Best for Younger Kids:. Little kids will love racing all over Busytown with this board game. It's supposed to help develop critical skills like teamwork. Best for Older Kids:. Made for explorers at heart, this game tests your problem solving and strategic thinking skills.
It's perfect for older kids 10 and up. Best Fantasy:. A magical maze game made for fantasy lovers: The brand says it's curated to help sharpen your memory skills. Best Strategy:. Players will have to engage heavy critical thinking and planning to succeed in Catan. Best Cooperative:. Because players are on the same team, it's a great option for siblings and cousins of various ages and learning levels. Best Trivia:.
Packed with trivia questions for all ages and generations, this is a game all members of the family can enjoy. Best Guessing:. Get your brain pumping with this creative, dinosaur-themed take on the classic Clue game.
In This Article Expand. Our Picks. What to Look For. Why Trust The Spruce. What We Don't Like Pricey. The 9 Best Board Games of Board Game. View On Amazon. What We Don't Like Only three pawns per color. What We Don't Like Somewhat repetitive.
What We Don't Like Four-player maximum. Catan Review. The 8 Best Cooperative Games of All of Us Family Trivia Game. What We Don't Like Not ideal for younger kids. The 7 Best Trivia Games of View On Fantasticgames. What We Don't Like Five-player maximum. What We Don't Like Poor-quality drawing materials.
Final Verdict The best family board game is Ticket to Ride view at Amazon , a fast-paced and competitive game that's easy to learn but also engaging for all ages. The 8 Best Board Games for Kids in Related Topics. Article Sources. The Spruce uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
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These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. Drawing inspiration from the entire trilogy, Back to the Future: Dice Through Time puts every scrap of material to good use; unlike some tie-ins, its mechanics are hinged on ideas that feel true to the franchise but would also be fun in their own right without any branding.
For example, the board isn't linear. It's split into four eras instead, and everything Biff stole is scattered between them. You've got to overcome iconic moments - such as Marty's skateboard chase - to free those treasures, all while fixing paradoxes that could end your mission early.
For starters, you can 'ripple' dice through time to help out your allies when they're in a different time-stream. This might give them the tools they need to solve a problem, but it may leave you shorthanded. Secondly, there are dire consequences if you land in the same space as someone else. You must never, ever meet your past or future self, after all. This winds up as one of the best board games from the last year or so as a result. Even if you're not a Back to the Future fan, it's a smart and engrossing co-op adventure you need to try.
Hunting down a whodunnit? One Night Ultimate Werewolf is perfect for would-be detectives - it practically turns wink murder into a competitive sport. Because it's also shorter and snappier than most of the games that inspired it Mafia, say , this version of Werewolf is a sure-fire hit for parties. As an exercise in social deduction, your aim is to uncover the werewolf in question before it's too late. Everyone has a role to play; if you're not secretly a monster, you'll fill the shoes of villagers and would-be victims.
Either way, time is against you. Although the werewolf feeds on another player at the end of each round, they've also got to avoid raising suspicion. This injects a sense of paranoia into the game, and you're frequently unsure of who's telling the truth.
Especially when you take other roles into account. While most are designed to help the villagers in some way be it seers who investigate suspects or healers that protect their allies , some stir the pot by protecting any werewolves in play.
Which there might not be, as it so happens - there's always the possibility that no monsters are present at all, leaving villagers to tear themselves apart with suspicion. Different versions of One Night Ultimate Werewolf exist to shake things up, too. There's even a 'One Night Ultimate Alien' where extra-terrestrials are trying to cause as much trouble as possible. There's an argument to made for each one being on our list of the best board games.
If you want to level up from Clue, this is one of the best board games out there. A murder mystery where you've got to solve the crime before dawn, it has all the trappings of a classic; the 's setting, a creaky old mansion, and some Sherlock Holmes-style deduction. It's anything but predictable, though.
You see, one of the players in Mysterium is dead… and they're trying to solve their own death. The plot, as they say, thickens. The trouble is, our unfortunate ghost can't communicate through words. Instead, they have to talk with their teammates through surreal 'visions'. These take the form of cards with eerie, deliberately vague artwork everyone else has to interpret.
As with all good mysteries, the clock is also ticking. Players must figure out who did the deed, where it happened, and what the killer used before this helpful ghost disappears at dawn. Because everyone is investigating different leads to whittle down their suspect list, the pressure is well and truly on. There's a more accessible two-player alternative called 'Mysterium Park' too, and that one's set in a spooky carnival. As the name would suggest, your team's commanding officer has bitten the dust, so you'll need to get your hands dirty with push-your-luck tower defence if you want to complete their mission.
A horde of flesh-eating bugs is also on the way, so you'd better be ready by the time they arrive. As the third installment of a long-running franchise, Dangerous Planet builds on the formula in smart, compelling ways. Rather than just fending off enemies, you'll need to explore the bugs' nest of tunnels as well to gather alien artefacts - they're this game's version of points. To raise the stakes, you'll need to venture deeper into enemy territory as well with every passing turn.
Thanks to in-depth mechanics that'll take a while to master, Dangerous Planet is perfect for veteran players who've exhausted many of the best board games already. And because its gameplay feels like a blend between Pandemic and Betrayal at House on the Hill, there's enough complexity here to keep you going for months at which point you can always try the original Captain is Dead or The Captain is Dead: Lockdown.
