If you think of the following when I say “family board game”: Monopoly, Life, Clue and Sorry, have I got a treat for you! Family board games have gotten so much better!!! No longer do we have to suffer through such randomness and tedium as is in the above games. I grew up playing all those games and loved them because that’s all I knew. The Game of Life was a favorite because of the feature of having children, filling up the car with the little blue and pink pegs, if I got lucky. The times I played and had zero or one child were depressing. When I won the game with lots of money and children, I felt I had hit the jackpot! When my brother gave me the game for Christmas about 12 years ago, I had to smile as I knew he remembered how much I had loved playing this game in our childhood.

As much as I love the game of Life, I love the newer board games sooo much more because of the increased diversity of themes and choices available in them. The newer mechanisms allow for a lot more choice instead of being subject to the spin of the dial or the roll of the dice. Clue does have strategy I admit, such that I can usually win every time I play, yet the novelty of it has long worn off since I received it for Christmas in 5th grade. I’m sooo glad that board games have evolved beyond the roll-the-die-and-move-on-a-path-or-grid mechanism.

The Dice Tower YouTube Channel recently released their new video about Family Games from their series The 12 Days of Christmas. So here’s the video with some of the games from it below.

Dragon Keepers

I haven’t played any of the above games, but they look fun!

Now I’ll talk about some of MY favorite family games.

Whereas the ones above are currently all available in amazon or some other online game store like gamenerdz.com, these ones below might not be easily available new. Many of them are old and might only be available at ebay as used if you want them right away. If you can wait, keep a list on your phone and when you find them at a thrift store, grab them!

I love all the “who said what” type guessing games like Loaded Questions, Game of Things, and so forth, as listed here. We played the political version below recently and it was a super hit, especially since those at the table were all of the same political bent. Warning, don’t play it with people who get easily offended by different political opinions or you might have WWIII on your hands.

Wits and Wagers is fun because it’s a twist on trivia. You don’t necessarily have to know the answer, just know who is most likely to know and vote for their answer. I have some gospel-themed versions for Sunday gameschooling here!

You can get Camel Up and Everdell in amazon. Camel Up is soooo fun! You bet on who will be the first camel to win the race. It involves probability, which is math, so hey, this is even educational! Be ready for some rousing cheers and yells with this game! It’s a good mix of strategy, luck, and potential upsets at every turn!

Everdell is just so cozy yet strategic. I love it!!! Read my review here.

Fluxx is a fun card game with the simple rule of “draw one card, play one card.” It always changes though as you draw and play cards that change the goal and the rules. I love it because it’s so simple yet there’s so much variety so that game is always changing, and no game is the same. The basic game is above. Then the game comes in so many varieties: Nature, Family, Fairy Tales, Monty Python, Star Trek, Anatomy, Chemistry, Camping, Astronomy, and more! These make great stocking stuffers!

Just One is probably the simplest on this whole list! Read my review here.

If you like Pictionary or Charades, Concept is for you. It’s basically Charades with just using already printed pictures on the board. You try to get someone to guess the secret word using the pictures. It’s so satisfying when you get it right on either end.

Who hasn’t heard of Codenames? It’s a great big family party game because people can come in and out and you can have as few as four people and as many as you want. It also comes in different varieties like Disney, Harry Potter, Pictures, two-player-version, and Marvel. For people who love word association.

Bananagrams is for word lovers and Scrabble lovers. It’s like Scrabble where everyone makes their own crossword grid with letter tiles, all playing at the same time, as a race to see who runs out of their tiles the fastest. All the fun of Scrabble without the restraints!

Telestrations is like the old “Telephone” parlor game using drawings. If you have the right crowd, it can be hilarious!

Gizmos is engine-building with cascading effects, kind of like in Everdell. I love the little “gumball machine” that dispenses the marbles.

Secret Hitler has been a hit for almost a decade with my children. They went through a phase where they played this every Christmas vacation, multiple rounds, multiple days when the big kids came home from college. It involves a ton of acting and bluffing so only play with people who like that. My oldest child loves it so much he helped build an online version of it.

Pictomania is Pictionary on steroids where everyone plays every round as a drawer AND a guesser! Everybody has their own secret word to draw. It’s a race to draw your word as fast as you can and then guess the other people’s words. Sooo much fun! This is absolutely one of my favorite games! It is a lot of fun when you get a mind meld and can tell what people are communicating on paper, as well as get people to get right what you drew. Similar to the feelings in Just One, and Concept.

Moods is great if you have the right crowd who like to act and aren’t self-conscious. I have played this with my Veggie Gals girlfriends and my relatives. All those times it has elicited a lot of laughs. It’s simple and goes fast. Everyone plays every round, which I love. This is one that’s out of print, so you have to find it in ebay or a thrift store, like I did here. Totally worth it! I have such fond memories of playing this with a brother-in-law, his wife, my niece, my oldest daughter, my oldest son, and a sister-in-law and her husband. We laughed so hard! It plays up to 8 people! Hooray!

I have reluctantly decided that Bohnanza has made my list of favorites after many years of resisting this game because of the forced planting, aka socialist action, LOL. It used to really bug me until I learned how to not let it bug me. All my kids love this game! You are basically a bean farmer, planting and harvesting beans, to get coins. The winner is the one with the most coins. We played it recently for a family game night. I had so much fun after finally getting the hang of it, so I finally decided that I like it. My teen daughter resisted the game night and opted to take a nap (haha, I knew she wouldn’t be able to actually sleep) but later when she found out we played this game she said she would have joined us if she had known we were going to play it. You snooze, you lose!

How can I not include Ticket to Ride? A classic! My game loving son bought it for the family as a family Christmas gift about 8 years ago. The Europe version is more fun because of the tunnels! I love that you can get different versions: USA, Asia, Nordic, Africa, and more. Just don’t get the NYC version. It always ends too soon for me!

Now for a few that I haven’t ever played but look so fun!

How can I resist this one above?! Santa and elves! It just oozes hygge! Learn about hygge here!

If those aren’t enough for you, here are a ton more ideas below! Happy game boarding with family and/or friends!
Also, check out the party games here and my gameschooling ideas here.