35 Best Family Friendly Games (2025): Catan, Ticket to Ride, Codenames
More family board games
Photo: Simon Hill
There are many family board games. Here are a few more that we liked.
Dorfromantik: The Duel for $25: Based on the video game Doromanticwhich created a cooperative board game, this spin-off pits you against another player as you draw tiles to build a landscape and try to complete tasks along the way. With identical red and blue sets, it all comes down to who creates the best environment to satisfy their villagers and earn the most points. The playing time is under an hour. You can play with two teams, but it works best as a two-player game.
Hey Hey Relay for $15: This super silly dice game is a match between two teams with challenge cards that prompt silly noises and physical actions before you can move on. The game is fast-paced and chaotic, but probably best for younger kids (makers suggest ages 6 and up). My kids didn’t like it too much, but it can be a fun game.
Ship show for $29: This cooperative game casts players as stockholders and shippers and challenges them to ship orders correctly by guessing the correct tiles based on clues from how they are grouped. The time limit adds pressure, and it can be fun for the right group (you have to be on the same wavelength), but we found that waiting for contributors to launch was tedious for senders, and scoring was laborious.
Flip 7 for $21: The thrill of pushing your luck is the draw for this mixed card game, as you tap or stick blackjack-style and try to get seven different face up cards. Special action cards and modifiers mix things up and allow for tactical play. Suitable for three or more players aged 8 and up, it only takes 20 minutes to play.
Tension: The Top 10 Naming Game for $43: The theme cards have 10 items in a pile and the opposing team has 60 seconds to guess as many as they can. The cards are divided into two colors (easy and harder), which makes it easy to play with the kids or adjust the difficulty on the fly. This works well with any age or team size, but be prepared for lots of shouting and laughing.
You must be my kitten! For $13: A simple spin on Liar’s Dice that focuses on bluffing and bluff calling. I have two opinions about this game. On the one hand, the game is nothing special, but on the other hand, cute cats! My daughter, who was infatuated with Maggie, immediately wanted to play and a few of us laughed at the outrageous bluffs at the number of mugs, hats and bows these cats had.
Poetry for Neanderthals for $18: Each card has a word and your seemingly simple task is to get your team to guess it correctly within the time limit by speaking monosyllables. If you break the rules, the opposition can hit you with a ‘no’ stick. Suitable for two to eight players aged 7 and up, it’s loud, silly and usually makes everyone laugh.
Risk risk for $10: Fast and furious, this simple card game for two teams is about trying to reveal the high-scoring cards at the end of each round. There are no turns, you can cover the other team’s cards, and the rounds are timed, but you have to guess when the round ends. Super simple and very fast game play, this game can get chaotic.
That quickly increased to $12: This is a fast, easy and fun game for up to eight players. It has scenarios like “I invented a new sport, what is it?” Players must make bids from least risky (1) to most risky (10) for each round based on their assigned number. The round leader must try to arrange them in the correct order. Works best with witty players who know each other well.
Sounds fishy for $20: Another fun group game from Big Potato, the challenge in Sounds Fishy is to find fake answers. Each card has a question, but only one of the answers you get is correct. It’s for 4-10 players, and we found it more fun but harder with more people.
Cards Against Humanity: Family Edition for $29: You can play this party game with up to 30 players and it will make for some teenage giggles and grunts. Like the adult version, there’s not a lot of strategy here, but it’s satisfying to find the perfect combination to smash everyone.
don’t bother
We were not very keen on these games.
Photo: Simon Hill
Zealance: As a group of zombie apocalypse survivors on top of a skyscraper, you must choose the correct flight path to get the resources you need, which are determined by cards. The limited time limit makes it difficult to choose the right paths through the complex mess on the game board, and it can be assembled differently for replay value. But the background looks disjointed, and we all agreed it wasn’t much fun to play.
Connection: Connect different symbols on your board with a dry erase marker based on a randomly drawn challenge card to make a picture of something (like connecting the dots). The first person to guess what it’s supposed to be wins the round (some only vaguely resemble what it’s supposed to be). Longevity takes a hit, as there’s no fun in replaying solved puzzles.
Cat and mouth game: Super simple, this game challenges your skill to shoot rubber balls out of the cat’s mouth with magnetic claws, but they end up going everywhere. The games are very one sided and my kids got bored almost immediately. It is also impossible to play with real cats nearby.
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