10 best board games for families

Board games are a fantastic way to bring families together or tear them apart, depending on what you play. Whether it’s a relaxing night of card games or an aggressive Monopoly match, there are hundreds of options for board games to play.

Board games hold a special place in my heart. I started with card games before branching out to playing various tabletop games with my family. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve played over the years, but there are a few that I regularly revisit and introduce to others whenever I get the chance. Let’s take a look at some great board games you can play with your family.

Ten best board games for families of all ages

Tabletop games take on many forms, from simplistic card games to complex boards with dozens, potentially hundreds, of miniatures, tokens, or cards to spice things up. With that in mind, some games are more challenging to learn than others, making them unsuitable for younger audiences.

Nonetheless, while I didn’t rank from best to worst, the ten I’ve chosen are a mix of simple and difficult games to allow everyone to find something they enjoy. While there are some I’m more familiar with than others, I’ve played each of these personally and have had my fair share of exciting, weird, and hilarious moments with them all. Let’s check out some board games then, shall we?

King of Tokyo / King of Monster Island

The first entry on this list is King of Tokyo, a two- to six-player board game designed for all ages. You start as a monster whose objective is to rampage Tokyo and be the last monster standing or the first to reach 20 victory points. You accomplish this by battling each other, collecting power cards to strengthen your monster, and racing against others to obtain victory points.

While some mechanics, such as power card abilities, may be slightly challenging to pick up initially, it’s a fantastic game that people of all ages can enjoy, regardless of their familiarity with board games. You can also expand further on it with games like King of New York to try out different mechanics and features.

A similar alternative is King of Monster Island, a cooperative version with up to five players battling to defeat a boss. Like King of Tokyo, it’s suitable for all ages and has a solid mix of strategy and action with each of your turns. While the two games have key differences, King of Monster Island has the same feel as King of Tokyo and is a great option in the same vein if you prefer collaborating over competing with your family members.

Sushi Go! / Sushi Go Party!

Next on the list is Sushi Go, a fast-paced card game that is also fit for all ages and up to five players. This time, your goal is to play cards simultaneously using your custom-built card deck before passing your hand around the table, playing another card, and repeating the process until you have no cards left in your hand. You add up your points at the end of the round, tracking them on the game’s card and scoreboard. The player with the highest points at the end of three rounds wins the entire game.

The complexity of Sushi Go and its larger, eight-player variant, Sushi Go Party, depends greatly on how deep you dive into strategy and the initial card deck you design. A beginner deck build can help new or younger players pick up the game more easily, while more complicated cards can result in elaborate strategies and synergies between card types. At the end of the day, though, it’s a game about placing sushi cards and gathering points, and it is one you can regularly revisit to try out new build ideas.

Root

If you’re interested in more complex games for older players, the Root board game is the way to go. Root is a two-to-four-player strategy wargame in which your primary objective is to be the first to collect 30 victory points. However, how you do this will differ greatly from others in your game, as each faction has its own ruleset, abilities, and resources to collect points.

In other words, on top of learning the main rules for Root as a game, you also have to know the intricate details of your faction, as well as others, so you can anticipate obstacles you may face while playing. If you’re a family who enjoys long strategy games, this one is for you. You can also dive deeper into its expansions to increase its maximum player count if you have a bigger family, allowing you to try out new factions designed to throw in unexpected curveballs.

As a bonus, Root has a Steam version you can try out if you prefer online games or are interested in trying the game but want to try a different version.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine / Mission Deep Sea

Let’s continue this list with my two personal favorites on this list. While The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine and The Crew: Mission Deep Sea are two separate games, their mechanics are similar, and they both support between two to five players. Nonetheless, I’ll quickly dive into both, just in case you’re looking to choose one or the other.

The first of the two, The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, has you and your teammates heading into space and discovering Planet Nine. Along the way, mishaps ensue, leading to you collaborating and completing 50 logbook missions to resolve them. Each mission has you finishing objective cards, with more added as you progress through the story, and taking tricks to satisfy their requirements. While most of your missions have certain players attempting to collect specific cards, others are mission-specific.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea follows a similar story, with you and your team diving into the ocean to search for Mu, a lost underwater continent. Like before, you’ll take on objective cards, with the number of cards and their complexity increasing with each mission. However, the structure of these missions is different, with some objectives including you only winning a certain number of tricks, collecting specific cards, or winning one card using another. Mission Deep Sea is much more strategy-focused, especially if you have seemingly near-impossible card combinations, at the cost of getting somewhat frustrating if you get stuck on the same cards for several rounds.

