I’m so happy that I made board game night a tradition with my kids at a young age. It has been a joy watching their personalities come out as they struggle and succeed at different games. However, at some point, I realized I could never look at a Monopoly board again. I found our family cycling through the classics like Life and TrivialPursuit. I finally took some time to see what else is out there and was surprised to see so many new games available! Here are 6 games that our family love and recommend.
This is my top recommendation for young families. If your kiddos understand numbers and basic math, they can play! You take turns rolling 6 dice and matching what you rolled with the cards available. More complicated rolls (like 6 of a kind) award you more points.
This one is a beautiful game made up of location tiles. Build your own island and collect all the treasures before the water rises. Each player gets an adventurer card so that they can help the team with a special ability.
A modernized Where’s Waldo meets murder mystery. Your board is a huge black-and-white map of a city chock-filled with drawings. You’ll need to look close to solve the different cases as they play out on the map. Though illustration-based, there are more graphic images so play this one with your teenagers.
There are so many escape room board games on the market and we’ve really enjoyed the Exit series. However, Unlock takes the cake with their interactive mobile app. Each game comes with three “mysteries” that range in difficulty for hours of fun. Another great thing about Unlock is there are no writing or tearing elements so you can re-package and share with your friends.
This is a fast and easy one – especially fun if you have any graphic artists or interior designers in your family! You can only use one word to describe your color and get your group to pick the right one out of 480 colors on the board. For example, do you really know what shade of purple you would pick for “Barney”?
The telephone game for the artfully inclined! Take turns writing and drawing as one clue makes it all the way around the table. This one is a blast for players of all ages.
What games have you added to your family game night rotation?
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