The best board games to play with your family
Joshua Boulet, Features and Entertainment Editor
Photo courtesy of Pexels
In the days of working from home and some worldwide pandemic making sure we all social distance, many are spending a lot more time with their families. But stress is high, so people gotta ease the tension in the only way we know how: playing games.
Apples to Apples
The predecessor to the more well known but also seedier game, apples to apples is a fairly classic family game. It’s easy to play and leads to some healthy arguments. Sure, a family may end up arguing about whether or not Ronald Reagan is best described as “evil” on a card when spiders are also there, but that’s part of the charm.
Taboo
One player has a card with a word to describe and a strict time limit, another has a buzzer ready to go off. If the player says one of the words that is listed as “taboo” under the card, the holder of the buzzer hits the button and the other team gets a point.
The magic of Taboo comes from the buzzer. It’s the ultimate punishment for seeing the other team making a mistake: telling them how they’re an absolute buffoon with the power of an oddly-shaped piece of plastic.
Jackbox Party Pack
Think of the interaction of Kahoot and combine it with a huge collection of party games. That’s Jackbox Party Pack, 6 different collections of party games with modes to play with all ages. Some games may be best avoided. “Fibbage: enough about you” isn’t quite as fun when everyone has known each other their entire lives.
Trivia Murder party frames a quiz game with a saw esque narrator who comically talks of the contestants demise. T-KO has everybody combining taglines and random t-shirt designs that are submitted by the players. There are dozens other games across the 6 Jackbox Party packs.
From my personal experience, I would recommend Jackbox Party Pack 3-6 as having the best variety of fun games. See more information here.
Settlers of Catan
A true classic of resource management and slow expansion. An idealized game where there’s no indigenous people to murder and not even any fighting. Yet, it also shows that you don’t need fighting to ruin the day of your competition. Recommending this game almost feels repetitive because most families with board games already own it. If you’re in one of the camps that doesn’t have this classic, it’s a must have for four players.
Funglish
“I’d have to say Funglish is one of my favorites because it’s got a unique twist on the word game genre,” Connor Boulet said, a senior broadcast media major and my brother.
Funglish is a lesser known word game where you’re given a selection of words as little tiles to describe a person, place, thing and others. The tiles are placed on a board with 3 sections: Definitely, kind of, and not at all. By using the tiles along with the specifications, the players must describe surprisingly specific ideas such as “Henry the 8th” or “The Washington Monument.” Gets chaotic with many players but has a fast pace and a cool idea.
