20 Awesome Family Board Games To Play Together - Bare Marriage (2024)

A lot of the ones for older kids look familiar, since we have a bunch in our game closet! Our kids are probably still too young for most of the others, we’re still trying to teach them how to play basic things like Candyland! But there’s also a lot of good cooperative games for younger kids these days, and we like to mix those in as a way to teach our already-competitive preschool and toddler boys to work together.

One family favorite that would work for older kids is called Fluxx. It’s a card game where the rules and goal to win are constantly changing, depending on what cards are played. There’s also a lot of different variations, like pirates (we took that one on our tropical island honeymoon), general sci-fi, a nature themed one that I think we’re going to start our kids on once they’re reading fluently, Wizard of Oz, Batman, etc. So chances are good there’s a version to fit whatever your family likes!

And I hear you on Monopoly. I never finished a game of that until I was an adult, because my younger brother always cheated and robbed the bank and I’d get mad and quit. Even now, my favorite version of that is the Lord of the Rings version that came out when the movies were out, because there’s a special rule that makes the game much shorter!

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Two notes. There’s an expansion for Catan that is 2 player. Or rather had the option of two player. I just bought it for my husband for Christmas because we both like this game but don’t have ppl over very often to play and kids are still 2 and 4. (The jr. Catan is awesome and my 4 yo can play it no problem though he is still missing some strategy components but they are coming).

Also the exploding kittens? Make sure you get the family safe one. There is a version out that’s x rated or whatever with lots of bad language etc. Not really my jam but I played it in the summer with family and really enjoyed the game. So we have it coming for Christmas in the regular version because I suspect my eldest will be able to play it within a couple years and tbh I just don’t think the language on the x rated version is necessary.

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Our family just discovered a new game that we LOVE. It’s called Telestrations, and it’s a mix of the telephone game with a drawing component. Each person has a little notebook and is given a word, which they then draw a picture of. Then they pass the picture to the left and the next person writes what they think the person before then drew. Then the next person draws a picture of that word, and so on and so forth until the notebook has gone around the table. Each person has a notebook, so there are like 8 of them going around at a time, and at the end you go through them to see how the word changed. It’s usually hilarious. 🙂

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Can, Where’s Waldo, be considered a game? Hahahah……Because it’s one of the most fun book/games for singles out there. I love playing it by myself because of all the crazy drama taking place! Seriously, every character is doing something hilarious, shocking, and interesting. I’m still a kid at heart and often get lot in the book series.

I love all of these suggestions. So many brilliant minds behind these games. Playing board games is so fun, cozy, and great place to have conversations!

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Apples to apples provided SO much fun for me as a kid! When we got bored of playing by the rules we would play charades using whatever was on the card as the item we acted out. When e got bored of that we would have one person be a story teller and we’d each give cards through the story and the story teller had to incorporate them. Endless fun from that game. Endless.

My other favourite growing up was Clue.

Now I’m on the hunt for toddler friendly games as I wait til my girls are old enough for these ones. Does anyone have any recommendations for games you can play with a 3 and 2 year old?

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Since the first year we were married, my husband and I have had a tradition of buying one new board game around the holidays each year, and once we had kids that evolved into choosing a game on or right before Black Friday and finishing the holidays by having New Year’s Eve be our major family game night. We haven’t ever gotten into the world building/mission strategy type games however, instead staying in the realm of card games like Uno, spoons, Rook, hearts, etc., Mexican train dominoes, and more old school board games (monopoly, clue, with the double sided board, and our favorite: the farming game!), or even Jenga.
Last year, my youngest teen chose Bubble Talk—basically apples to apples with the twist of captioning a funny picture (I like apples to apples with the Disney pictures better). This year I had bronchitis at Thanksgiving and didn’t get a new game, and our youngest is a teen now so perhaps it’s time to try one of these popular strategy games! Do you have a recommendation for which one is easiest to learn? Or least complicated to play?

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My daughter is still to young for most of these, but I’ve joked she’s getting nothing but books and games for Christmas. My husband is often too tired to play after she goes to bed but I love playing games!

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I have many of the games that you posted, and we play them frequently here. My husband and I often play a 2-player version of Catan, with rules that we found online. (No trading, play to 15 points, and you have to win by at least 2. Roll twice per person, and the person with the lower number of points controls the robber if you get a 7.)
We also enjoy Sequence, and Bang!. I used to play Dixit with my sister, but haven’t for awhile since we don’t live close together anymore.

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Thanks Sheila,

We’ve always enjoyed Quelf. It’s a game of nonsense and wacky actions. Plus, it’s kid friendly. You basically have to obey whatever the card says. The whole point of the game is to laugh and have fun. It’s one of those game where if you lose, you don’t care that you did because you had so much fun playing.
Example.) I’ve had one action card that said I had to create a diy scuba mask with whatever I had on hand before my next turn and wear it for the rest of the game or until another action card told me to do something else.

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Our family really likes King of Tokyo. Our kids are 9-16 and love playing together. Another fun one for groups is Guesstures. It’s like speed charades and helps people loosen up and have fun. We play it a lot when we have a bunch of people who don’t know each other in the same room

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Sheila – you should try patchwork doodle – itś fun and don´t take a lot of time. Prefect for everyday life, when you want to play a game , but don’t have so much time.

Btw … thanks for your recommendations – we have bought several of the games you have written about.

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