Nonetheless, both iterations of The Crew have almost endless replayability, as there are tons of objective card combinations you’ll encounter throughout your playthrough. However, while each round is short, these aren’t games you complete fully in one sitting. Be prepared to spend days, weeks, or potentially months to get through your entire logbook.

Camel Up

If you enjoy games full of unexpected plot twists and hilarious situations, Camel Up is here to give you some interesting surprises. Camel Up is a three-to-eight-player game in which you and the rest of the table watch a group of camels run around a track and determine which will win each leg and the overall race. You’ll do this in multiple ways, from picking up betting tiles to placing cards for which camel you think will win or lose the race.

While the concept is straightforward overall, certain mechanics, such as spectator tiles and partnerships, can create some funny situations. Everyone at the table may think one camel will win because it’s six spaces ahead, only for a rogue spectator spot to keep the game at a standstill for a few turns and completely change the outcome.

The Chameleon

Here’s one for all the social deduction fans who have appeared over the years. The Chameleon is a three-to-eight-player game in which you guess secret topics based on dice rolls. The catch? Someone at the table is an imposter who doesn’t know the word, but is pretending to blend into the crowd. The overall goal, depending on whether you’re the chameleon, is to either convince everyone else that you’re innocent or to catch who the chameleon is.

The real fun comes from going around the table and saying words related to your secret word without indirectly telling the chameleon what it is. After all, there’s a level of fun that comes from hearing everyone say words related to coffee, only for someone to blurt out “grapes”. It’s also suitable for just about any age group, making it great for families with youngsters or older folks.

Betrayal at House on the Hill

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a three-to-six-player board game oriented toward strategy and storytelling. In your group, you initially explore a haunted house together, unlocking rooms and activating its effects. Over time, you’ll unlock cursed Omen cards that, after some time, initiate The Haunt and introduce a traitor in your group. Once this happens, it becomes a fight between the group and the traitor, with your objective determined by one of many scenarios.

For some, Betrayal at House on the Hill and spin-offs like Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate are a hit-or-miss, especially if you only focus on completing objectives and winning games with minimal attention to lore. However, for others, it can be some of the most hilarious and interesting times, particularly if you enjoy introducing roleplaying into your games and having a narrative-driven experience. However, it it also a more complicated game than others on the list, making this more suited for older audiences.

Railroad Ink

Let’s unleash our creative side, shall we? Railroad Ink is a puzzle game in which you and up to three other players roll dice to assemble railways and roads on your board. Your goal is to get as many points as possible by connecting your paths to different exits, fulfilling objectives, and completing as many routes as possible without having open ends.

While Railroad Ink’s strategy is surprisingly in-depth and, at times, incredibly complicated, it remains a fun game for all ages. Your playthrough will depend on how much you and your family care about maximizing your scores versus making the coolest route possible.

Ticket to Ride

Our next entry is here to test your strategy and geography skills. Ticket to Ride is a two-to-five-player game where you and your family will place trains around the game board, constructing routes and completing destination objectives. Your goal is to get the most points by creating train routes, completing your destination routes, and other miscellaneous objectives such as having the longest continuous route.

While some of its mechanics are initially daunting for newer players, especially after introducing expansions, it’s a surprisingly straightforward game that people of all ages can enjoy. As a bonus, it’s a good way to have a fun geography lesson and learn about various regions of the world.

7 Wonders

7 Wonders, designed to handle between two and seven players, is a strategy game where your goal is to grow a large, thriving civilization. Although you can finish a round in 30 minutes, those minutes are full of careful planning and strategy as you collect cards, pass them around the table, and use your available resources to snowball your economy. Overall, you want to advance through each of the three stages by gathering and placing resources and growing your military, allowing you to obtain victory points that’ll lead you to a win.

7 Wonders is another one of those games that can be intimidating at first, especially if you’re unfamiliar with board games or are a younger player. However, as you learn more about the game, including its cards, currencies, and how the resource collecting system works, it just becomes a matter of relying on your cards to grow your power and obtain points. The game allows you to pursue multiple routes for victory, from defeating your neighbors in end-of-round battles to investing heavily in science, giving it plenty of replayability for new and experienced players.