Best Family Board Games

As a child I would play monopoly with the kids next door. When I had my own children, we would play monopoly quite often on wet sunday afternoons. Funny. You play that game and you know not to sell off your property because if you do, you will have to pay rent. I look around me at this country, where everything is being sold off to other peoples - our Ministry of Defense has been sold off to overseas private companies. Whitehall - there are underground tunnels which were sold off to BT, and which the govt then rented use of. Is it any wonder we are all going broke? The chaps rolling the dice, it seems, have long been playing like idiots.
Scrabble I used to like - but my sons were dyslexic, so it would have been torture for them not fun. The Hero Quest we would have a family game going, and once a week four of us staff from a local pub would get together for a drink, a smoke and a game. They always made me be stumpy the dwarf. I suppose times have changed a bit, and since Game of Thrones lots of chaps would like to take the character of shaggy the dwarf.

 

My 21-yo son is studying Computer Science. The 2nd Friday of every month is "Game Night", where they get together to play board games like the ones mentioned above, as well as 2-person games like Oh!. Occasionally, one of the senior TA's hosts a weekend marathon sessions with prizes for winners.

These are some of the guys who may end up designing/coding some of the new hi-tech video games! Plus. there's a number of the female students who are regular players. Coeds who enjoying playing board games with geeks... who'd have thunk it?

 

Picked up Settlers of Catan. Very cool game. Thanks guys!

 

Avoid Quelf, unless you are very drunk or masochistic. No skill and you just do whatever the card tells you to do depending on the color you landed on.

 

ok good, cause at first glance I thought that read "queef" I was like, wow, that would be an interesting game there!

 

Whatever, Quelf is hilarious. But maybe it's more fun because I have friends who are not very shy around each other (drama backgrounds, pfft).

 

I thought we were talking about "Family" board games. My family is... not fun with this game.

 

I have 2 boys - 6 and 8 years old. We have:
Carcassonne (which both can play, though the 6yo isn't very strategic). It is a fairly simple tile matching game, but how you score is complicated enough to make it interesting. My 8yo will get this out by himself to "build" cities. I have two expansions (River which came with the original game, and Abbeys and Mayors). The first is good in that it doesn't change the overall game play - just adds extra tiles. The second adds extra rules that I don't think greatly enhance the overall play.

Ticket to Ride - the 6yo struggles to play this, so we tend to team him with a parent. I reckon another year and he will be ok with this.

Settlers of Catan - have it for the boys for Christmas - have friends who recommended it. Looking forward to getting it out.

Risk - the boys like playing with the miniatures - haven't actually played this one with them yet, but I reckon it will end in 6yo tears! Again one where he would probably need pairing with an adult.

We also have a few card games that might be worth a mention:
Too many monkeys - easy card game that the boys both enjoy playing.
Rat-A-Tat-Cat - this is a card game where the object is to have the smallest number of points in your hand, but you can only look at 2 of your cards initially. Quite easy to play and fun.

Someone else mentioned Connect 4 - we have this and it gets played a bit, but the logical brain of an 8yo is quite a lot further along than a 6yo - does tend to end in tears a bit.

 

Advanced Civilization, with the Africa expansion.

Just kidding.

Betrayal at the House on the Hill. They just reprinted it. Such an amazing game.

 

Thanks for the info. I recently picked up Settlers and my 8yr daughter loves it. Picked it up quick. I do have Ticket to Ride on the iPad which is fun, have been thinking about picking this up on a board game as well as Carcassonne. (and Parchessi, and Cranium, and Apples to Apples Jr, and Mastermind, etc )

 

Grabbed Parchessi, wow I see where Sorry came from

 

We've recently picked up Elder Sign, which we like cause it's the less complicated, less involved, less time consuming boardless version of Arkham Horror, which is a marathon of a boardgame. The first time we played AH, it took us 7 hours and we were nowhere near finished. The 1st time we beat the board, it took us 4.5 hours! Elder Sign on the other hand, we can beat in a mere 2 hours!

 

Just imagining you saying this in casual conversation caused me to choke on my tea.

 

Apples to Apples is Mrs. Levite's favorite game, and the only one she can be gotten to play without extensive cajoling. Scrabble, chess, Settlers of Catan, and Trivial Pursuit are my favorite games. We play Rummikub a lot in my family, and Perquacky and Boggle. When I was younger we played Monopoly, Risk, Parcheesi, checkers, sheshbesh (backgammon), go, Fictionary, Jeopardy, Upwords, Othello, dominoes, and various card games (gin rummy, casino, and hearts were the favorites).

I will confess with relatively little shame that I was also a dedicated Dungeons and Dragons player when young. I played in regular D&D games from the time I was 12 through college, and even occasionally afterward. To be honest, if I found a game with a good DM now (where I wasn't the oldest guy in the room by 20 years), I might still play.

 

I will also put in my two cents for Settlers. It is the best game out there. You might also look for kill Dr. Lucky. It's like clue, but you are trying to be the murderer. We also like Carcassonne, Ticket to ride, and Dominion.

 

Board games for some reason have become my new obsession. I've sadly haven't been able to play a lot of games. Just been reading a lot about what's out there. As well as watching shows like Table Top, Starlit Citadel, Board to Death and Undead Viking. So with all of this research I've come up with quite the list of games I want to play/buy.

I haven't been drawn to a lot of Family type games. However the ones I think will fit the age requirement and haven't been mentiond yet are:

• Survive, Escape From Atlantis
• Forbidden Island
• Bears!
• Wasabi!
• Seasons
• Pocket Rockets
• Martian Dice
• Red November
• Dungeon Petz
• Citadels
• Queen's Ransom
• Backpacker

--- merged: Feb 19, 2013 at 9:36 AM ---
Oh I forgot to mention Space Cadets

 

Got a fun new board game for Christmas - Big Bang Theory. Somewhat like Apples to Apples except the categories are based on geeky Big Bang Theory science and concepts. Better than Apples to Apples as the responses are rated from 1 to the number of players, rather than the sucky all or nothing in Apples to Apples.

Strictly speaking it's not a board game, but a card game, but I put it in the same category.