is skill involved - but the result is still entirely unpredictable for us. It would be no fair or fun, for example, if I were to choose chess as our game of the week - but it is 100% impossible to predict whose strategic skills will win the day with any of these abstract games. I suppose we’ve literally had the same amount of practice with every single one of them.
If you and your significant other would like to play more games together, and if you haven’t thought of a satisfying way to decide who folds the laundry or who washes the dishes, I encourage you to try a Sunday Laundry Battle of your own. To be quite honest, even with the threat of laundry hanging over my head, it’s especially nice to have some built-in time each week to spend together and play with each other.
Using the Sunday Laundry Battle with Kids
There’s no reason the Sunday Laundry Battle needs to be exclusive to adults either. But I’m not entirely convinced if it’s a good idea yet. I think there’s a lot of potential for incorporating board game battles with the younger members of your household, but I’m currently brainstorming how that might look in practice.
My first thought was that it might work well as a transition into doing more chores for little ones. Perhaps doing the dishes every night is too much of an ask, but doing them once a week or once every other week is a better introduction. But losing a game can be hard for kids under normal circumstances, let alone if they are “punished” for losing. My fear is that doing a chore after losing a board game will just teach them to hate board games!
On the other hand, perhaps using the board game as an occasional reprieve for chores they already do is the best idea. The key is to keep the stakes very low - that’s why the Sunday Laundry Battle with my wife works so well. And it’s very important to remember that a 7-year-old’s concept of high stakes is astronomically different than an adult’s concept of high stakes.
You know your kids better than anyone, and therefore you’ll probably know how old they need to be for playing a game with a chore on the line to go from frustrating to fun. I imagine it could be a very fun way to connect with teenagers who would be happy to play a game to try to get out of a duty - and an effective way to talk them into playing with you at all. But my oldest is just 10 now, so we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
One idea I have for keeping the stakes low that I think would work best for families that share chores - perhaps with something like a chore wheel - would be to have a board game battle to see who gets to choose their chore first. Perhaps you have choices like do the dishes, cook dinner, do the laundry, mow the yard - and the winner of the game gets to choose which chore they prefer. I think that’s the kind of low-stakes-but-still-fun concept we’re after.
If you decide to try a Laundry Battle (or maybe a Dishwashing Battle) with your significant other or your kids, I hope it turns out to be a fun tradition for you like it is for us. I hope it helps you build in a little quality time with each other, and maybe even give you something to look forward to each week. And I wish you luck in avoiding the laundry every week!
Do you ever put chores on the line when playing board games with the family? What are some of your favorite 2-player games to use? Let us know in the comments!
