Please recommend teenage appropriate board games

[whataboutbob]

In an attempt to get my 2 boys (14 and 17) off their screens once a week I’m hoping to start a board games night. We’ve exhausted the charms of monopoly, cluedo and trivial pursuits. Any recommendations would be really welcome.

Card games like phase 10 or skip bo? Quirkle is a good board game

Articulate
Exploding Kittens

Was just going to say exploding kittens. It's our camping favourite game.

Ligretto is an easy to pick up, quite quick to play and fun card game. The object is get to rid of your cards first by building stacks in numerical order and it can get quite 'heated' when more than one person is trying to rid themselves of a card on the same stack!

Oh gosh, so many! I'd start with fairly simple rule ones...
Survive- get your men into boats to safety before they get eaten by sharks, overturned by whales, sucked into a whirlpool...
Potions- add potion ingredients to your cauldron without exploding.
Carcassonne- Build castles and roads to amass points.

Those are our favourite straightforward ones at the moment, that's three men, 20,24,52 and me.

When they are more used to games and rules, try more complex ones like settlers, small world, Turn and Taxis, Ticket to Ride.

Our current faves (DC 16 and 14)
Chameleon
Just One
Dixit
The game of things
It's all about you
DH, DD and I also partial to a bit of Rummikub which is a bit like scrabble but with numbers

Articulate also good, and those category ones, Scattergories?
And Pictionary never fails to amuse us also.

Ticket to ride
Carcassonne
Labyrinth
Exploding kittens

Unstable unicorns (card not board but my teens love it)

Risk?
Articulate Your Life is better than standard Articulate

Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne are good, Tension is another fun one. Munchkin is great if you don't mind bits of swearing and backstabbing other players. There are also the "Tiny Epic" games, I've played Tiny Epic Galaxies and Tiny Epic Tactics so far and enjoyed them both.

We got the family version of Cards against humanity for Xmas. It's great. And nobody has beaten me yet! 😂

Depends on your family dynamic but we’ve played cards against humanity, but you need a sense of humor - and lack shyness!

We also play dobble
Labyrinth is a good game

If you like monopoly, try monopoly empire it’s quicker and more ruthless!

Cludo is good if you haven’t got it.

Codenames is good for all ages

I love Bananagrams

Exploding kittens, bears vs babies.
We got throw throw burrito at Christmas and it’s hilarious.

I know you have specifically mentioned board games but have you thought about a jigsaw? Like a 500 or 1000 piece jigsaw?

I love Obama llama

What another a god ol game of battleships

Alternatively there are some good online SMS on Alex’s music guess in the intro quiz games.

Another vote for Risk. Games can go on for days in our house.

Taskmaster
Crystal Maze
Star Wars Risk (doesn’t take as long as normal Risk)
221B Baker Street

Taskmaster is brilliant

Throw throw Burrito
Catan
Ticket to Ride
Qwirkle
Anomia
Perudo
Scotland Yard
Dixit
Geistes blitz

Monopoly for sore losers.

King of Tokyo - easy to learn, quick to play.

Raiders of the North Sea - again pretty straightforward worker placement game. And if you enjoy that then try Architects of the West Kingdom

Roll for the Galaxy

Mysterium - Similar idea to cluedo in that you have to find the murderer/location/weapon but you find it through a series of pictorial clues/images handed out to you by "the ghost" of the murdered person.

Ticket to Ride (Europe is our preferred edition but the standard N America game is great too and easy to pick up.)

Obama Llama / Articulate / Balderdash / Sort It Out / Telestrations / Cranium all good fun too.

We like

Muffin Time
The Forbidden series - Forbidden Island, Desert, Sky
221B Baker Street