37 of the Very Best Board Games for Families, Adults, Couples, or Anyone

Inspired by the French medieval fortress of the same name, Carcassonne is a tile-laying game where players fill in the countryside around the fortified city. Players choose from tiles that depict cities, roads, monasteries, and fields, and each new tile creates an ever-expanding board on which players can add their followers, scoring points by having followers on features as they’re completed.

Make the most strategic placements of tiles and followers, and you’ll win the game!

“Carcassonne helped reinvigorate the 'tile laying game,' taking some of the concepts of dominoes but allowing players to build a city,” says Greg May, the owner and founder of The Uncommons, Manhattan’s first board game cafe. “Everyone is engaged at all times, and every game is quick (45 minutes or so) and different.

In Trivial Pursuit, players move around the game board as they answer questions from six categories: geography, history, art and literature, science and nature, and sports and leisure. When you land on a “category headquarters” space, your correct answer will earn you a colored wedge.

The first one to collect 6 different wedges wins — only, of course, after correctly answering one final question!

Even if you’re not a huge fan of trivia, you’ll get a kick out of this timeless party favorite. “I’m not really a trivia buff, and yet I love playing Trivial Pursuit — it’s so classic and satisfying,” says Chief Content Officer, Laura Schocker.

Another one of Chief Content Officer, Laura Schocker’s, all-time favorites: Monopoly. To get “rich” and bankrupt your opponents, collect property color sets to build houses and, if you’re lucky, even upgrade to a hotel. The more properties you own, the more rent you can charge other players who land there!

“People love to hate on Monopoly for being an endless game of chance, but I think it can have some real strategy, particularly if you throw some house rules in,” says Schocker. “I used to play to-be-continued games with my grandfather and my sister for days as a kid, and there’s nothing that stirs up nostalgia faster than grabbing the dog token.”

An award-winning tile-placement game in which players compete for the highest score by claiming and arranging tiles on their board, Azul is equal parts competitive and aesthetically pleasing.

Take turns making your board beautiful and your opponents despair! “Surprisingly brutal for an abstract strategy game with no combat, this gem won awards for a reason,” says Jordan Nelsen, librarian at Kingmakers Board Game Parlour in Columbus, Ohio.

In Ghost Blitz, players compete to grab items off the table: a white ghost, a green bottle, a gray mouse, a blue book, and a red chair. Each card in the deck shows pictures of two objects, with one or both objects colored the wrong way. With all players playing at the same time, someone reveals a card, then players try to grab the right object.

If one object is colored correctly — say, a green bottle and a red mouse — then players need to grab that correctly colored object. If both objects are colored incorrectly, then players look for the object and color not represented.

The first player to grab the correct object keeps the card, and whoever collects the most cards wins. “A speed puzzle game that can be learned in less than a minute, Ghost Blitz can be played as long as you want,” says Jordan Nelsen, librarian at Kingmakers Board Game Parlour in Columbus, Ohio.

In this surprisingly gorgeous bluffing game, players hold three rose cards and one skull, then add a card to the pile in front of them and announce a challenge and declare how many cards they will flip. Cards that show a rose are safe, but if you expose your opponent’s hidden skull, you lose one of your cards.

Any player who wins two “bets” wins the game! Jordan Nelsen, librarian at Kingmakers Board Game Parlour in Columbus, Ohio, loves the game for the high stakes: “Saturated with bluffing and bidding, you'll test your tolerance for risk every round,” he says. “Win or lose, it's such fun to watch the tension and drama play out in this quick-to-learn game.”

The basic object of Tenzi is to roll your 10 dice as quickly as you can to get them all to land on the same number. If you’re looking for a new spin on the easy-to-learn game, try it with the “77 Ways to Play Tenzi” expansion pack, where you flip a card that adds a twist to each round, like making a funny sound after every roll. The game is recommended for ages 7 and up, but if you’re over 21, Chief Content Officer, Laura Schocker, says it’s even better with an over-21 beverage.

For a fast-paced, competitive game, try a “pick and pass” card game like Sushi Go, which Greg May, the owner and founder of The Uncommons, Manhattan’s first board game cafe, says can be played in around 15 minutes.

The goal is to grab the best combination of sushi dishes as they pass by, scoring points for making the most maki rolls or for collecting a full set of sashimi — but be sure to leave room for dessert, or you’ll end up losing points! While the game is fun for anyone, May says the approachable, appealing artwork makes Sushi Go a great pick for beginners.

Scrabble, the classic crossword game, challenges opponents to use their letters to form high-point words on the board. To load up on even more points, place letters on high-scoring premium squares. The key is to know the rules and a few tricks for gaining more points — and, of course, keep a dictionary on hand for disputed words.

