Our 15 Favorite Family Games

With the holidays coming up and the temperatures getting colder, we all are bound to spend more nights in. Here are some of our staff’s favorite games for some unplugged family fun!
See some ADULTS ONLY games below too!
For more gifts, check out our 100+ Gifts Guide for Everyone on Your List!

Monopoly Game: Ultimate Banking Edition
What’s not to like about getting a credit card with $14 million+ on it to start out the game? Plus there are fun editions like Monopoly Game: Star Wars for Star Wars fans or Disney Monopoly Castle and the Disney Princess Edition.

We Didn’t Playtest This at All
This is one of the strangest games we’ve ever played. it could last 30 seconds…or 30 minutes. It’s totally random, chaotic, fast-moving, unpredictable and zany. The goal is to win…and to make you opponents lose as you choose cards with odd tasks and rules and play them. One card might involve a game of “rock paper scissors” while another vreates confusing rules that you must follow while you play…like never using the words “I, you or they.” Any number can play from 2 and 15.

Rummikub
We played this all summer and recently brought it on vacation. It’s a fun family game where you use the tiles to create sets and runs of numbers. You can play off each other tiles as your try to be the first one to get rid of all your tiles.

Space Faces
This is the best game to have when you have kids of different ages. Kids as young as 3 or 4 can participate. The concept is simply to find the alien that matches up with the colors showing on the spaceship. It has been a fam fave in my house for years.

Exploding Kittens: A Card Game About Kittens and Explosions…and Sometimes Goats
A very funny card game for people who are into kittens, explosions, laser beams and sometimes goats. Kids love this game because it uses words like “butt” and has fabulous, silly illustrations. It’s the most-backed project in Kickstarter history!

Cranium Whoonu (Tin)
Rounds go fairly quick, allowing players to easily pop up for a moment.

Clue Game
An oldy but a goody. Discover whodunit, with what and where. Your kids might also like a version of Clue with their favorite movie characters like the Clue Game: Star Wars Edition and Clue Harry Potter Board Game. Surprise Grandma with A Golden Girls Version of Clue.

Apples to Apples
This game always gets laughs and isn’t competitive. Pick the best card you have to fit the topic headers.
Sometimes the results can be very silly.

Ticket To RideTicket to Ride is based on all the train routes in Europe and you actually build routes. Start with the European board game and then move on to the American rail version.

Headbanz Electronic Party Edition
This always gets lots of laughs. One person wears a headband with a word on it and
they ask questions to figure out what the word is. There’s also a Grown-Ups Only
version: Spin Master Games – Hedbanz No Limits

Brain Fitness Pathwords Game
We love Pathwords because we can play by ourselves or as a team. No competition required, which is sometimes nice in a family. We are all working together toward the same goal. Also, we get to select the difficulty level, making it fun for everyone.

Pictionary
My kids NEVER tire of Pictionary and the Junior edition makes possible for even my youngest to play.

Guesstures
You’ll love watching everyone “perform” during this high-speed charades game.

What’s Yours Like? – The Game That Tells it Like it Is
Pick a card, and all players–except for one–get to see what the guess word is. For example, it could be “swimsuit.” Then everyone describes the word and the one player has to see if they can figure out the guess word! For example, it could be swimsuit: “Mine is tiny” “Mine has strings” or “Mine gets wet” and so on!

Would You Rather? Boardgame
Would you rather use hot sauce for eye drops, or Krazy Glue for hair gel? Choose which dilemma you’d rather put yourself in. The categories range from Curses, Unpleasant, Fantasy, Powers, to Pot Luck.

Bananagrams
We love that you can take this game pretty much anywhere. It’s like a portable scrabble game.

Scattergories Game
This is a fast-paced game so if you’re feeling listless, it’s not for you.Players roll the letter die, flip the sand timer, and race against the clock to come up with answers to each category on the category list. You score points for writing down answers that no one else did.

Liebrary
This is a good brainy game. Players have to rewrite first lines of various books and others have to guess which is the actual line. One player serves as the “librarian” and collects the various creative lines but the position keeps rotating, so everyone gets to try their literary skills.