The 35 Best Family Board Games (2025): Catan, Ticket to Ride, Codenames

More family board games

Photography: Simon Hill

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

Dorfromantik: The duel for $25: Based on the video game. from Dorfromwhich spawned a cooperative board game, this spin-off pits you against another player as you draw tiles to build a landscape and attempt to complete tasks along the way. With identical sets in red and blue, it’s a matter of who builds the best environment to satisfy their villagers and score the most points. Play time is less than an hour. You can play with two teams, but it works best as a two-player game.

Hey Hey Relay for $15: This super silly dice game is a race between two teams with challenge cards that prompt silly voices and physical actions before you can continue. It’s fast and chaotic to play, but it’s probably best for younger kids (the creators suggest ages 6 and up). My kids didn’t like it much, but it could be a fun party game.

Boat Show for $29: This cooperative game casts players as warehousemen and transporters and challenges them to ship orders correctly by guessing the correct tiles based on clues provided by the way they have been grouped. The time limit adds pressure, and this can be fun for the right group (they have to be on the same page), but we found that the wait for the warehousemen to set up was boring for the shippers and the scoring was laborious.

Flip 7 for $21: The thrill of trying your luck is the draw of this hybrid card game, in which you tap or hit Blackjack style, trying to get seven different cards face up. Special action cards and modifiers mix things up, allowing for some tactical play. Suitable for three or more players ages 8 and up, it only takes 20 minutes to play.

Tension: The 10 Best Name Games for $43: Theme cards have 10 items within 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 difficult), making it easy to play with kids or adjust the difficulty on the fly. This works well with any age or size team, but be prepared for a lot of screaming and laughing.

You have to be the kitten me! for $13: A simple spin on the liar’s dice that focuses on bluffing and bluffing; I have doubts 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 bow ties these felines were wearing.

Poetry for Neanderthals for $18: 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 between two and eight players ages 7 and up, it’s loud, silly, and generally makes everyone laugh.

Danger Danger for $10: Fast and frenetic, this simple two-team card game involves trying to reveal high-scoring cards at the end of each round. There are no turns, you can cover the other team’s cards and the rounds are timed, but you have to guess when the round will end. Super simple and very quick to play, this game can get chaotic.

That quickly increased by $12: This game is fast, easy and fun for up to eight players. With scenarios like “I’ve 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 has to try to place them in the correct order. It works best with resourceful players who know each other well.

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

Cards Against Humanity: Family Edition for $29: You can play this party game with up to 30 players and it will produce plenty of youthful giggles and laughter. Like the adult version, there isn’t much strategy here, but finding the perfect combination to make everyone laugh is satisfying.

Don’t bother

We weren’t that interested in these games.

Photography: Simon Hill

Zilence: As a group of zombie apocalypse survivors atop a skyscraper, you must choose the correct flight path to get the resources you need, determined by the cards. A tight time limit makes it tricky to pick the right routes out of the clutter on the game board, and can be put together differently for replay value. But the backdrop seems incongruous and we all agreed it wasn’t much fun to play.

I connect– Connect different symbols on your board with a dry erase marker based on a randomly drawn challenge card to make a picture of something (like connect the dots). The first one to guess what it’s supposed to be wins the round (some only vaguely resemble what they’re supposed to be). Longevity suffers, as it’s not fun to replay solved puzzles.

A game of cat and mouth: Incredibly simple, this dexterity game challenges you to shoot rubber balls through the mouth of a cat with magnetic paws, but they end up everywhere. The games tend to be very one-sided and my kids got bored almost immediately. You also cannot play with real cats in the surrounding area.

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