Clubhouse Games review: The Switch’s best “kids in a backseat” compilation ~ USA Latest Games

Clubhouse Games screen shot: Title screen

Not all 51 mini-games inside of Clubhouse Games, the latest first-party Nintendo game for Switch, are worth recommending. But if you like the idea of old, public-domain board and card games on Nintendo Switch in polished, easy-to-play format, a majority of them are.

The series, which last appeared on Nintendo DS in 2006, revolves around digital translations of timeless tabletop games. A list of the included games does a lot to narrow the usual "who is this for" conversation. I'll start by listing everything in this package that I'd recommend as a good two- or four-player game for a diverse audience of ages and experience levels:

Air Hockey	Backgammon
Battle Tanks / Team Tanks	Bowling
Carrom	Chess
Chinese Checkers	Darts
Dominoes *	Hanafuda *
Hex	Mancala
Nine Men's Morris	Renegade (Othello)
Shogi / Mini Shogi	Six-Ball Puzzle
Slot Cars	Toy Boxing
Toy Curling	Toy Soccer

The above list is specific to mini-games that impress as digital translations. There's an additional selection of good-enough games that are, with some exceptions, ideal for children sharing a Nintendo Switch during a long trip:

Checkers	Dots and Boxes
Fishing	Four-in-a-Row (Connect Four)
Gomoku	Hare and Hounds
Last Card (Uno) *	Matching
President *	Sevens *
Shooting Gallery	Sliding Puzzle
Solitaire (Mahjong, Klondike, Spider)	Speed (card game)
Yacht Dice (Yahtzee)

In all, that's 35 good-enough games (with some grouped together as similar variants) in a $40 package. The asterisks in those lists indicate which games require more than one Switch console to work in versus mode, but thanks to a clever "guest pass" system, they only require one paid copy of the game. (Solitaire isn't marked because it's inherently single-player.) Even with that issue, that's 30 decent classics for a single Switch console, and they all benefit from repeat-play scrutiny, robust production values, and family-friendly explanations for kids and newcomers. (They also save you the trouble of packing cards, dice, and other easy-to-lose pieces.)

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