Image by Geoffrey Fairchild
We love to get together with friends and family on the weekends or the holidays. Usually, we sit down and eat together but eventually, we end up watching TV or staring at put phones nowadays. Board games are a great way to enjoy each other’s company in a very engaging way.
Here are 15 great party games to bring to your next gathering.
Bang the Dice Game
A quick exciting gameplay, Bang the dice game is based on a very familiar game mechanism, Yahtzee. Can play up to 8 players. Everybody knows the sheriff but all the other players have a secret identity and they all have their agendas. The outlaw is trying to kill the sheriff while the deputies are trying to make sure the sheriff stays alive. The bandits don’t care they want everybody out of their way. Can you stay alive long enough while staying away from the native Americans as well? You will have some much fun trying, and will want to play again and again. Each game lasts about 15 minutes.
Sushi Go Party
If you love sushi, warning this game will make to hungry. Plays up to 8 players and lasts about 30 minutes. Quick, fun card drafting game. In Sushi go party, you are trying to pick the right sushi combos to earn points. Of course, no meal is complete without dessert. Comes in a small box with beautiful artwork. Makes me want to go get sushi just talking about it.
Mysterium
Mysterium is a cooperative deduction game that challenges players to solve a murder that happened a long time ago in a mysterious mansion. Plays up to 7 players. One player is the ghost stuck in that mansion trying to help the other players (psychic detectives) to solve the murder. During the game, the ghost player cannot talk at all, the only way he can communicate is through playing cards that have abstract pictures with different colors and objects on them. Can you solve the mystery before time runs out? Only one way to find out. Gorgeous game, tons of replayability.
Jamaica
Race around the island of Jamaica, plunder, defeat other pirates, find treasures and win the race by finding (or stealing) the most gold. Plays up to 6 players, gorgeous game, read my full review here.
Escape Room the Game
First of all, if you have never been to an escape room, that might be something you should do for your next family/friends day. They are super fun. But, if you would like to have the same experience in the comfort of your home then play Escape room the game. It comes with 4 different scenarios, each plays exactly 1 hour just like a real escape room. It is cheaper than actually going to an actual escape room. You can pretty much play with any number of players, although you should have at least 3 people. Comes with a cool gadget that has a timer, keys, clues, and scenario booklets.
One reminder, once you finish a scenario, you will know all the answers so you cannot play again. There are more scenarios available.
Codenames and Codenames Pictures
2016 Spiel des Jahres winner, Codenames is the game to play if you are love challenging word games. It is not like scrabble, don’t worry. You split into two teams. Each player has one spymaster. He gives one-word clues that can point to as many words as possible that are laid out in a 5×5 grid on the table. All the other players on his team are trying to guess those words based on the spymaster’s clue. If you guess the wrong word, you may end up helping the other team, or even worse, you may find the assassin and you are done!
If you don’t like words, play Codenames pictures. This one works great with kids as well.
Both games can play up to 8 players. You can even play with more than 8 players if you ask me.
Wits and Wagers
If you like trivia game you will love this game. If you don’t like trivia games because there is no way you can know that much stuff, you will love this game as well. Wits and Wagers lets you guess the answer for a question and bet chips on it. You don’t have to know the exact answer if you are closer to it than the other players you win. Even better, if you think Bob over there might know the answer to that question, you can bet on his answer as well. Plays up to 7 players, there is Wits and Wagers party, Wits and Wagers Family as well.
The Dice Tower gang turned this game into a game show and play it with hundreds of people at every gaming convention they go to!
Burke’s Gambit
You were sent to space to find extremely important alien technology, you found an alien parasite instead! You are heading back to earth with someone on your ship infected with this parasite but you have no idea who he is. The crew wants to find out the player with the parasite and throw him off the ship, the “company” people want the parasite to reach to earth because they have other plans for it.
The two teams in this game (the crew and the company men) are in a battle to figure out who the infected player is, which player can be one of the company men. This game lasts about 15-20 minutes but it delivers so much fun in those 15 minutes, I cannot recommend it enough. Plays 4-8 players, published by WizKids.
Watch a gameplay here.
The Resistance
In The Resistance, players are split into two groups. The resistance fighters and the corrupt government. The government spies have infiltrated the resistance and they are trying to take down the resistance mission team. It is an intense social deduction game with hidden identities, like Burke’s Gambit, plays 5 to 10 players in about 20 to 30 minutes.
Fuse
Fuse by Renegade games is a real-time cooperative dice rolling game for 2 – 5 player. It comes with a free app that has a 10-minute timer. You have exactly 10 minutes to defuse 20 bombs that you have detected on your ship. Intense, dice rolling, dice allocating fun.
Homestretch
Fun horseracing game for 2 to 6 players that let you not only race the horses but buy ownership in those horses as well. Your goal is to be the player with the most money at the end of 4 races. You can also bet on other horses. Real fun racing game.
Spyfall
Spyfall from Cryptozoic games is easy to learn bluffing, probing questions, clever answers card game that plays 3 to 8 players. Each player gets a secret card that informs them the location of the group; except that one player receives a SPY card instead of the location card. That player doesn’t know where the group is, the other players don’t know who the spy is. In a timed 8 minute round, the players ask each other questions about the group’s location. The spy player has to give answers in a way that doesn’t reveal himself, meanwhile all the other players are trying to find out who is a spy and who isn’t.
Concept
In Concept, one player picks up a card that has a word on it and he tries to get the other players to guess that word by pointing at the icons on a board full of different pictures on them.
It plays 4 to 12 players, really gets you to think creatively and even outside the box.
Looney Quest
In this game, each player draws a path on his own transparent screen navigating each levels obstacles, traps that may be placed on your screen by other players and earn the most victory points. Each round is 30 seconds, once the time runs out, each player places his screen on that round’s board and evaluates how well he did. Super fun game, rounds are fast, it plays up to 5 players but if you have more people, you can split into teams and take turns.
There is also a version for younger kids, Doodle Quest.
Deception Murder in Hong Kong
Another great social deduction game. One player is the murderer, he secretly chooses a weapon and the evidence he left behind. Another is the forensic scientist who knows the answers to the crime but can only communicate them through card play, he cannot talk. The other players are trying to find out who the murderer is and how he did it based on the information the scientist provides them, while the murderer is trying to frame someone else.
This game is for 4 -12 players, published by Greyfox games, plays in about 25 minutes and for ages 14 and up. It has received the Dice Tower Seal of Excellence.
