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The Best Family Board Games
We have curated a list of the best family board games! As businesses slowly start to reopen, you might want to run by your local toy store to pick up one of these awesome family board games. Playing games together is a great way to strengthen family bonds AND support local business.
Covid-19 has led to countless changes in our lives, but as you’ve probably discovered too, not all are bad! Kids are playing outside, people are learning new crafts, holes in the ozone are closing! So perhaps you can add a fun new weekly tradition to your schedule–Saturday dinners together followed by a rousing board game. Enjoy!
For Toddlers
Richard Scarry’s Busytown, Eye Found it
Cost: $22
Age: 4 and up
No. of Players: 2+
This game has been enthusiastically endorsed by thousands of glowing reviews. Parents love the collaborative nature of the game, which they say makes for a fun and accessible way to introduce the value of teamwork. It also promotes attention to detail and reinforces object identification and matching skills. Nobody loses in the game either, which makes it a hit for toddlers who don’t like to lose! Players play on a 6-foot colorful board, teaming up to solve mysteries and find hidden objects in places like packed airports, a busy farm, lively city streets and more. There are hundreds of hidden objects, which means hours of fun.
For Families
Cost: $8
Age: 6 and up
No. of Players: 2
Over 10,000 reviewers praise this game with 5 stars on Amazon (but try to find it locally, if you can!). Parents love that the game is easy to learn and doesn’t take too long to play from start to finish. “As a busy mom to three kids, it’s hard to juggle all I have to get done and still get in quality time with my children,” one reviewer writes. “It’s short enough that I can play a few rounds and then let the kids play each other while I finish up cleaning or whatever.” Lots of other reviewers liked the nostalgia attached to the game as well, as many parents played it when they were little, too. Sounds like a keeper!
Cost: $15
Age: 12 and up
No. of Players: 4-8
Apples to Apples is one of those games that never gets old, because both adults and kids love to play. Each player takes turns being the judge and drawing a prompt card, while the others anonymously submit their cards to fill in the blanks. The card the judge deems the funniest or most fitting wins the round. Play until you collect an agreed-upon number of points!
For Millenials
Cost: $30
Age: 17+
No. of Players: 3+
As the box states, this is an adult party game for meme-lovers. The game operates much like its situation/scenario card game predecessors, only this time the prompts are memes. There are 75 photo cards that include common political figures, babies, children, and animals. There are 360 caption cards in the original pack (expansion packs are available, too), and each player gets seven at a time. Players take turns judging each round with play moving clockwise.
The judge for the round draws a meme card, and the other players anonymously submit one of their caption cards to go with the meme. Once all players have submitted their caption, the judge chooses a winner based on his/her own personality. So the closer you are with the person judging, the more likely you’ll know what will make him or her laugh and choose your card. Prepare to laugh, especially if you’re pairing this game with a nice bottle of wine.
Best Fast-Paced Game
Cost: $25
Age: 8 and up
No. of Players: 3+
This game checks two boxes for us: it’s super easy to learn, and it’s fast-paced once you get going (making it one of the best family board games). Everyone in the group looks at a card that might say something like “pay ______.” Each person has a small white board on which they write a word to fill in the blank. For example, they might write down the word “check,” as in “paycheck.” Players simultaneously reveal their words. The object of the game is to choose a word to fill in the blanks that only one other player will choose. If only two players write the same word, each of them gets three points. If more than two players choose the same word, they each get one point and all other players get no points. Whoever gets to 25 points first wins the game.
For Word-Lovers
Cost: $8
Age: 7 and up
No. of Players: 1-8
If you enjoy a good crossword puzzle and haven’t played Bananagrams yet, you are in for a treat. There are 144 tiles, and each person gets between 11 and 21 depending on the number of players. The object of the game is for each person to create his or her own crossword puzzle using all of their tiles. This game is neat because everyone focuses on their own goal, but the competition to finish first keeps things moving quickly.
Cost: $14
Age: 8 and up
No. of Players: 2-4
You can’t beat a classic! Scrabble has been played since 1948 (!), so it’s definitely doing something right! In this word game, players draw seven tiles and earn points by creating words with tiles that they place on a grid, crossword-puzzle style. Each letter has a different point value. After a player plays his/her word, the word’s value is determined and added to the player’s score. After placing a word on the board, draw an equal number of new tiles from the tile bag so that each player always has seven tiles. The player with the highest score wins!
Best Two-Player Strategy Game
Cost: $22
Age: 7 and up
No. of Players: 2
This game is a tried and true pick from the best family board games! The object of Battleship is to try and sink all of the other player’s ships before they sink all of yours. Your opponent’s ships are somewhere on his/her board, which you can’t see. Players take turns trying to “hit” them by calling out the coordinates of one of the squares on the board. Each board in the physical game has two grids: the lower (horizontal) section for the player’s ships and the upper part (vertical during play) for recording the player’s guesses. It’s fun and competitive without being too taxing.
We hope you get a chance to try one from our list of the best family board games! Share with us any other awesome things you and your family have been up to during quarantine.