Kaia Blackwell: I'm Kaia Blackwell.

Rosie Caren: I'm Rosie Caren and you're listening to the Wirecutter Show.

Rosie Caren: Hey Kaia.

Kaia Blackwell: Rosie.

Rosie Caren: Hey.

Kaia Blackwell: Hi.

Rosie Caren: We're into summer.

Kaia Blackwell: Yeah, it's time to party, I think.

Rosie Caren: Party, boy. We're going to be outside.

Kaia Blackwell: Mhm.

Rosie Caren: Somebody you inevitably, whether you're in the park, whether you're at the beach, whatever, somebody's pulling out a game.

Kaia Blackwell: Oh, 100%.

Rosie Caren: Are you a game person?

Kaia Blackwell: I love games.

Rosie Caren: Do you love a lawn game?

Kaia Blackwell: I do, except for cornhole. I feel like it's overplayed.

Rosie Caren: And frankly, what else is there beyond cornhole?

Kaia Blackwell: Exactly. And I get it, everybody knows it and like therefore it's easy to just like whip out and nobody has to learn the rules, but Rosie, I'm tired. Yeah.

Rosie Caren: You're. And I mean, I guess there's bocce, old school.

Kaia Blackwell: Yeah. Yeah, I guess.

Rosie Caren: When we were kids, we had an old croquet set that like once a summer we would take out and that was really fun, but like...

Kaia Blackwell: ...you.

Rosie Caren: It is, yeah. Trey posh. Um, not terribly portable.

Kaia Blackwell: Mhm, no.

Rosie Caren: Not an easy setup. There's got to be more.

Kaia Blackwell: I think I'm ready to try something new and that is why we're here today. We're going to be bringing on James Austin, aka James Games.

Rosie Caren: James Games.

Kaia Blackwell: Love him. He's a staff writer covering games and hobbies here at Wirecutter and he actually joined us last year to talk about board games and tabletop games for any kind of game night. Today, he's going to tell us about some outdoor games that you hopefully never heard of that you can just whip out all summer long, get out in the sun, away from the screens and play something new. Or maybe you even got a 4th of July gathering planned for tomorrow. Now would be a fun time to just run to the store and try one out.

Rosie Caren: I'm always excited to talk to James and I love that conveniently we have someone to talk about every topic.

Kaia Blackwell: I love it.

Rosie Caren: James, welcome back.

James Austin: Hey, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be back.

Kaia Blackwell: James Games, we're always so excited to have you on. And today we're talking about lawn games. So, I think when most people think about outdoor games, they think of things like cornhole, frisbee, or you know, just like kicking or throwing a ball around. And before we even get to the other games that you might recommend, James, we would love for you to actually just explain what cornhole is.

James Austin: Yes, so cornhole, if you've ever been to a football tailgate or a brewery anytime past like 2010, you've probably seen cornhole. Two boards on either side of the playing field with a hole sort of in the top center. Goal is to try to throw beanbags through the middle of the hole. That's it. We don't really know why it's called cornhole, by the way. It's sort of like we assume it's because people in the Midwest had corn and filled bags with it, but the history of cornhole like games goes back to like the mid-1800s. So, it's kind of a...

Kaia Blackwell: Oh, really?

James Austin: Yeah, usually beanbags was the like main component for a while, and then corn sort of became the medium of choice when the Midwest kind of took it up and it became popular there.

Rosie Caren: I do love a bit of cornhole. Um, for this lawn games guide that you wrote, James, you've got cornhole recommendations, but I want to know what intrigued you about looking beyond the classics.

James Austin: So, I I grew up in the the shadow of a major college, the University of Central Florida, Go Knights. Um, so I I went to a lot of tailgates as a child and then as a young adult and then as a college student. And cornhole was inevitable everywhere. Like it just became the game that everybody was like accessible, could bring out. And it's fun, but like at a certain level, there's got to be something else, right? There's got to be more things. And so that sort of drove a little bit of that curiosity.

Rosie Caren: There's got to be more to life than cornhole.

James Austin: Exactly.

Rosie Caren: What surprised you during the testing, James?

James Austin: I think what mostly surprised me, mostly in the research and then it born out in the testing is that a lot of the games haven't really evolved very far from throw a thing at another thing, um which is a it's a and can't knock it. Like it's an easy thing to set up. Exactly. But there's there's not as much innovation in that uh in the out there as games field as I expected. It's starting to change.

Rosie Caren: James, Kyra and I are going to throw out some possible scenarios folks might encounter this summer and we want you to give your best recommendation for meeting the moment.

James Austin: Sounds good.

Kaia Blackwell: Okay. First scenario, a group of super competitive people.

Kaia Blackwell: What's the game you're pulling out and how do you play?

