Our staff has offered up some of their favorite games to help you pick something to play:
Olivia Johnson
Exploding Kittens: It’s a multiplayer card game where players draw cards until someone draws an Exploding Kitten and explodes. You play your cards to try to avoid, move, or defuse the Exploding Kitten. It has hilarious graphics, and amusing modern-day references and is great for all ages.
Brian Porter
Monopoly: This classic board game was first released in 1935, and since then has been adapted into countless different editions and spinoffs. Depending on whether you see who can gather the most wealth in a set number of rounds, or play until the winner bankrupts everyone else, the game can easily fill up an afternoon. And who wouldn’t want to own Boardwalk?
The Quiet Game: Because ask your mom.
Jeff Rice
Cribbage and backgammon: For two, almost all ages. Cribbage is a card game that uses a special board to track the players’ points. Backgammon is played on a board with counters and dice. Rules for both can be found online.
Cards Against Humanity: For three or more, adults only.This fill-in-the-blank “party game for horrible people” is not for those with delicate sensibilities.
Codenames or Ticket to Ride: for four or more, teens and older: Codenames is a strategy-based game that challenges teams of spymasters to find their secret agents while avoiding the assassin. Ticket to Ride is a railway-themed board game that is easy to learn and offers multiple ways to score points.
The Chameleon: Six to eight players, pre-teens and up. Use social deduction as you race to identify the player with the Chameleon card before they blend in and escape.
For a whole family, we love jigsaw puzzles.
Steve Buxton
UNO: This card game is perfect for those camping days when the weather forces the family to stay in.
Farkle: This dice game is super fun for friends to gather around the table and play and still be able to have conversations while playing.
Callie Jones
Skip-Bo: This card game is fun for all ages.
Scrabble: A classic game of lettered tiles is always good to improve your vocabulary skills.
Kim Francis
Boggle: I enjoy this game because it’s timed and you go head to head against the other players. It also doesn’t have a maximum amount of players. It makes a good game for large get-togethers.
Poker: You’re never too young to learn. I think I was around 9 or 10 when my dad started teaching me after I lost all my money to the older Boy Scouts at camp one summer. You know the movie “Stripes?” The scene were Cruiser loses all his money to Ox? That was me and three other scouts. Whenever dad’s family came together there was always one poker game and one other card game going. The poker game was always grandpa, dad, a couple of uncles and one aunt. The other was always led by my grandma and was for all the grandkids and the other aunts.
Cribbage: We used to play 2, 3 or 4 person cribbage. For three people you deal one in the crib and for 4 people each person gets one card for the crib instead of the normal 2. 4 person is played in teams and we use to have a 3 person cribbage board. As an adult it was the game my father and I spent the most time playing. These days you would call it our bonding time. Especially after he became ill.
Sara Waite
Lost Cities: Players race to reach up to five long-lost cities using careful planning and some risk-taking, trying to move their scores from negative to positive. This challenging game will engage your brain.
Phase 10: Try to get the right cards to complete your hand the fastest, and be the first to complete all 10 phases. There’s an element of luck involved, but a shrewd player can find ways to win even if the cards don’t make it easy.
Dominoes: A set of dominoes gives you a number of different games you can play – or you can just line them up on end in a fun pattern and knock them down.
