I’m interrupting writing about our France trip (which I’ve been terrible about doing) to bring you a review of our family’s favorite games. I don’t know if you’re a gaming family or not, but games are a pretty big deal in our household. We’ve pretty much already told our kids that any spouses they bring into the family someday have to be willing to play games. It’s kind of a deal breaker. So when our girls come home on their college breaks, you can be sure that a lot of our family times include the five of us gathered around a game.
We have some games that are faves and always in the rotation, but we’re also always on the hunt for new games that we can bring in. So in case your family is similar and in need of some new game recommendations, or you’d like to spend less time on screens and more time doing family activities… I thought I’d do a little review of some of our favorite games.
(These are all Amazon Affiliate products, so if you buy any of these from my links, I will receive a commission.)
Number of players: 2-4 (see note below on how we made it work for 5)
Recommended age: 10+
Time per game: 30 minutes
We’ve had this game for several years now; it’s definitely one of our faves. Since it doesn’t take too long to play, you don’t have to commit a whole night for it. However, you usually want to play it again if you don’t win because you just know you can win it the next time. It’s not very complicated to learn, but does require some strategy.
The one downside to this game is that it’s only for 2-4 players, which is a problem for our family of 5. However, we modified it so 5 people can play by adding extra chips to it from our poker chip set. If you don’t have poker chips, I found this set on Amazon for $11.99 that you could use. It doesn’t have yellow chips, but yellow are wild anyways, so you’d be fine without having extra of those.
Number of players: 2-12+
Recommended age: 14+
Time per game: 30 minutes
We just got this gift for the family for Christmas and it has become a big hit already. This is a great group game that you can either play with your own family or a bigger group of people. We brought it with us to Michigan after Christmas and played it with our extended family. Even though the recommended age is over 14, the littler kids got involved and had a lot of fun! The premise is that you get a card that has 2 opposites on it, like “hot” and “cold.” You then reveal a scale that gives you a range between the two that you need to get your team to guess in. So, if your scale shows around 20% on the “hot” side, you could say “coffee,” hoping that your team will guess in the right range. I’m not great at describing this, but trust me, it’s easy to learn and lots of fun!
Number of players: 2-5
Recommended age: 7+
Time per game: 35 minutes
This game has been around for a long time, but we just got it for our family this Christmas. It’s a tile-building game that is easy to learn and doesn’t take too long to play. We love that the five of us can play without needing to make any modifications. This is an easy one to pull out and explain to guests fairly quickly. I think this will be a new common one in our family rotation since everyone enjoys playing it.
Survivor: The Tribe Has Spoken – $19.99
Number of players: 3-6
Recommended age: 8+
Time per game: 30 minutes
The kids surprised Chad and I with this game this year for Christmas. Chad and I have always loved Survivor – the first season it aired (summer of 2000) was the same year we got married, and for the first 15 or so years of our marriage, we were faithful in watching every season. It got harder to keep up with it as our lives got busier with kids’ activities and such, but then our kids started watching old seasons and became fans too. So this game was the perfect addition to our collection!
This is a card-based game for up to 6 people. I really hope they make an expansion because I think it would be even more fun with more people. You draw cards with actions or bonuses on them like “raid another player’s camp” (steal a card) or “immunity idol,” which serves like an actual immunity idol during the vote. Then throughout the game there are times when you have Tribal Council, and you vote someone off. However, if you get voted off, you then join the “jury” and get to vote for who you think should win, so you’re not completely out of the game.
It’s a social game with alliances and back-stabbing, just like the show! Our family added our own twist to it and actually have a time where we “walk and talk” before the tribal councils so we can have mini conversations with different people before the vote. We also put the voting box up in another room and have a phone recording our votes and what we want to say to the camera. It’s a pretty fun way to spice up the game, and it’s hilarious to watch the videos at the end!
Number of players: 2-6
Recommended age: 14+
Time per game: 30 minutes
If you like a good mystery, this one’s for you. It’s kinda like a deluxe Clue game. There’s a different story line (or case) every time you play. There are 200 cases, so it’s unlikely you’ll get through all of them, but even if you do, it’s doubtful that you’d remember the earlier cases, so you could just start over again. The game board is laid out like a map with different locations you can go to to get clues. You get a little notepad to write down your clues, and once you think you know who committed the crime, the motive, and how they did it, you can put in your guess to win the game. I really like how this switches up every time you play.
One Night Ultimate Werewolf – $24.95
Number of players: 3-10
Recommended age: 14+ (although we’ve played it successfully with much younger kids)
Time per game: 10 minutes
Now I’ll be honest, this isn’t one of my favorite games. But the rest of my family LOVES it and so do most people who they end up playing it with. They played it with our extended family this past Christmas, and even though the manufacturer recommends it for kids aged 14 and up, our nephews who were 8 and 9 really enjoyed it too. It’s kinda like the game Mafia. One or two people are the bad guy(s), or the werewolf in this case, and the rest of the players have to figure out who it is. The twist with this game is that there are the normal villagers but also other types of townspeople who have interesting roles, like the robber, the insomniac, the troublemaker, and more, whose characters do interesting things that make the game even more fun. This game often gets brought out at youth group game nights.
Number of players: 3-8
Recommended age: 8+
Time per game: 20-35 minutes
This is a great, easy game for a group of up to 8 people. You technically could play it with more people, you’d just have to supply more little white boards and keep score on paper instead of the provided board. The object of this game is simple – a card is drawn with a word on it and then either a blank space before or after the word. For example, ” ______ ball.” Then each player writes on their white board what word they think should fill the blank, like “basket, base, soft, etc.” Your goal is to match up with just 1 other person. If you do that, you each get 3 points. If you match up with more than 1 other person, you each get 1 point. And if you don’t match with anyone, you get 0 points. It’s a fun, easy game to pull out when you don’t want to have to strategize too hard or spend a lot of time explaining directions.
Number of players: 1-6
Recommended age: 13+
Time per game: 45-90 minutes
The kids and I bought this game for Chad for his birthday last year. I’ll be honest, this one is kinda complicated to learn. But once you play through it once, it gets easier and you’ll want to play it again. It says this game is for 1-6 players, so apparently you can even play it by yourself! This is an ecosystem game, so if you’re into flora and fauna and animals, you’ll really like this one. It’s also a simultaneous-play game, so even when it’s not your turn, you’ll be playing on your own ecosystem, so you don’t get bored waiting for it to be your turn again. The description says it takes up to 90 minutes to play, but I’d factor in more time for the first time around, since it involves a lot of directions. Thankfully there is a YouTube tutorial that is very helpful! I do recommend this game if you’re up for a little bit of a challenge!
Number of players: 2-4
Recommended age: 8+
Time per game: 30-45 minutes
I’m a big fan of this game! The only downside is that since it’s only for 2-4 players, so we can’t play it with the whole family, and there’s not really a way to add another player unfortunately. But it’s also a fun game to play with just 2 people! When Chad and I went on a weekend getaway last fall, we brought this along and really enjoyed playing it together. It made us realize that we can still have fun playing games with just the 2 of us even when we become empty-nesters in a year and a half! This is a pretty tile-laying game, which may sound lame, but there is strategy involved. It’s also nice that it doesn’t take too long to play, so you often want to play again – especially if you didn’t win but were so close!
These are just a few of the games we enjoy. I might write a part 2 later on since I left out several others that we like too. What are some of your family’s favorite games? I’d love to hear about them! Let me know in the comments!
Katie Renae 
Leave a comment