Best Board Game Cafes in Your City
Child development benefits of board games
Board games are a fantastic way to get your kids of all ages to focus on in-person social-emotional skills, which are crucial to life-long learning and success.
But having a well-stocked selection of board games at home may be a bit impractical for families who move frequently or have tighter space or budget restrictions (or have smaller number of people in their households!). If this sounds like you, you can still get the child development benefits of board games by visiting an affordable board game cafe in your city (scroll down to the list at the end) where your child can practice valuable social-emotional skills and develop important problem-solving and creative/critical thinking competencies.
Board games and simple card games can be fun for ages 4+. Choose age appropriate games that also align with your child’s interests (like animals, marine life, vehicles, etc.).
How to get the most out of your kid’s board game time
Depending on how comfortable you are doing this, younger kids can benefit from having you (or another attentive adult) nearby to facilitate their playing. Remember: “facilitating” doesn’t mean playing for them, making their decisions for them, stopping them from making wrong moves, or telling them what to do.
Facilitating means:
Sitting or watching calmly and quietly
Supporting your child with encouraging phrases that draw attention to their effort, like “I like that you’re thinking about what to do. Good job.” or “This seems like a tricky situation. Nice work thinking about some different ways to approach it,” or “That was amazing that you didn’t give up!”
Demonstrating constructive problem solving skills by staying calm when they get frustrated. Say something like “I see you’re frustrated. That’s okay. Do you want to take a break before you come back to try again?” or “This is super challenging! How do you think we can work together to figure it out?”
Whichever game you choose, emphasise to your child and the other players that it’s not all about winning. Winning is nice, of course, but so is learning from the mistakes you make, and knowing how to not take it too seriously when you lose :).
Life-long Success Starts from Social-Emotional Skills
Research shows that kids who have the ability to bounce back from mistakes and can learn from age-appropriate struggles (like not knowing what the right move to make in a game is) develop core social-emotional skills that are more likely to result in life-long success. Says Kigumi’s neuroscience advisor Dr. Vivienne Ming, “Our research showed that the biggest factors in the longer-term life outcomes of kids weren’t algebra skills or or science facts. The biggest factors were the foundational cognitive, emotional, and social traits that build a person.” (1) This category of skills, often called metacognitive skills or competencies, are taught as part of Kigumi’s AI Quotient Framework for schools, as well as built into our learning platform for digital natives, KiguLab.
Another major way to help your kids develop resilience and get the most out of their board game experience is to show them good sportsmanship behavior. When your kid (ages 4-10) loses, you might say something like “It can be hard to lose. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes mommy / daddy loses too…” and tell them a story about a time when you also shared their disappointment after losing (at a game, or at work), and how you came back from it. For older kids (ages 10+), depending on their personality, you might do a debrief when they’re ready to talk about how they felt about losing, why they feel that way, and allow them to process their learning through a conversation with you to develop their self-awareness skills.
For all age kids, it can be a positive experience to learn that - regardless of the outcome of the game - it is good sportsmanship to look the other person in the eye and say “good game,” or “thanks for playing, let’s do it again” and then move on to another fun activity.
Together, the two techniques above can help build core problem solving and social-emotional skills that contribute to resilience and a stronger sense of self in your child.
Try scheduling “board game time” into your family agenda on a weekly basis so that the kids can look forward to an adventure and you can explore a new part of the city together.
Board Game Cafe List
To help you develop your kids’ social-emotional skills, we’ve listed below some top rated board game cafes specifically for kids across some Asian cities:
Singapore
The Mind Café: Board Game Cafe
Coffeemin Time Café: Board Game Cafe
Play Nation HQ: Board Game Cafe
Hong Kong, China
Capstone Boardgame Cafe
Jolly Thinkers
Gala
Bangkok, Thailand
DICE CUP Board Game Cafe
Fun House Board Game Cafe
Inner Circle Boardgame Cafe
More Than a Game Cafe
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Block and Play Cafe (Best for younger kids ages 0-10)
Game Tree Cafe
Hooman boardgame house
CHUBB CAT Board Game
Note: Kigumi does not endorse or recommend any of the above venues and does not receive any benefit from listing them; please check their hours and what ages they serve before taking your family, as some are more suitable for pre-teens or teens and not younger children!
References
1 - Socos Institute, 2025