James Austin: So, my first instinct with this and this is one of the reasons why it's not a recommended for most kind of game in our guide is a game called Spikeball, which if you've been in a public park, you've seen this. If you have a group of young people around a circle and they're just maniacally yelling and hitting a ball towards it, that's Spikeball. It's essentially a version of on the ground volleyball for lack of a better term. The goal is you're supposed to spike the ball against the net that everybody's sort of surrounding and the other team then has to volley it back and then spike it back down and it goes back and forth like a little volleyball match. Really fun if you aren't over the age of 30 and not quite fit like your tester might be, but it very fun if you're really competitive and really want to have like a physical sort of like we're here to sweat.

Kaia Blackwell: I can see that getting really intense very fast.

James Austin: Very much so.

Rosie Caren: This was brought to a family gathering that I had recently and intended I think for two 4-year-olds, a 5-year-old, and an 8-year-old and I don't think it was the one.

James Austin: Yeah, I I probably wouldn't recommend it under like mid-teens. It does require a fair amount of hand-eye coordination, which again during our testing I discovered I don't have a lot of. So, that was that was fun.

Kaia Blackwell: Okay, so that does lead into our next scenario though. Like what if you do have a mix of ages and physical abilities, but you just want everybody to play and hopefully they can learn it pretty quickly, too.

James Austin: Yeah, so I think for the record cornhole's a great version of this. It's very low-key, very casual. But if you're looking for something a little bit out of that lane, something that's also uh you might have seen at barbecues or tailgates is something called ladder golf. Usually it's a frame of three bars of varying heights, normally made out of PVC, but occasionally you'll find like metal versions. The one we recommend is metal. And you're throwing bolos, which are two balls tied with a string, to try to get them wrapped around different bars for a certain amount of points.

Rosie Caren: Ooh.

James Austin: Yeah, a little bit different. Most people are not familiar with throwing bolos, like the physics of it is just a thing they're not used to. And there are a couple different approaches that are you can take and try out, which is fun. You can kind of experiment. But it's still very much the low-level, you can kind of play with a beer in your hand kind of game, because nobody really starts out being very good with it. You kind of just don't have to be very competitive about it.

Kaia Blackwell: ...playing field to start.

James Austin: Exactly, yeah.

Kaia Blackwell: ...did play this game last 4th of July on a rooftop. Yeah, and I had you know, I had a drink in my hand and I was throwing it around and it was great. And it was the perfect, like you don't need a bunch of space to play this game. And we were never at risk of, you know, like even throwing it off the roof. It's very contained.

Rosie Caren: That was going to be my question. I'm terrified of playing throwing games on a roof.

Kaia Blackwell: Nobody did it. And you know, we played it all night, so it was all levels of drunkness.

Kaia Blackwell: So how about a big group of people that are going to be hanging around for hours? Something maybe with a little bit more strategy and teamwork. Maybe this is played earlier in the evening.

James Austin: Yeah, so one of my the games that I discovered in this testing, which I really came to love, is a game called Kubb, K U B B.

Rosie Caren: I love Kubb.

James Austin: Kubb is so good. It's essentially you have two lines of Kubbs, which are small uh wooden blocks, and each team's trying to throw pins to knock over the Kubbs, and then that team can then throw the coobs back onto the field in strategic places to try to make them more hard to hit. A little bit of a longer game than your normal like bag toss or ladder golf. Strategic feels strong, but it gives you some more choice in the way to play the game, which I really appreciate.

Rosie Caren: This game has a different name, doesn't it? Don't people call it like Viking something?

James Austin: It's occasionally called Viking chess, which I looked into a little bit. It does seem to have Scandinavian roots. Whether that you associate that with Viking or not is kind of up to you, but uh yeah, people people do call it Viking chess every now and then. Maybe a little bit simplistic in terms of chess terms, but...

Rosie Caren: I used to get together with a big group of friends every Memorial Day weekend, and one year one of the friends brought a coob set, and we just took to it, and it became a thing that we played every year. So much so that she started to make her own coob sets.

Kaia Blackwell: Oh, that's so fun.

Rosie Caren: ...them to couples, like as the couples in in the group got married, that was the wedding present that she would give.

Kaia Blackwell: ...wedding gift. That's so nice.

Rosie Caren: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so thoughtful.

Kaia Blackwell: Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and then when we come back, more game scenarios and recommendations from James.

Rosie Caren: We're back with James Austin, who writes about games for Wirecutter. We're tossing him different outdoor scenarios where we might want to play something new. Okay, so James, next scenario. I'm heading to a park or a camping trip with my partner, and I don't want to lug a big unwieldy game set with me the whole time.

