Cards Against Humanity
Spades
One of the many iterations of Trivial Pursuit
Ditto Monopoly
We haven’t all gotten together long enough to play games in a while. Oh, life. Hey-- we played Life a time or two also.
My family are split on Catan. My son & I like it a lot, but sometimes the gameplay can have dry spells that are tough to wait out if it’s raining for someone else.
I don’t think I’d play Cards Against Humanity with family.
Apples to Apples
Balderdash
Phase 10
Oh Hell
Pit
There was some drawing game that was fun, but I don’t recall the name. Everyone gets a card with an object or person or event and then draws it. Then another player guesses it. A variation on Pictionary.
Both my kids are 32 so we’re safe.
Some that haven’t been mentioned:
The Mind (The Mind | Board Game | BoardGameGeek)
Werewords (Werewords | Board Game | BoardGameGeek)
None. Zero. Zilch.
Due to logistics, my family get-togethers are spent with Mrs. Homie’s side of the family, and those people prefer to sit around and gossip – for hours – rather than play games. On the rare occasions when a couple of family members can be pulled away from the spellbinding conversation about which area preacher’s daughter went to college and got knocked up, they’ll play a simple card game like gin rummy or something.
My side of the family can’t get enough Cards Against Humanity.
Ping Pong
Takenoko - cute tile-laying game involving the Japanese emperor, a hungry panda, and a bamboo gardener. One of those games that seems extremely complicated at first, but it’s really, really not.
Charty Party - it’s Cards Against Humanity, but with line charts (the “white card” has a line chart with the X value already labeled, and the player “black cards” have different labels for the Y value).
For the past few days, we have been enjoying a chess set called No Stress Chess. It comes with the standard chess pieces, a double-sided game board - one side standard and one side labeled with the starting places for each piece, and a deck of cards. Each card shows a chess piece and how it moves. None of us knew how to play chess before we got this game.
The cards serve as training wheels for one still learning chess and a handicap for those who do know how to play. In the beginning, you turn over a card and you have to play that piece. In level 2, you have a hand of 3 cards, then you turn over one card, and can play any of those pieces. Level 3 starts you off with a hand of 5 cards. Eventually, you just play chess.
With extended family, we tend to play Apples to Apples and Telestrations. With just my kids, who range from teens to 30s, we play Machikoro with extensions and Catan with extensions. They also like Coup and Exploding Kittens. This year we got Once Upon a Time, which turned out to be funny and silly.
Partly to show off how adorable my grandson is and how much he enjoyed my Christmas present and partly because when I was showing him off to people, more than one person asked 'How many Monopolies do you have!?"
The answer is more than pictured. The other side of the TV stand has more Monopolies.
Be careful; Catan can have its Monopolyesque moments, especially in trading.
“I have brick to trade for wheat!”
“I’ll trade 4 wheat for 2 brick”
“Er, no, but thank you for telling me that you have 4 wheat”
or the ever popular (and a literal Monopoly moment):
“I’ll trade 8 of my wheat for 2 of your brick”
“Deal”
“Done…oh, and I’m playing my Monoploy card and declaring monopoly on wheat, so I’ll take those 8 wheat back, thank you very much”