21 Best Board Games for Families and Friends

Many families love this deep-dive game about managing resources and building a settlement that takes imagination, skill and luck. "You practice negotiation skills, often get rewarded for having patience with your strategy and the pace of the game is just right," says one mom of two twentysomethings who plays with them and her husband. "It can be a quick 45 minutes or if it's an intense match, a white-knuckled hour." 45 – 60 minutes playtime, for three or four players ages 10+

Azul is all about placing tiles and creating a mosaic row while disrupting the designs of other players. Not to say that it's meditative, but in general there is less drama and shouting with this very visual board game. It's also relatively simple for tweens and older folks to pick up fast. 30 – 45 minutes playtime, for two to four players ages 8+

This fast-play, popular word-correlation game with nearly 26,000 five-star Amazon reviews involves breaking into two teams and giving hints that you want your own teammates to understand (but not the others) to avoid assassination. The brand says you can play with two people but we find four or more to be the most fun. The pieces take a bit of time to set up but then game time can be fast. 15 minutes playtime, for two to eight players ages 10+

Too soon to play at stopping a worldwide disease — or right on time? This cooperative game requires you to all work together as your different characters, which makes it great for family bonding. The teamwork aspect — think: clear communication and strategy — also means a newbie can join and be more or less led through a game until they understand the storyline and play better. 45 minutes playtime, for two to four players ages 8+

Super inappropriate and crass by design, this party game nevertheless has more than 122,000 five-star reviews on Amazon. "It's like Apples to Apples with dark humor," says one 21-year-old who likes it best with a group of four to eight people, though larger parties can play. "You're basically just trying to make each other laugh the whole time." The idea is to choose your cards so as to give the worst (as in best) answer to any prompt. Once you feel like you've seen the 100 black-card prompts too often, there's a new expansion pack. 30 – 90 minutes playtime, four to 20+ players ages 17+

Goofy, fast-moving, inexpensive and easy to take anywhere, "This isn't a dark game, it's more comedy," says one of our testers. You must diffuse exploding kittens with cards that distract them, like a card with a laser pointer or a catnip sandwich. If you can't dodge an exploding kitten card, you're out of the game. 15 minutes playtime, for two to five players ages 7+

Players convey a word visually, using icon tiles, for the rest of the party to guess. It's a bit like charades except there's no need to perform, you just work with the pictures you've got. Whoever guesses your word receives points and their team gets points. There are three levels of difficulty so you can work your way into it. 40 minutes playtime, four to 12 players ages 10+

This is a slap-it-first game that can get loud in the best way. Players take turns flipping cards and saying "taco, cat, goat, cheese, pizza" and if a card happens to match the spoken word, it's a race for everyone to slap it (and keep the card). "We played with my 7-year-old, my 40-something sister and my 70-something mother and everyone had a blast," says Marisa LaScala, Good Housekeeping Senior Parenting & Relationships Editor. 10 minutes playtime, two to eight players ages 7+

Here's a cute game with lots of betrayal and competitiveness. "It's fun because you have to use your brain but you're also using tiny unicorns to steal or murder your family's unicorns," says one tester who plays with their siblings and parents. "And it is heartbreaking when they steal your favorite." Maybe don't choose this one if someone brought a new significant other to the gathering for the first time — people will get evil, though all in good fun. 30 – 45 minutes playtime, two to eight players ages 14+

Role-playing board games for families can be great interactive fun and this one is particularly entertaining for those who enjoy playing the villain — Captain Hook, Maleficent, Ursula — and doing what they need to do to win this game with plenty of Disney storytelling. If your family loves it there are several expansion packs with additional villains who each have their own agenda. This won the Game of the Year designation from the Toy Association at its 2019 TOTY Awards. For ages 12+, there's also a Star Wars version and a Marvel version. 50 minutes playtime, for two to six players ages 10+

After years of Words With Friends, it's refreshing to go back to the wooden-tile, analog version of Scrabble, one of the most classic board games for families. People have been arguing over what is or isn't a word in this crossword-style game for 65 years and it's still fun. 50 – 60 minutes playtime, for two to four players ages 8+

It's a kind of cultural literacy, knowing how to play Uno, and on top of that, many families institute their own house rules. This is an easy game to travel with if you're going somewhere for a weekend, and gameplay can range from super civilized to kind of combative. (You forgot to actually say "Uno?" Too bad for you!) There are also themed versions, like Barbie, Wish or Harry Potter, that add in new rules, though the original is a classic for a reason. 10 minutes or more for playtime, for two to 10 players ages 7+

Though younger kids can play, when we tested this game, the adults had an easier time getting the cultural references. This large anniversary edition has 800 new questions and challenges players to 18 entertaining activities, including sculpting with clay, making sound effects, drawing with their eyes closed and more. 45 minutes playtime, four or more players ages 12+

This tile-placement game requires both long-term and short-term strategy as players work to keep their colored pieces touching while blocking other players from doing the same. The concept is easy to grasp but challenging to execute. This version has an oversized 12" x 12" board that's an Amazon exclusive and makes everyone's moves even easier to see. 30 minutes playtime, two to four players ages 7+

This easy-to-learn game is about navigating and changing the maze on the board to suit yourself, get to the end quickly and frustrate opponents. Cards will dictate what you're looking for along the way. This is another one that grandparents and grandkids can easily play together. 20 – 30 minutes playtime, for two to four players ages 7+

Like with Family Feud, you're trying to guess the most common answer in this game, in order to win cow coins. The person in your group who guesses outlier words is saddled with the pink cow figure of shame. "Right away my husband became the one with weird answers, which the teens found hilarious," says one mom. "This game gives shy players a chance to play things safe, kind of hold back and just laugh a lot." For four to 20 players ages 10+

Bumping people back to start and sliding into home are the best parts of this race to get your pieces to the end the quickest. Sometimes you have to decide which opponent you're going to knock off, which is where revenge factors in later! There's a big nostalgia factor with this one. 30 minutes playtime, for two to four players ages 6+

There are added rules to this party version, like no saying 'umm" while you try to figure out the five-letter word. Two people can play but this is especially fun for three or four, since one person must be the "host" while the others are guessing. The host keeps track of the others' guesses with colored tiles. There are three variations to gameplay: fast, timed and teams. 15 – 20 minutes playtime, for two to four players ages 14+

If you grew up with Pictionary, Telestrations is a fun evolution, combining the silliness of the telephone game with sketching. Everyone draws and passes sketchbooks around, and the miscommunications, misunderstandings and terrible drawings are the best part. 30 – 60 minutes playtime, for four to eight players ages 12+

Players work together to survive in a desert, find a legendary flying machine and escape alive. There's deep storytelling in this one and a lot of cooperation required. This is actually the longer-playing and more highly rated sequel to Forbidden Island. But if you love this version you would likely enjoy the original as well. 45 minutes playtime for two to five players ages 10+