The game's quirky art-style and its frequent nods to The Next Generation add icing to this cake; it's an unabashed love-letter to science fiction TV shows, and that makes it a highly recommended purchase. While most party games are built around trivia, Codenames opts for something different - getting to know other players better. A word-based puzzler relying on association, it's one of the best board games if you're looking for an icebreaker.
Splitting players into two sides with a spymaster overseeing each one, the aim is to make contact with your team's secret agents first… all while avoiding an assassin hiding amongst them. At its most basic, the result is a breadcrumb trail: someone makes single-word clues that guide their teammates toward particular cards on a grid. These hints can range from rhymes to synonyms, but you're only allowed to use one word and aren't able to help in any other way. That means the spymaster will have to watch in despair as their team talks itself out of the right answers.
It's a hilarious experience that'll get everyone chatting in no time. This game tells you a lot about your friends, too; discovering why someone chose the clue they did gives you a better idea of who they are as a person. Namely, anyone associating the word 'blue' with 'milk' is probably a Star Wars fan. That makes Codenames great as a warm-up or with a new group. There are plenty of alternate versions out there as well, be it from Disney or Harry Potter.
You can even get a cooperative 'Codenames Duet' if you want a more collaborative experience. Mechs and farming - who knew they'd make such good partners? Based on Jakub Roszalski's artwork, Scythe takes place in a parallel s Earth where peasants work under the gaze of enormous dieselpunk robots.
It's a brutal world where everyone is competing for power, so you'll need to keep your wits about you if you want to survive. Much like the Civilisation video game series, Scythe is just as interested in building an economy as it is battling for territory.
Indeed, players can spend time shoring up trade and resources, blowing everyone else to smithereens, and everything in-between. This sort of sandbox freedom means you can go about winning in your own way. It's possible to claim victory without firing a single shot, for instance. Something else that makes Scythe one of the best board games is the fact that it doesn't rely on luck.
More specifically, the only randomised elements at play are encounter and combat cards which offer a boost during conflict.
You can otherwise rest assured that you've won through skill alone. The game's stunning artwork is also worth the price of admission. It revels in the contrast of rural life and hulking, oil-stained warmachines that loom over farmers toiling in the fields.
Scythe's miniatures are equally impressive; it's a solid conversation starter. War never changes, but Fallout: The Board Game does. With a wide variety of quests, factions, and areas to explore by yourself or in a group, no two sessions of this RPG are the same. And because you can play solo, it's perfect for those who don't have a large gaming group to hand. More importantly, it's able to distill what makes the video game franchise special with style to spare. At its heart, this is a game about going on an adventure; players set off into the burnt husk of America including regions like the Commonwealth from Fallout 4 , beat the snot out of monsters they find along the way, and complete quests for loot that'll let them take on even more dangerous missions.
It's a satisfying loop, even if the game itself is overwhelming at first thanks to its overflowing rulebook. The fact that your actions have consequences is equally neat.
To be precise, the wasteland's fate will be decided by the group you ally yourself with during your travels. Besides giving life to a game otherwise concerned with stats and item management, that raises the stakes in a way that's true to Fallout. If you're a Fallout fan, this game's artwork will also win you over. The theming on show here is superb, as if it's been pulled right from the screen to your table.
As an example, your abilities are represented by the iconic 'S. L' stats on a cardboard Pip Boy computer, and money comes in the form of thick, card-based Nuka Cola caps. Its models are of a similarly high quality, and that only adds to the immersion. If you want the ultimate solo role-playing experience, this is one of the best board games out there. Despite having been around since , Cosmic Encounter has lost none of its edge.
This operatic sci-fi game is a much-loved classic, and its unusual gameplay is rarely matched. If you love to haggle or negotiate, it's amongst the best board games by a long way. Everyone's goal is the same; set up five colonies on rival planets. However, that's where any similarities end.
Each player takes the reigns of a different alien race one of 50 possible species , and these have unique special abilities that upend the rules in creative ways.
Some can only win battles if they lose the fight first, others are able to reverse card numbers so 17 becomes 71, and more can sneak a look at someone else's cards.
This means you've always got to expect the unexpected - and be ready to counter it. It's the same story with turns. After being matched with an opponent picked at random, players must fight or enter into diplomacy with each other. They can even invite allies to join them for rewards, so Cosmic Encounter's gameplay is satisfyingly fluid. If you're a fan of sandbox mechanics, this will definitely be your jam.
Catan, previously The Settlers of Catan, requires critical thinking from the moment you place your first settlement. Where you build your starting settlements dictates the types of resources you have access to — and those, in turn, will help you expand with roads, upgrade to cities, earn development cards and hopefully win the game.
The game, which has a 4. You can also purchase a board extension to play with up to six players the base game allows up to four. Fans of Tetris will likely enjoy Blokus, where the goal of the game is to place all of your 21 pieces on the board. All of your tiles have to touch at the corners, which makes this strategy board game difficult — especially when your opponents block you in.
The game, which can be played with up to four players, sits at a 4. Ultimately, the goal of the game is simple: Build the train routes on your ticket cards before someone blocks you. Ticket to Ride has a 4. The board game, which works with up to four players, has a 4. Instructs players to match one of the caption cards in their hand with the photo card in play to come up with the funniest meme.
What Do You Meme? Holds a 4. In order for a team to win, the resident spymaster must help their teammates figure out which agents match with which secret identities, all while avoiding the dreaded assassin. The deduction game has a 4.
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