James Austin: Yeah, so I will say coob is pretty good for that. It's pretty contained, easy to travel around with, but one of our picks is called String Trees, which is sort of made for this packability, small outdoor game. It's essentially string shuffleboard. You have a string that you put up in between two trees or posts or whatever you have convenient, and you try to slide rings of metal rings along it to get them into scoring zones. It's a little bit of like trying to strategically block your opponent to make sure that when they throw their rings down, it hits yours into a more advantageous position. Really fun, packs up into a tiny little thing, really easy to travel with. Might also say that more traditional sort of like tabletop games that travel outside are really good for this. So, Hive or Hive Pocket, really easy to travel. It's such a good game.

Rosie Caren: I love Hive.

Kaia Blackwell: What is Hive?

James Austin: Hive is a a chess-like game where you're trying to move bug tiles around to surround your opponent's queen tile. It's really good. The pieces are like plastic, really hard to damage, uh won't blow off in the wind. Really great two-player game, and then Azul is another game that has a lot of very chunky components and travels fairly well.

Rosie Caren: My partner and I always travel with Hive. Like, we play it in the airport when we're waiting for our plane, and it's just like I call it fun chess cuz I actually hate chess, but I love Hive.

James Austin: Fun chess.

Rosie Caren: Yeah.

James Austin: I believe the headline for Hive in one of our two-player games picks is uh chess, but fun. ...is my pitch for it, which is a little bit nagging chess, which I shouldn't, but yeah.

Rosie Caren: That is so funny. Okay, here's a scenario. How about, you know, you're outside, you're having a great time, the weather suddenly turns, but you have a garage or a basement or covered patio. What game could possibly be played indoors where you still maybe need a little space?

James Austin: Yeah, so I think there is some level of how much do you care about damage to your inside space when you're playing these, but as as Kyra pointed out, ladder golf, great for this sort of constrained space scenario. Um I have a bias if I'm being chased back indoors at this point, I'd probably revert to more of my party game stuff, more like Monikers, Code Names. But uh if you're still looking for something active and standing up, Ladder Golf really does that well.

Kaia Blackwell: So, what if I'm tailgating? So, I don't have a lot of room, but I want to mix it up instead of playing, you know, beer pong or cornhole.

James Austin: I really like uh a game called Can Jam for tailgating, which is you have, again, throwing things at other things, but in this case the teams are throwing flying discs, so frisbees, at a trashcan-sized thing with an open top and a little slot in the front. And the goal is to try to get the frisbee into the slot in the front, but if you miss, your teammate can kind of bounce the frisbee to try to score it through the top, and you get sort of extra points that way. Encourages a little bit more interaction for both sides of the team, cuz you have the thrower and you have somebody who's trying to bounce it in into the target area, whereas in like cornhole, ladder golf, it's sort of you're watching your teammate play for a little while, and then you get to play back. So, I kind of like that more interactive Can Jam thing for tailgate specifically, cuz uh it can get rowdy, and that's fun.

Kaia Blackwell: And you don't need that much space for Can Jam?

James Austin: It varies. Uh I have found that, depending on the skill of the frisbee thrower, it can actually be quite a close game. The angle of attack on frisbee, if you're bad at it, needs to be fairly small.

Rosie Caren: Okay, so to that end, a scenario where I'm in a park, I've got lots of room, big lawn, but I don't want to play frisbee.

James Austin: Yeah, so the problem is that a lot of the games when I initially think of for this question is frisbee-based, so Can Jam, Bottle Bash. But if you wanted to avoid frisbee entirely, I think Kubb's great for a large space. You can set up a really big playing area. But honestly, and this is not in any of the guides, but it's something I've done recently that I had a great time with, fly a cheap kite. It's uh mostly running, in my experience.

Kaia Blackwell: But that's the most running around in a park I've done recently, and it was a ball. It was great.

Rosie Caren: Another scenario, what if I'm on a beach and I'm really not afraid to work up a good sweat. I mean, kite.

Kaia Blackwell: Number one.

James Austin: Kite also. Yeah, very good at this. But, um Spikeball I feel like is made for exactly that setting. It's sort of encourages you to take suicidal dives into the sand in a way that like I I'm less worried about dislocating my shoulder on some soft sand than I am on like turf or pavement. And so, you can get a little bit more into the physicality of Spikeball if you're at a beach setting. Plus, it when you get hot and sweaty, you just dump in the ocean and then come back out.

Rosie Caren: James, thank you so much for joining us. We always have fun when you're here.

James Austin: Happy to help. I always have a good time, too.

Rosie Caren: We're going to link to James's reporting on outdoor games in the show notes. And of course, you can always find more on our website.

Rosie Caren: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by me, Rosie Caren, and produced by Abigail Kiehl. Engineering support from Maddie Maziello and Nick Pittman. Today's episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisabet Etop, Rowan Nimisto, Catherine Anderson, and Diane Wong. Cliff Leavy is Wirecutter's deputy publisher and general manager. Ben Fruman is Wirecutter's editor-in-chief.

Kaia Blackwell: I'm Kira Blackwell.

Rosie Caren: And I'm Rosie Caren. Thank you for listening.