I’ve probably watched more tv than I ever have in my lifetime combined the last few months and I don’t think I’m alone in this (have you seen The Queen’s Gambit yet? Soo good!) But I probably have played more games than I ever have before as well!
So I rounded up our family favorites. The games that would make any board/card/dice or outside-the-box game player will love! They’re family appropriate, span age groups, and can keep everyone busy!
1) SUSPEND: Imagine a crooked, wonky game of Jenga and Pick-Up-Stix and you have Suspend. Except you’re stacking crooked bars on top of one another and hoping you aren’t the one that dumps the whole thing!
2) RUMMIKUB: Gin Rummy with tiles and once your kids learn this game, they will kick your butt!
3) CODENAMES: This is a game we love to play because we can have multiple players and you need to work with your team to win! The two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their Codenames.
The teams compete to see who can make contact with all of their agents first. Spymasters give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the board. Their teammates try to guess words of the right color while avoiding those that belong to the opposing team. And everyone wants to avoid the assassin. Pick that tile and your team gets killed. It can be fast-paced and is super fun!
4) TENZI: Tenzi is perfect for beginners and aficionados alike. It’s actually one of our family’s favorite games because everyone can play and you can add as many players as you’d like. We actually own 2 sets for just those occasions! Every player gets 10 dice. The object of the game is to roll the dice as fast as possible, the player who gets all dice on the same number and yells “Tenzi!” is the winner. And if you get bored with this old standby, this set comes with 77 different ways to play to mix it up!
5) ZINGO: Zingo is one of my kid’s favorite games, and is the winner of an Oppenheim Gold Award and Parents’ Choice Gold Award. It’s Bingo with reading! The pictures ensure that Jett or Dash can still independently play, while it encourages them to read aloud the object. This game requires no adult help, so my kids will literally spend hours playing this game together. It is a super sturdy game with thick, sturdy, double-sided cardboard bingo cards and the text and pictures on the yellow “chips” have no scratching or fading from frequent overuse. This game is now my go-to gift for any birthday party we are invited to and my boys ask to play it all the time!
SHOP ALL OF OUR FAVORITE FAMILY GAMES
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6) TACO CAT GOAT CHEESE PIZZA:
The object of the game is to get rid of all your cards and be the first to slap your hand on the central pile of cards when you see a match or when a special card appears.
Now, to play the game, each player gets 12 cards dealt from the shuffled pack and players must not look at their cards. The players have to keep these five crazy words – Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza in mind. As soon as there is a match between a card and a spoken word, race against each other to slap your hand on the central pile of cards. The last one to do so must take them all. Sometimes being last is not that bad at all as he/she can slap everyone else’s hands harder. We all had fun slapping hard on the last-but-one player!
7) MEXICAN TRAIN: One of my favorite and oldest games, this game involves placing dominoes on the table by matching ends with the same dot count. There’s obviously more to it than that but them’s the basics.
8) SLING PUCK: We discovered this game in Island Park and probably played with it for a collective 20 hours! It’s super fun, SUPER competitive, and extremely fast-paced. It’s like foosball, air hockey, and a slingshot all in one. Trust me, this is a game your family needs!
9) QWIRKLE: From the makers of Square Up, Qwirkle is another of our favorite matching games that is easy for our younger kids to play but can be made challenging for the older kids to play as well!
10) COVER YOUR ASSETS: This is the one game my boys BEG to play and it’s so much fun as a family. Fair warning, if you’ve got kids that are competitive, this game can get lively! But it’s super easy to learn, fun for large numbers (just buy multiple decks), and can keep the troops entertained for hours! The idea is to get two matching cards to create an “asset” and to protect that asset by collecting more and piling them on top of each other. Only the top “asset” is in danger of being stolen by another player. This is hand’s down one of the best games ever made!
11) SETTLERS OF CATAN: Settlers of Catan is an enduring classic, and for good reason. It’s approachable for new players but deep enough for experienced (and very competitive players) to really sink their teeth into. On the surface, the game is simple enough. You build settlements across the island of Catan in pursuit of economic domination. There’s no violence or combat in this game; it’s all about managing resources and trying to outsmart your opponents.
12) NERTZ: Nertz is basically like playing solitaire with a lot of people!
