Questions people actually ask

Anywhere from about 36 square feet for giant 4 in a row to 5,000 for a full nine-wicket croquet court. Measure your longest uninterrupted straight line rather than total area — most yard games are corridors, so a 20-by-20-foot lawn cannot hold a 33-foot cornhole court even though the area is comparable. Every figure is in the footprint guide.

Cornhole if you have 33 feet of clear run and mostly host adults. Bocce if you do not have the run, or if the group spans ages. Kubb if you regularly host more than eight people. Those three cover most households.

Boards are 2 feet by 4, with a 6-inch hole whose center is 9 inches from the back edge. The board top sits 12 inches above the ground and the front edge 2.5 to 3.5 inches. Boards are 27 feet apart, front to front. All figures are the American Cornhole League's published specification — the full table with tolerances is in regulation cornhole dimensions.

Kubb, at a published 2 to 12. Croquet is next at up to six with a standard set. Everything else with a published figure tops out at four, though giant stacking towers and yard dice have no stated limit because turns take seconds.

Bocce with 90 mm balls, ladder toss, Molkky and badminton. All four use underhand throwing or a light implement, none rewards strength, and none requires reaching high. See games for mixed ages.

Only two makers in our registry publish an age floor: Yard Games says 8 and up across its Tumbling Timbers range, and Jenga GIANT says 12 and up. Everyone else publishes nothing, and we will not invent a number on a page about children. The practical limiter is usually equipment weight — a 2 lb bocce ball or a 2 lb 10 oz horseshoe is too much for a small player regardless of any stated age.

No. The Consumer Product Safety Commission banned the sale of all pointed lawn darts in the United States effective December 19, 1988, under 16 CFR Part 1306. The regulation covers manufacturing, selling, distributing and importing, new or secondhand, and the CPSC has told the public to destroy old sets. We do not link them.

Solid resin bocce balls, essentially indefinitely. Spikeball's rim, net and inflated ball tolerate weather well, and resin-filled cornhole bags survive a soaking. Everything wooden — boards, kubb, Molkky, stacking towers, yard dice, croquet mallets — does not. Full ranking in weatherproof yard games.

Plywood, if the set will ever be damp. Half-inch varnished cabinet-grade plywood is the ACA-regulation surface. MDF is cheaper and perfectly flat when new, but it swells once wet and does not come back. For a set stored indoors, MDF is a reasonable saving — see cornhole board materials.

Eight — four per team, four per color. Several sets ship with six, which covers a two-player game but not four players. If your set includes six, budget for a second set of bags.

107 mm if adults are the main players and anyone might join a club; 90 mm if the set is for a mixed-age household. Baden publishes 2 pounds per ball for its 107 mm set, and a small player cannot place two pounds accurately. See best bocce ball sets.

Not well. A 19-row tower needs a hard, level base, and grass is soft and slightly domed almost everywhere, so the tower leans before anyone pulls a block. Play on a patio, deck or driveway, or lay a flat board down first.

The Pro kit publishes 33% stronger legs and rims, two grippy Pro balls, a backpack, and a pump with a pressure gauge, and it is the official set of USA Spikeball sanctioned tournaments. The Standard kit has the same net geometry and the same rules with a lighter rim and three standard balls. See Spikeball sets.

Buy if this is for your household and you will play more than about five times. Rent if it is a one-day event needing several games at once, where delivery, setup and collection are worth real money. The arithmetic is in rent or buy yard games.

No, and we will not say otherwise. We compile published manufacturer specifications and governing-body rules, compute the footprints, and cite every figure so you can check it. How we pick sets out the whole method, including what would change a recommendation.

Because the manufacturer does not publish them. A blank field renders as an em dash with a note saying so. We do not estimate, round or infer a figure, because an invented number is indistinguishable from a real one once it is on a page.

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