At the end of the game, the player with the highest score wins. “Of course, Scrabble is a classic, but it’s one of my favorite date nights: at home on a stormy weekend or even out at a bar (I’m so much fun!),” says Chief Content Officer, Laura Schocker.

In Jaipur, players take on the roles of two of the city’s most powerful traders seeking to earn their invitation to the maharaja’s court. A blend of strategy and luck, Jaipur is a fast-paced card game that’s equally deep and easy to learn. Greg May, the owner and founder of The Uncommons, Manhattan’s first board game cafe, says he often recommends the brand-new edition of Jaipur to couples on dates or pals looking for a friendly spar!

Quoridor may look fancy, but the goal of the game — which Greg May, the owner and founder of The Uncommons, Manhattan’s first board game cafe, says he recommends frequently — is simple: Try to reach your opponent’s side of the board with your pawn. On your turn, you either can move your pawn or place a wall to slow down your opponent.

Quoridor is similar to chess, as players move pawn-shaped pieces across the board, but the wooden fences spice things up, forcing players to think strategically.

The object of Hive is to totally surround your opponent's Queen Bee with insect-themed pieces (which Greg May, the owner and founder of The Uncommons, Manhattan’s first board game cafe, says move differently, depending on the insect!) while at the same time trying to stop your opponent from doing the same to you.

The first player to surround their opponent's Queen Bee wins! Because Hive is an abstract game that doesn’t have a board, you can take it anywhere.

Players take to the high seas in this battle game, where you each try to sink the other’s ships. Each person gets a game board. They’re set up like a grid, with spots for pegs and map coordinates along the left and top edges. You say a coordinate, like E7, to launch a cannon. If it’s a hit on one of your ships, the shooter gets to go again. Destroy the battleship and you win!

So, you know how cats like to knock everything off shelves? In this two-player game, you’re a cat, playing against other cats — and the goal is to knock the other cats off the bed. The game starts with all kitten pieces, but when you line up three of your kittens in a row, it grows up into a full-size cat.

In Lords of Waterdeep, players recruit adventurers to go on quests that can earn rewards and increase their influence over the city. The goal is to expand the city by purchasing new buildings that open up new actions on the board and either hinder or help the other lords by playing Intrigue cards.

“Fans of D&D will recognize the setting and appreciate the theme woven into the game, but any gamer looking for a mid-level strategy game will have a blast with this gem,” says Nelsen.

In this complex, cooperative game, players use their unique spiritual powers to defend their island home from colonizing invaders. Win the game after you work together with other players to destroy all the settlements and cities on the board!

The cooperative element is part of what makes this game so appealing, says Jordan Nelsen, librarian at Kingmakers Board Game Parlour in Columbus, Ohio: “This game necessitates communication, as it was designed to prevent one player from ‘quarterbacking’ the game and telling everyone what to do,” he says. “Each player has unique abilities and challenges, and you must trust one another to do their part to succeed.”

Have you ever wanted to be Godzilla, stomping your way around Tokyo and causing destruction? Now you can! In King of Tokyo, every player morphs into a giant monster — whether it's a robot, an alien, or something else — and battles it out for control of the city. You use your turns to either attack monsters and destroy buildings, or heal yourself so you can continue on causing chaos.

An imaginative storytelling game, Dixit challenges players to use the images on their cards to bluff their opponents and guess which image matches the story. At every turn, the storyteller calls out a short phrase or word to match their card.

Each player will choose the card that most closely matches that phrase, and then everyone must guess which card the storyteller saw when he invented his brief tale. Correctly guess the storyteller’s card, and you’ll move ahead. The greatest total wins the game!

“Each card a work of art, this game mixes beauty with casual competition in an amazing way,” says Jordan Nelsen, librarian at Kingmakers Board Game Parlour in Columbus, Ohio. “Easy and accessible, but still a battle of wits, it’s the perfect mix of styles to fit the whole family.”

In Apples to Apples, each player gets seven “Things” cards to pair up with the Judge’s “Description” card. In each round, the judge reads the description — say it’s “Evil” — and every player lays down the card from their hand that matches that description. The judge chooses their favorite “thing” card, and at the end, the player who won the most rounds wins!

Apples to Apples can be silly, but Chief Content Officer, Laura Schocker, says it’s especially fun because it’s a great test of how well you can read people. Will the judge choose something funny? Weird? On the nose? “Apples to Apples is one of my favorite family (as long as everyone is over the age of, say, 13) or party games,” she says.

This is a fabulous game to play with kids. The setup is easy: You take a tall plastic tube, push spaghetti-like sticks all through the middle to create a web, then dump a handful of marbles into the tube. On each turn, players pull one of the sticks out of the tube, hoping that none of the marbles fall. It’s a noisy game, which only adds to the fun!