Games for grown ups - new recommendations please

[HelenHywater]

My kids are in their twenties and really enjoy playing games at Christmas. I usually buy a couple of new ones.

So what games do you recommend? We like a combination of serious games (7 Wonders is their favourite game) and more silly ones - we liked Secret Hitler last year. Telestrations is also a favourite. We have Catan, Ticket to Ride, Carcasonne alread.

What do you recommend? It has to be games that are for more than 4 people (there will be 5 of us) or playable in teams.

I like Champions of Midgard, where you’re a Viking trying to defeat monsters to score points - it’s a worker placement game with dice for warriors. Just like in battles, sometimes your overwhelming force of dice-warriors don’t roll well and you lose!

Love Camel Up for silly fun - racing camels, you have to pick winners and losers for each round and the whole race. We always laugh a lot playing this one!

And we’ve recently started playing Five Tribes, which I’m really enjoying but still have to work on my strategy as ds wins almost every time! The meeple are already on the board, which is different.

Colt Express
Dixit
King of Tokyo
Flamecraft
So Clover (cooperative word game)

I must admit, I have no clue how to play 7 Wonders. But my children just love it.

Thank you for these suggestions - I'll take a look

Codenames
The Chameleon
The Logo game

Sushi Go Party - it’s a fun card game for 2-8 players

Wilmots Warehouse. It's collaborative rather than competitive. It's essentially a memory game but it's really fun. It sounds shit when you try and explain it, but it was hilarious.

Hues and Cue

board full of colour squares
you have to get people to guess colours by one/two word clues
up to 10 players

Thank you everyone. I think it looks like Champions of Midgard is a 4 person game. I've got Wavelength, Phantom Ink, Hues and Cues and Wilmot's Warehouse currently languishing in my Amazon Basket (to be whittled down before buying). I also saw a game called Old King's Crown recommended in the Guardian this weekend - they had a feature on family board games - which looks really interesting too

Just One has gone down brilliantly with every group I’ve played it with. Can do 5 or more.

6 Nimmt! is a cracker of a game, up to 10 players.

My kids are in their 20s too and I recommend Ransom Notes. It’s so funny, proper belly laughs. You have to come up with a sentence using the limited words you get given.

Beat That is fun if you want to actually do stuff.

Another vote for Codenames 😊

Uno
ransom notes
exploding kittens card game
race across the world

If you like Catan, the Seafarers extension pack is great.

edited to add, sorry just saw you need for 4+ players, so you’d need the expansion pack too which makes it quite spendy.

@HelenHywater this is a great thread, thank you. Can you remember what else The Guardian recommended by any chance?

My really strong recommendation is Storymaster’s Tales, Weirding Woods, in original form. We all love it, and I’ve gifted it to friends who love board-games and they’ve thoroughly enjoyed it too.

I love 7 Wonders, I also love Wingspan (5 players) but it is better with the expansion packs. So for that reason I’d go for Finspan (similar but fish based). Wyrmspan (dragon based) is harder.

flamecraft is a cute play for 5 people.

and Forest Shuffle is, I think, 5 players and excellent.

Our favourites are
Everdell
Azul
viticulture
7 wonders Architect
7 wonders duel (is a 2 player but good to have in your collection)

Oh and I second wingspan! Love that game too

Scotland Yard or Timeline are both good (although I can only see timeline twist online). Also Linkee!

Kapla challenge.
Possibly with another box of kapla pieces so you can all try at once.

Swing your sausage is good for the silly category!

Ones we’ve played & enjoyed:

Viticulture
Dune Imperium
Wrymspan
Spirit Island
Obsession

@GrannyTeapot here's the link to the article https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/dec/07/best-board-games-christmas-gifts-2025

There's so many good suggestions here, thank you! I'm paralysed by indecision and have so many in different baskets all over the web.

I do have 7 Wonders duel in my basket too.

If I haven't responded, sorry - I do have a lot of the games already suggested.