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Are you looking for some fun board game suggestions to help put the fun back into Functional Family board Game Night? Have too many tense games of Monopoly or Mario Party caused an almost irreparable fracture in the family? Then look no further! As we breakdown five fun family-friendly board games to help make your next game night a roaring success.
Happy Little Dinosaurs
Happy Little Dinosaurs is a charming card game by Unstable Games where you’ll play as the titular happy dinosaurs trying to survive long enough to avoid extinction. Whilst that intro sounds quite heavy the game play is fun and light as you’ll avoid extinction by playing cards featuring suitably quirky weapons and gadgets against each other, attempting to win by the most points (as each card has a value) which if victorious, you’ll put those points towards moving your teeny, cute Dinosaur meeple along a track edging towards escaping extinction.
The loser of the round then takes a Disaster card which could be an Emotional Disaster (stood up on a dino-date), Predatory Disaster (Chased by a T-rex), Natural Disaster (Tidal wave!) or a wild Meteorite card. Collecting three of the same type, or three different types eliminates your plucky prehistoric beastie from the game, so you’ll battle each round to avoid such a perilous fate, inching your little meeple closer to the end of its escape track.
The entertaining wrinkle in the formula is you will also pick up cards that can modify the scores, swap scores with other players, steal cards or cancel actions which means nothing is set in stone and there is a fun bit of tactical play each round to see just how much you can mess with your family using the eclectic and comical mix of weapons and power-ups.
Happy Little Dinosaurs with its fun art style, comical Disaster cards and outlandish weaponry, makes for a great addition to board game night and can even be expanded to host up to 6 players.
Grabolo
Grabolo is an incredibly easy game to learn but from this simplicity comes hilarious quick-fire bursts of chaos. The concept of Grabolo is simple, you have a little cylinder full of colourful, random objects which you shake up and then scatter across your chosen playing surface (or soon to be battlefield). Once suitably spread out, you then roll two dice; one with six colours, and another with six objects, you can see where this is going… A clash of clawed hands commences accompanied by a roar of laughter and noise as you frantically try to grab the matching-coloured item and add it to your pile. Winner is the one with the most items, and the least sore hands.
Grabolo’s devilishly quick and easy gameplay acts as a great palette cleanser between some of the heavier games you may play during board game night and can really amp up the levels of excitement.
Exploding Kittens
Exploding Kittens is one of the most-backed board games on Kickstarter of all-time spawning several expansions and variants of the original concept so it’s unlikely you haven’t already seen it in some shape or form out in the wild. The general draw of exploding kittens is the silly, slightly dark art style of the cards and the quick and easy game play with a rule set that can be modified and expanded as you learn to play.
The basic gameplay of Exploding Kittens involves you drawing from a deck of comical kitten cards desperately trying to avoid drawing the dreaded exploding kitten. You’ll have an arsenal of cards which give you various abilities such as forcing another player to draw a card instead, switching cards in the deck, or even “predicting the future” and peeking into what may come up in the deck. However, players also have access to a NOPE card which can prevent you from acting out your best laid plans…Unless you also have a NOPE card to NOPE their NOPE but then someone else could NOPE your NOPE which means the original NOPE stands and you’re all NOPED out! This leads to many moments of hilarity as you’ll keep trying to one-up each other and turn the tables on someone’s plans resulting in chaotic laughter as things escalate and get a bit silly…
But what happens when I draw an Exploding Kitten? I hear you say… Well, each player starts with a singular defuse card but once used it is removed from the game and the exploded kitten shuffled back into the deck. Your sigh of relief may be short lived however, as players can use cards to pinch a card from your hand which leads to entertaining bouts of bluffing as an invading hand hovers over your only defuse card, ready to take away one of your limited chances of self-defence. This encourages retaliatory card stealing, forced card drawing, and NOPE cards being liberally thrown around as everyone avoids being the one to draw an Exploding Kitten and go out of the game. The winner is the last one standing and unexploded by crazy feline hijinks.
Horrified
Horrified is a wonderfully thematic series of games where you work together to defeat various monsters from film (see my gushing Horrified:Universal Monsters review here) American Folklore, or even Greek Mythology. Gameplay of the Horrified series revolves around two turn phases, the Heroes and the Monsters. During the Hero phase you’ll pick up suitably themed items, rescue denizens of the town/city you are trying to save or contribute your items to the unique defeat conditions of the Monsters (starting with two but can go up to four if you wish to ramp up the difficulty to its fullest) all whilst navigating around an incredibly vibrant and wonderfully themed board. The Monsters use a Monster deck to act after each player and wreak havoc upon the board attacking innocents or using their special abilities to derail your chances of success.
Each player turn followed immediately by the Monsters means you need to work together and plan to ensure neither you or the themed villagers are attacked, as if you can’t defend yourself by spending items, the terror tracker increases bringing you and your team ever closer to defeat. You also work against a Monster deck which depletes each turn and once run out, also signifies the end of the game and a Monster victory.
There’s dice chucking, and perk cards to add extra variety, and each of the Horrified games have a collection of ghastly Monster miniatures to fight and Heroes to choose, which means you can mix and match your friends and foes to ensure each game feels fresh. Whichever version you pick this series is a fantastic addition to your family board game nights if you want a collaborative board game with some bite.
Cluedo (and it’s many, many, versions)
Cluedo is a board game legend first published in 1949 and whilst there are plenty of other board games now available decades later, it still holds strong as a classic for family board game nights. That’s not to say it hasn’t evolved over the years. Take one look at our website and you will find a multitude of different versions and takes on the classic game of deduction covering all sorts of fandoms from Marvel & DC fans with the Loki Cluedo & Batman Cluedo respectively, to Downtown Abbey or Bridgerton (I’m personally a fan of the Nightmare before Christmas version) so families are spoilt for choice when it comes to finding a fun theme that works for everyone.
Despite the plethora of options, the core gameplay remains similar throughout; you will investigate and use your skills of deduction to work out who or what was kidnapped/murdered/stolen, who was responsible, and how/what they used to do it. All versions do this by you deducing what cards other players have in their hands by making accusations to help eventually narrow down what cards remain which reveal the fate of the character or stolen item.
This creates a buzzing atmosphere each turn with everyone hurriedly making notes and grand accusations in a race to be the first to make the correct deduction and prove themselves to be the Sherlock Holmes of the group (and demonstrate the appropriate level of smugness for deducing what cards were required quickest) Cluedo is certainly an “oldie” but the sheer amount of options means you are bound to find a theme that fits your family board game nights.
So, there you have it! Five fun family-friendly board games to help revitalise your next family board game night or create even more chaos, but that’s half the fun right?
