Brilliant board games

[Ophy83]

Does anyone have any suggestions for really fun board games?

This Christmas we've decided to have Christmas dinner early evening rather than at lunchtime and to spend the day playing fun games (games after dinner doesn't work for me as at that point I get sleepy and just fancy vegging out in front of the TV!)

Games we already have and love include:
Sounds Fishy
The Chameleon
Ransom Notes
What do you meme?
Classics like Stockmarket/ Risk/ Pictionary/ Monopoly/Jenga /Taboo etc

Fun or intriguing?

in the past year Harmonies and Forest Shuffle have both come out - both massively replay able and enjoyable. But not “funny” like Sounds Fishy. Slightly more complex would be Finspan or Flamecraft. Even more complicated would be Wingspan or Wyrmspan - but any of these will take a chunk of your time uo nicely.

Ticket To Ride is easy to understand.

For a funny/silly game - Fluxx or Exploding Kittens.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Green-Brothers-Games-Sock-Board/dp/B093QHCRRP/ref=asc_df_B093QHCRRP?mcid=f79c50b1a16a3bc09cfe32586d49667e&th=1&psc=1&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=697281466526&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9047084255798165815&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9180995&hvtargid=pla-1320810215180&psc=1&hvocijid=9047084255798165815-B093QHCRRP-&hvexpln=0&gad_source=1 this is a good game if you have a wide range of ages (although not a traditional board game).

How old are you all? As this will influence suggestions. We love Wingspan but wouldn't play it with younger DC. It's strategic rather than funny.

Not a board game, but we all enjoy playing Pig (with ordinary playing cards)

Quick, daft games:
Taco cat goat cheese pizza
Exploding kittens
Bears vs babies
Sushi Go
I'm a little crabby
May contain butts

Classics:
Labyrinth
Pictionary
Articulate
Cluedo

We also love Genius Star, but it's only 2 player

Not taco cat goat cheese pizza unless you want to risk injury on Christmas Day!

Exploding kittens
Labyrinth
Tension

Forbidden Island (and the rest of that series)
Scrabble
Pandemic
Castle Panic
Ticket to Ride

Scrawl is a great game to play at Christmas. It never fails to raise a laugh. It’s best with groups of 4+. Use the Family version if you don’t want to be too embarrassed!

How many ? What ages?
We like Herd Mentality. Best with more than 6 of you.

Came here to say Herd Mentality! So much fun and can be played with all ages.

We enjoyed Ticket to Ride with a mix of ages from 12 to 50-something.

We loved Ticket to Ride. All adults here but I think its relatively straightforward to understand.

I am giggling just thinking about the last time I played it.....

It's a lovely funny harmless type of game isn't it?

Absolutely!!! It gets you talking and laughing so much…we happened to play last night with friends and the question ‘which is the best biscuit’ created lots of debate 🤣🤣

Secret Identity is a good game to play across the ages.

https://www.board-game.co.uk/product/secret-identity/?currency=GBP&campaign=pmax23&gadsource=1&gadcampaignid=20343679918&gbraid=0AAAAADc1PwOTzFj0tznNRiiwaAL7pUWfd&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIip6c25zEjwMVjJRQBh0Htx7uEAQYASABEgIzxDBwE

Do you like cards games as can recommend the following:

The Traitors - based on the tv show where you have to guess who the traitor is.

Sounds Fishy - One person is guessing which of the other players is telling the true answer to a fact they’ve read out. My kids love this one as DH is hopeless at lying and gets caught out every time! https://bigpotato.co.uk/products/sounds-fishy?_pos=1&_sid=9b53ada47&_ss=r&variant=45973427159291 Sainsbury’s has the travel version on offer with another game when I was in there the other day so might be worth looking there.

The Chameleon - Everyone bar one player knows the answer and has to give one word relating to it. bigpotato.co.uk/products/the-chameleon?srsltid=AfmBOoqRZTFTKv-rHdRbxvGlsyXn9r_RA2ZHO7tJ8s0KXev8CpSgYxZ5

Splendor (2-4 players 10+)
Jaipur (2 players, 10+)
Dorfromantik (1 player or cooperate as a group, needs a big table, good if you like jigsaws)

Poetry for Neanderthals is lots of fun

My mum got ds this a couple of years ago and I'd forgotten about it - it's great fun so that will defo get brought out!

I just cannot understand the enduring recommendation for exploding kittens - it was dull as shit and even our kids looked at us with ‘wtf?’ expressions when we played a round of it. I never trust any recommendation that includes that one in the list. Baffling. It got donated to the church raffle straight away.

Scrawl is the best game we’ve played in a while. Best when you’re slightly drunk though. (Like most board games).

Thanks all - so many games I hadn't heard of! I'm off to look a lot of these up

Slapz and Taco, Hat, Cake, Gift, Pizza are the easiest and most fun games we have played without a doubt.

Edit - SLAPZI

Strong recommend for Ticket To Ride here.

We enjoy Munchkin, Settlers of Catan, Think Fast (Disney edition), Scrabble....the children are tweens and teens.

Quirkle and Ingenious are both great.

What ages?

Ticket to Ride (and the expansions) are a huge hit in our house.
Bananagrams
Mapominoes

We really like Mysterium, although it takes a while to set up and is a bit of a faff - once it's set up it works for as many rounds as you like, the actual gameplay is fun, you basically have at least 2 players being "mediums" and one player is a "ghost" but the "ghost" has got a bit mixed up - it's sort of like Cluedo in that each medium has a murderer, weapon and place to guess, and the ghost is only able to communicate through symbolism, which they access through a set of surreal dream-like images on cards. It's very funny because when you're the ghost you can't just point out what the symbols you meant are and you have to watch the mediums all collaborating and leading each other astray with hilariously wrong answers etc.

Then at the end there's a round where the ghost gets their story straight after all and picks one real murder story out of the three and everyone has to guess independently. We normally end up skipping this bit because the fun part is the other rounds but it's good (and infuriating and hilarious to debrief afterwards).

Best not played too often because you can start to develop a shorthand for all the cards if you do - it's good to play with different people each time e.g. at family Christmas etc.

How many people?

For large groups I suggest:
Dixit
Codenames (need two teams)
Kill Dr Lucky
Wavelength

For 3-5 players:
King of Tokyo
Munchkin

Cooperative suggestions:
Just one (better with 5+ people)
So Clover
Magic Maze
The Crew
Bomb Busters