33 Best Family Board Games (2024): Catan, Labyrinth, Onitama

More family board games

Photography: Simon Hill

There are many family board games. Here are a few more we liked.

Tension: The Top 10 Naming Game for $30: The themed cartoons have ten items in a category and the opposing team has 60 seconds to guess as many as they can. The cards are divided into two colors (easy and harder) making it easy to play with children or adjust the difficulty on the fly. This works well with any age or team size, but be prepared for lots of shouting and laughing.

Indiana Jones Cryptic for $24: An escape room puzzle game with Indiana Jones style is a license match made in heaven. This game is beautifully illustrated, with three cases to solve that beat the game story from the original trilogy, the narration from Indy’s diary, and the coin prizes for success. The puzzles are a bit hit or miss (sometimes too easy, sometimes too hard), but once solved you won’t want to play again, even though you can still beat the game.

You must be me kitty! for $10: A simple twist on liar’s dice that focuses on bluffing and calling the bluff; I am of two minds about this game. On the one hand, the game is nothing special, but on the other, cute cats! My moggy-obsessed daughter immediately wanted to play, and we had a few laughs with outrageous bluffs about the number of glasses, hats and ties on these felines.

Poetry for Neanderthals for $25: Each card has a word, and your seemingly simple task is to get your team to guess it correctly within the time limit by speaking only in syllables. If you break the rules, the opposition can hit you with the inflatable “No” stick. Suitable for two to eight players ages 7 and up, it’s loud, silly, and usually makes everyone laugh.

Danger Danger for $15: Fast and frenetic, this simple card game for two teams is about trying to have high-scoring cards showing at the end of each round. There are no turns, you can cover the other team’s cards, and turns are timed, but you have to guess when the turn ends. Super simple and very fast to play, this game can get chaotic.

This quickly increased to $20: This game is fast, easy and fun for up to eight players. With scenarios like “I invented a new sport, what is it?” players must provide suggestions from least dangerous (1) to most dangerous (10) based on their assigned number for each round. The leader of the round will try to get them in the correct order. It works best with witty players who know each other well.

Kitchen Rush for $48: A truly unique title that proves that too many cooks can spoil the broth; this game can be chaotic fast. Work together to cook dishes for customers within a tight time limit. It’s a bit too complicated for kids. (I’d say 10 and up is better.) If you like this, try the videogame Overcooked.

Sounds Fishy for $20: Another fun group game from Big Potato, the challenge in Sounds Fishy is to spot wrong answers. Each card asks a question, but only one of the answers you get is correct. It’s for four to 10 players, and we found it more fun but harder with more people.

Zillionaires Road Trip USA for $13: Each of the 49 squares on the game board is a quirky street attraction, from Bubblegum Alley to the National Mustard Museum, and players bid to buy it with the goal of securing four in a row. My kids loved this, the adults not so much.

Cards Against Humanity: Family Edition for $29: You can play this party game with up to 30 players, and it will produce a lot of giggles and laughter from the children. Like the adult version, there isn’t much strategy here, but finding the perfect combination to knock them all out is satisfying.