Mumsnet Talk

Set - brilliant card game

Harry Potter Cluedo (older ones), Ghostly Galleon, Pop up Pirate, Bop it,

Oh no I was looking forward to getting it. We usually love lego here. I'm off to check that thread now.

Carcassonne is a brilliant game, and easily adaptable for younger children. There's a junior version called Kids of Carcasonne which we didn't get much use out of, but it works for children 6 and under. Carcassonne though is an excellent investment as it is great for adults as well.

Uno is an excellent card game (very addictive).

We also like Pass the Bomb, Ticket to Ride, Pop to the Shops, Animal Safari (both Orchard), Dominoes and Snakes and Ladders.

This thread is turning expensive

Ticket To Ride is good, but Ticket To Ride: Europe is a more modern/tuned/geographically relevant version.

Carcassonne bit tedious for me.

Uno works for all ages I think (very easy rules and quite easy to fix so little ones don't cry!).

Coppit is fab - we've even played it as adults (drink was involved) and it was fun.

Pass the pigs is good too.

Jungle speed is good too but can get violent!

I think for those ages you need something simple but fast moving, that doesn't involve too much knowledge (like words etc.)

A great card game is "pig" also known as spoons.
Ordinary pack of cards. Pick out enough sets of 4 cards for each player (i.e. if there's 5 players pick out all the kings, jacks, tens, fives and twos).

Shuffle and deal out all the cards (so four each).

One person is designated to say "go". Everytime they say go, everyone places one card, face down, to their left. You then pick up the card from your right.

The idea is to get 4 matching cards (say all the kings). You keep going until one person has 4 matching cards. Whoever gets it first puts their finger on their nose (silently so as not to give the game away).

If you see someone put their finger on their nose then you copy them, even if you haven't got 4 identical cards.

The last person to put their finger on the nose is the pig. The variant with spoons is more violent - whoever gets a set of 4 cards grabs a spoon and everyone else follows suit. There's one fewer spoon than the number of players so one person won't have one. It can result in quite a tussle though.

Hope that's clear! It's a great game and very cheap

crap just re-read OP - thought it was suggestions for games to play at Christmas

<slinks off>

No no Bart, thank you for posting that! I had completely forgotten about Spoons! Used to play it as a child and loved it - now I'm all excited about teaching it to the DDs!

Rapidough is fab - play dough version of pictionary. It's great fun and very quick!

We're really into our board games and we've tried most of the ones mentioned on here. With a two year old, you'd need something where reading isn't required, but still interesting enough to engage the sixteen year old. These are all games that I'd consider to be suitable for any age but also fun:
Hedbanz for Kids
Uno Extreme (need to be able to read numbers to 9)
Wobally
Lego Creationary
The last two contain small pieces so two year old would be to be past the stage of putting things in his mouth.

Ticket to ride is definately our number one family favourite game.

Pit (loud and fun card game)
Yahtzee (dice game)

We have creationary and enjoy it. It's a decent game but I think for children older than 9 it would be a bit easy.

Monopoly Deal - card game version of Monopoly, I can't recommend it highly enough. We have taken it on two holidays with other families and each time both children and adults have got addicted to it. Unlike the board game version it only takes about 15 minutes to finish a game. 5 year old DS2 can play and it's also fun for adults. Everyone needs one! (but make sure you buy the UK version, for some reason the US version seems to be more widely available.)

Not a board game, but Toss Your Cookies is silly and fun for older and younger children. I don't think that you are likely to find a game that really works for such a wide age range, probably better to find something aimed at younger children and add a different gift for the older child. Something like a pack of UNO cards is not very expensive (playable by a six year old but not a two year old).

Risk - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_(game)

World domination game and totally addictive. Since DH and DS taught me how to play, I haven't lost a game.

More votes for Ticket to Ride and Blokus.

Of all the games we've had, this one was played the most - Tummy Ache.

I'm talking young kids.

Agree this thread is becoming expensive as Blokus, Ingenious, Labyrinth, Set and Animal Upon Animal are all looking mighty tempting.

Ingenious was our game of last Christmas, 6 year old DD and 10 year DS coped no problem although DH and I enjoyed it more and sat up playing late! Have just ordered Dixit, on a whim, had good reviews, any feedback?

I'm another fan of Labyrinth. It is works well for children from 6 and up, is fun with everyone helping the littler ones to get to their treasures and is also fun for bigger people trying to prevent their opponents from reaching them. My 2 and 4 year olds also love just setting the board up and tidying the pieces away afterwards, so its good for the whole family!

I agree with the posters suggesting Labyrinth -ds1 got it last month for his 8th birthday & it's been a huge hit with the whole family.
I also like Rummikub but it's only been this year that ds1 could play it with the rest of us-ds2 age 6 still finds it too difficult.

Are blokus and ingenious quite similar ie buy one or the other, not both? Looks a bit like that as far as i can tell,

Another fan here for Labyrinth, a very clever simple game! You can make it easier or harder depending on who is playing.

another vote for pit here, especially as we found a moshi monsters version of it in waterstones