Top 35 Family Board Games (2025): Catan, Ticket to Ride, Codenames
By Simon Hill | Published: 2025-11-01 14:00:00 | Source: WIRED
More family board games
Photo: Simon Hill
There are a lot of family board games. Here are a few of the most we liked.
Dorfromantik: Duel for $25: Based on the video game Dorfromomanticwhich spawned a cooperative board game, this casual game pits you against another player as you draw tiles to build a landscape and attempt to complete quests along the way. With matching red and blue sets, it’s all about who builds the best environment to please the villagers and score the most points. Play time is less than an hour. You can play with two teams, but it is better to play a two-player game.
Hi Rayleigh for $15: This silly dice game is a race between two teams with challenge cards that trigger silly sounds and physical movements before you can continue. It’s a quick and messy game, but probably best for younger kids (manufacturers suggest age 6 and up). My kids didn’t like it much, but this could be a fun party game.
View ship for $29: This cooperative game casts players as storers and shippers and challenges them to ship orders correctly by guessing the correct boxes based on clues provided by the way they were put together. The time limit adds pressure, and this can be fun for the right group (you have to be on the same wavelength), but we found that waiting for suppliers to set up was tedious for shippers, and registration was tedious.
Side 7 for $21: The thrill of pushing your luck is the attraction of this hybrid card game, where you hit or stick blackjack style, trying to get seven different cards face up. Special action cards and modifiers mix things up, allowing for some tactical play. Suitable for three or more players aged 8 years and above, and takes only 20 minutes to play.
Stress: The 10 Best Naming Games for $43: Topic cards contain 10 items within a category, and the opposing team has 60 seconds to guess as many items as possible. The cards are divided into two colors (easy and harder), making it easy to play with kids or quickly adjust the difficulty. This works well for any age or team size, but be prepared for a lot of screaming and laughter.
You must be my kitten! For $13: A simple twist on the Liar’s Dice that focuses on deception and deception communication; I’m of two opinions about this game. On the one hand, the game is nothing special, but on the other hand, cute cats! My moisture-obsessed daughter immediately wanted to play, and we had a few laughs with outrageous tricks at the number of glasses, hats, and bow ties on these cats.
Neanderthal hair for $18: Each card contains a word, and your seemingly simple task is to get your team to guess it correctly within the time limit by speaking just one syllable. If you break the rules, the opponent can hit you with an inflatable “no” stick. Suitable for two to eight players aged 7 and up, they are loud, silly and usually make everyone laugh.
Risk risk for $10: This simple card game is fast and frenetic, and revolves around trying to get the high-scoring cards that appear at the end of each round. There are no turns, you can cover the other team’s cards, and rounds are timed, but you must guess when the round will end. Very simple and very quick, this game can get messy.
That quickly escalated to $12: This game is fast, easy and fun for up to eight players. Includes scenarios such as “I invented a new sport, what is it?” Players must make suggestions from least risky (1) to most risky (10) based on the number assigned to them in each round. The round leader must try to arrange them in the correct order. It works best with smart players who know each other well.
Looks fishy for $20: Another fun party game from Big Potato, the challenge in Sounds Fishy is to spot the fake answers. Each card asks a question, but only one of the answers you get is correct. It’s for 4 to 10 players, and we found it to be more fun but more difficult with more people.
Cards Against Humanity: Family Edition for $29: You can play this group game with up to 30 players, and it will produce a fair amount of giggles and giggles for the little ones. Like the adult version, there’s not a lot of strategy here, but finding the perfect combination to impress everyone is satisfying.
It doesn’t matter
We were not keen on these matches.
Photo: Simon Hill
silence: As a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse atop a skyscraper, you must choose the correct flight path to obtain the resources you need, determined by cards. The tight time limit makes it difficult to choose the right routes from the tangled mess on the game board, and they can be assembled differently for replay value. But the background seemed out of proportion, and we all agreed that it wasn’t much fun to play.
Connecto: Connect different symbols on your board using a dry erase marker based on a randomly drawn challenge card to make a picture of something (such as connecting the dots). The first to guess what they’re supposed to be wins the round (some of which vaguely resemble what they’re supposed to be). Longevity suffers, as there is no fun in replaying solved puzzles.
Cat and mouth game: Incredibly simple, this dexterity game challenges you to launch rubber balls through a cat’s mouth with magnetic claws, but it ends up all over the place. The games tend to be one-sided, and my kids get bored almost immediately. It is also impossible to play with actual cats in the vicinity.
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