What’s Your Family’s Most Memorable Gaming Moment? - £200 voucher to be won

[EllieSmumsnet]

We all know how special it is to spend quality time as a family, and gaming can be a brilliant way to bond, encourage problem-solving and teamwork. From navigating different worlds to friendly competitions, playing together can create memories that last a lifetime.

Nintendo games are great for this, offering something for everyone—from little ones just starting out to parents (and grandparents!) reliving their own childhood gaming days. Whether it’s a quick race, solving puzzles, or teaming up for a big adventure, there’s plenty of fun to be had.

We’d love to hear from you: What are your favorite family gaming moments? How do you use gaming to bring everyone together?

• Post your stories in the thread below to be entered into a prize draw
• One lucky MNer will win a £200 VEX voucher for a store of their choice.

About Nintendo:
“At Nintendo, the mission is to bring a smile to everyone’s face by creating new surprises that can help connect people from around the world. The company first started in Kyoto, Japan back in 1889 with hanafuda playing cards and now shares their exciting visions through the world of entertainment and video games.”

Playing Mario Karts on the Wii - I was always Princess Peach -and always came last and could not master any speed at all - much to my children's amusement.
It was the BEST game to watch - we had the nunchuck steering wheels.

I used to have Farmville (it was a playstation game years ago) and my DC's would plant and water and harvest crops. We had a big farm and lots of crops - I feel it was a precursor to Minecraft.

I think the main thing for us has been to keep the gaming equipment out of bedrooms, so they spend time downstairs to game

As a whole family we like things like Wii sports, mario kart, mario party , overcooked. Also playing games like game of life and monopoly on the TV makes some variety from the board game versions.

My husband and the teenage boys like playing all sorts of games and it has become a good bonding time for them

We had a board game called TV bingo - usually got it out at Christmas, essentially it was marking off you bingo card if you saw a cat, red car or jar of jam for example - I know we loved this as children - this was my most memorable gaming moment

We all loved the time my mum turned out to be a complete natural at Wii bowling, although she'd never played video games before. She trounced the lot of us.

My husband stayed up late into the night practising - sweating and stripped to his boxers - trying to improve his game so he could beat her. She never lost her winning streak 😂

Playing Ratchet and Clank on the playstation 2 with my brother - we LOVED and were addicted to this game - I think I went to bed and saw bolts ( you collected tbese to upgrade weapons)

Another vote for the Wii - I think a family game of 10 pin bowling with your own Mii character is hard to beat as a family memory.

Definitely just dance on the wii, I've never laughed so much in my life at DP trying to keep up with the kids on that 😂

Mario and sonic at the Olympic Games was a fabulous game for us all - and we spent many a rainy day competing

tennis on the Wii
we are all awful but it’s fun!

Not a well known one - but we loved to play Reel Fishing: Road Trip Adventure
on the Wii - it was a fun game for all of the family - and required no real skill so one for me also.

We love playing 4 player switch games - like tennis, basketball and bowling on 'sports'. Brings out the family competition - Mario kart has the same effect too!!
We also love playing board games and quiz games - the downtime between Christmas and New Years is perfect for family games!

playing Super Mario on Nintendo with my sister in the 90’s. It was our first ever console (video game) and it was all very exciting!

I haven't done any gaming since i was kid - my sister and I love our Amstrad - we had to load up a game on a cassette tape and it would take 10 minutes but we loved playing on it!

My young child was delighted to be a better driver than me - consistently - when we got a Switch with Mario Cart!

We like to find old games from our childhood and introduce them to the children! Crash Bandicoot this week!

Winning the hardest level in my life.

Having to type a game into a C64 and save it on a tape before you could play it. It just felt mind blowingly futuristic.

My brothers loved gaming. I played a lot of tetris on the game boy. My little brother bought me my own game boy when I was early 20s :) It died a few years ago :( My son now 14 loves gaming and recently got into retro gaming on game boys etc..He upgraded his game boy and on Xmas day surprised me with his old one. That's my best gaming moment 😍

Daughter-"Mummy this person is really bad at driving"
Me-"That's you driving sweetie" 🤣

Not funny at the time but can laugh now. Playing monopoly on Christmas Day - DH, DS 12 ,DD9 and myself. DD is a terrible loser. and always has been. She Landed on DS’s property and she didn’t want to pay. She threw a fit,swallowed his house and stormed up to her bedroom. We spent Christmas night in A&E- the game has never surfaced from the cupboard again!

My then 72 year old dad playing Wii bowling . This was Christmas day, a few hours after we'd announced we were pregnant with our first child. He was on antibiotics but accepted a single glass of champagne. That plus the meds plus our news made him rather tipsy. He was loving Wii bowling, while mum was getting cross at his giggling.

I’ve grown up with video games. I have so many fond memories. Playing Crash Team Racing with my family as a kid, spending hours upon hours playing Pokemon, and then using those Pokemon on the Pikachu special edition Nintendo 64 when Pokemon Stadium came out. Gaming with my friends through my teenage years and then with my boyfriend, now husband, through adulthood. When we moved in together, we had two of a lot of consoles as we both owned the same. Now getting our daughter into playing Mario Kart and other ‘starter’ games - I can’t wait until I can start to introduce her to more complex games like Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy. As well as fun, family games like Overcooked and Bomberman, or doing some co-op story games. Gaming is such a great way to bring people together. It will always be a huge part of my life - I couldn’t be without it.

There's a big age gap between my DC's and playing Mario Kart is one thing that we all really enjoy. In fact the younger ones are better at it!

Digging out my old PlayStation from the loft and playing the old original Spyro Trilogy games, with both of my sons, during lockdown.
We pulled my mattress off of my bed, into the lounge with lots of blankets and snacks and gamed for days on end, taking turns on each level and cheering one another on when tackling the “big” end of level bosses!
The quality time and team building of those few weeks are unmatched and it is now a core memory for all 3 of us now. We often reminisce about enjoying that part of lockdown and how it more bearable for us.