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Toss & Turf

By Space

Yard games by space

Start here if you have measured your yard, or are about to. Every game we cover carries a published footprint, and this is the axis nobody else files on.

By Sawyer V.Published September 4, 2026Last updated September 4, 2026
Yard Games Ladder Toss (Double Wooden Ladder Ball)

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Yard Games Ladder Toss (Double Wooden Ladder Ball)

Top pick

Yard Games Ladder Toss (Double Wooden Ladder Ball)

A finished wood frame with real golf-ball bolas and a nylon case — the version that does not rattle apart the way tube-and-plastic ladder sets do.

$65.99 · View on Amazon

Price as of October 19, 2026. #ad How we make money

This is the axis that decides whether a yard game gets played, and almost nobody publishes it. A list that ranks games by how fun they are is useless if the top three do not fit between your deck and your fence.

So we compiled the footprint of every game we cover, from the sport's governing body where one exists and from the manufacturer's published dimensions where it does not. The full table with the working is in how much space do yard games need. The short version is here.

The table

Every game we cover, by footprint

Published footprints, smallest first. Figures derived from governing-body court dimensions and manufacturer specifications.
GameFootprintAreaLongest runPlayers
Giant 4 in a rowAbout 6 x 6 ft36 sq ft6 ft2
Giant yard diceAbout 8 x 8 ft64 sq ft8 ft2+
Giant stacking towerAbout 10 x 10 ft100 sq ft10 ft2+
Ladder tossAbout 20 x 8 ft160 sq ft20 ft2 or 4
MolkkyAbout 20 x 13 ft260 sq ft20 ft2+
Cornhole33 x 10 ft330 sq ft33 ft2 or 4
Kubb26 x 16 ft430 sq ft26 ft2 to 12
Badminton (casual)About 30 x 15 ft450 sq ft30 ft2 or 4
HorseshoesAbout 48 x 10 ft480 sq ft48 ft2 or 4
Bocce (backyard)About 60 x 12 ft720 sq ft60 ft2 to 4
Badminton (full doubles)44 x 20 ft880 sq ft44 ft2 or 4
SpikeballAbout 30 x 30 ft900 sq ft30 ft4
Bocce (USBF regulation)86.92 x 13.12 ft1,140 sq ft87 ft2 to 4
Kan JamAbout 60 x 20 ft1,200 sq ft60 ft4
Croquet (USCA nine-wicket)100 x 50 ft5,000 sq ft100 ftUp to 6

How to read that table

Two numbers, not one

Area is the wrong number to shop on. Spikeball and Kan Jam are within 300 square feet of each other and are completely different propositions: Spikeball is a 30-foot square, Kan Jam is a 60-foot corridor. A long side yard holds one and not the other; a small square lawn holds the other and not the one.

So measure both. Longest clear run rules games in or out first. Width at that run is the second filter. Then you can look at area — mostly to reassure yourself that two games can be set up at once.

Go to your space

The ten collections

  • Small yards — under about 30 feet of clear run. Ladder toss, Molkky, giant games.
  • Big lawns — 60 feet and up. Where croquet, Kan Jam and full-size bocce finally make sense.
  • Beach and sand — different rules entirely, because sand stops a rolling ball and softens a fall.
  • Patios and balconies — hard standing, no lawn, and a shortlist of about three games that genuinely work.
  • Sloped and uneven yards — the games that ignore a slope, the ones it makes more interesting, and the three that fall over.
  • Driveways and hard surfaces — flat, long and drained. The surface a giant stacking tower actually wants.
  • Side yards and narrow strips — long and thin is a shape, not a size, and most of these games are corridors.
  • Parks and shared spaces — no lawn of your own. Nothing dug, nothing staked, nothing left behind.
  • Indoors and the garage — the surface the giant games have been asking for, and the day the yard is unusable.
  • Coastal and windy yards — wind ends more games than rain does, and which ones is entirely predictable.

Once space is settled, the other axis worth checking is who is playing: yard games by crowd.

Newly added

Artificial turf

Artificial turf is the flattest, shortest lawn you will ever play on, which makes it excellent for rolling games and wrong for anything that stakes into the ground or digs a pit. What works, what does not, and the wicket question croquet raises: yard games for artificial turf.

Newly added

Gravel and xeriscaped yards

A gravel yard is not a worse lawn — it is a different surface, and one classic game prefers it to grass entirely. What works when there is nothing to stake into and nothing rolls is in yard games for gravel and xeriscaped yards.

FAQ

Questions people actually ask

How do I measure my yard for a game?
Measure the longest uninterrupted straight line, not the total area. Most yard games are long and narrow rather than square, so a 20-by-20-foot lawn — 400 square feet — cannot hold a cornhole court that needs 33 feet in one direction even though the area is comparable.
What is the smallest yard game?
Giant 4 in a row at about 6 by 6 feet of clear space, then ladder toss at about 20 by 8. Ladder toss is the smallest real throwing game.
Can you shorten a yard game court?
It depends on the game. The United States Croquet Association explicitly allows resizing a nine-wicket court to the space available, and backyard bocce is routinely played shorter than the federation court. Cornhole and kubb resize badly: in both, the throwing distance is the skill, so shortening it changes what the game is.

Why you can check our work

We have not played these. Every figure above is copied from a manufacturer's published listing or a governing body's published rules, and named so you can verify it. Where a maker publishes nothing, the field is blank rather than filled in. How we pick explains the whole method, including what would change a recommendation.

Read next

Related pages

Sources

Every figure on this page is copied from one of these sources. If you find one that is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will fix it.