The 14 Best Family Board Games

A few are holiday staples, a few end in a toppled tower and a lot of laughing. Each pairing asks which box your family would grab first.

1. 1
   Ticket to Ride

   Alan R. Moon's 2004 train game where players claim rail routes across a map, a Spiel des Jahres winner.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Animal Upon Animal

   HABA's dexterity game of stacking wooden animals into a teetering tower.
   551pts
3. 3
   Codenames

   Vlaada Chvátil's team word game of giving one-word clues to find secret agents, Spiel des Jahres 2016.
   551pts
4. 4
   Carcassonne

   Klaus-Jürgen Wrede's tile-laying game of building a medieval landscape, Spiel des Jahres 2001.
   551pts
5. 5
   Qwirkle

   Susan McKinley Ross's tile game of matching colours and shapes, Spiel des Jahres 2011.
   466pts
6. 6
   Catan

   Klaus Teuber's 1995 trading and building game that brought modern board games into family homes.
   466pts
7. 7
   Azul

   Michael Kiesling's tile-drafting game of decorating a palace wall, Spiel des Jahres 2018.
   363pts
8. 8
   Dixit

   Jean-Louis Roubira's storytelling game of guessing dreamlike picture cards, Spiel des Jahres 2010.
   363pts
9. 9
   Outfoxed!

   Gamewright's cooperative whodunit where players track down the fox who stole Mrs. Plumpert's pot pie.
   363pts
10. 10
    Camel Up

    Steffen Bogen's camel-racing betting game with a pyramid dice shaker, Spiel des Jahres 2014.
    363pts
11. 11
    Splendor

    Marc André's gem-collecting engine builder that plays in half an hour.
    363pts
12. 12
    Rhino Hero

    HABA's card-stacking game where a superhero rhino climbs an ever-wobblier skyscraper.
    0pts
13. 13
    Forbidden Island

    Matt Leacock's cooperative game of rescuing treasures from a sinking island.
    0pts
14. 14
    Blokus

    Bernard Tavitian's abstract game of fitting coloured polyomino pieces onto a shared board.
    0pts

Comments