Best Family Game For Teens (2024 Updated)

Did you know that you can create a Mahjong monomino deck by using two decks of UNO monomino playing cards? To create a Mahjong monomino deck, you will need two decks of UNO monomino playing cards because the numbers one to nine are repeated twice per color sub-suit per UNO deck, and because reverses are repeated twice per color sub-suit per UNO deck, and because skips are repeated twice per color sub-suit per UNO deck.

You will need the number cards one to nine four times per sub-suit color (red, green, and blue) thus making 108 suit cards (nine numbers times three suits times four duplicate cards). You need the reverse cards four times per sub-suit color (yellow for east, red for south, green for west, and blue for north) thus making 16 wind cards (four winds times four duplicate cards).

You will need the skip cards four times per sub-suit color (red, green, and blue) thus making 12 dragon cards (three dragons times four duplicate cards). You may add bonus cards into the deck, and the three types of bonus cards are flowers, seasons, and animals (Did you know that there are animal bonus cards that are used in Singaporean Mahjong Rummy?); you use the draw two cards as flowers [You will need one of each sub-suit color per draw two card to identify the player’s possession (yellow for east, red for south, green for west, and blue for north) because a player can get a bigger bonus if a player gets his/her own flower.

], and you use the zeros as seasons [You will need one of each sub-suit color per zero card to identify the player’s possession (yellow for east, red for south, green for west, and blue for north) because a player can get a bigger bonus if a player gets his/her own season.

], and you use two yellow eights and two yellow nines as animals (According to Singaporean Mahjong, a player can get a bigger bonus if a player gets special pair of animals like two yellow eights or like two yellow nines.

). You may add zero to eight wildcards into the deck for U. S. Mahjong Rummy. We need to replace thick tiles with thin cards because thin cards are easy to carry, and because thin cards are easy to shuffle, and because thin cards have no engravings on the side that is face up to prevent from cheating by touch.

We love UNO. Haven’t played it since the kids were younger. This arrived the day before our family holiday. My children are older teenagers. They played it so many times while we were away. The adding your own cards added an extra twist.

We loved it. We as adults played the normal version and then added in the ‘blank’ cards. We had such a laugh with it. Easy to see why UNO is such a classic. Brilliant and portable too!.

This is a very VERY long awaited game!. It fills a void that nobody, for some reason, did ever bother to fill before. As the mother of a child with special needs, and an expert on the field of educational equipment, I’m SO very grateful this game was created.

Many special need kids, but even many neurotypical kids, find it extremely difficult to understand mazes in a 2D format (example: simply printed on paper. ). Very often their visual perception its compromise or under developed, and the concept of walls and boundaries seems impossible to gasp unless fist understood in a 3D way.

The mere fact that now they will be able to trace their finger through the maze, and PHYSICALLY understand its boundaries, it’s nothing less than a godsend!. I intend to tell ALL the schools and clinics that I know!.

Thank you Smart Games!, for always bringing relentless joy with everything you create.

I’ve used this in my class before and the kids loved it. I’ve bought it for my own kids, my nephew and friends son for Christmas. Highly recommend for kids aged 7+. Also arrived very quickly, within 2 days.

As a teacher and early intervention therapist I’m always looking for great games that teach practical skills to my students. This product is great for teaching spatial awareness skills and makes it possible for kids to explore space in the physical world before they are asked to use mental strategies.

It’s perfect how the challenges get progressively harder. Great theme and appealing colourful tactile pieces. Thumbs up! Fast delivery too! Thank you!.

Brilliant game of monopoly cards- take monopoly with you wherever you go. Much quicker than a normal game of monopoly. Loads of fun but doesnt take ages to play. No set up required, just chuck the red box in your bag and youre good to go.

Great for travelling. 2-5 or 6 players. I would say get this version with the red box over other versions. Card have better design, more durable and comes with a hard plastic travel case. I think its discontinued but should be others like it on eBay.

Surprisingly fun game! Good for when you want to play monopoly but don’t want to spend hours progressively becoming more agitated and desperate for Richard to stop dragging out every turn. Who let Richard play the banker again?? We all know he’s going to just throw the money into a pile, and take 5 minutes every round searching for (insert currency denomination because if I mention a specific amount my review gets rejected for mentioning a price even though the amount I mentioned was about fifteen times the price of the game).

But yeah, cool card game, very fun, 5 stars.

We play this game constantly! My husband and I play multiple games every single night. My sons also come play as a group almost every weekend. It’s fun with two players or five or more. We have played with 7 and used two decks.

Never gets old. This purchase was 2 more decks because our first two are worn out after a month, we play that much!.

1- 4 players, Competitive Length/Win Condition- So this one is very highly variable! The game comes with a plethora of objective cards and you shuffle them and use 3 of the cards each game. Once 2 of those objectives have been attained then you finish the round and calculate final score.

The objective cards are labeled as “short”, “medium” or “long” depending on how long of a game you want to play. Add in player count to that mix which I would say is about 30 minutes per player and you have your game length.

A couple of examples, I have played a “short” objective with 2 players and it lasted around 45 minutes to an hour. Also played a “long” objective 3 player game and it lasted about 2 hours. I will say that the “short” objectives, although for a quick game, do not really scratch the itch needed.

You end up wanting more at the end and left will a feeling of unresolved conflict. There are things you WANT to do in this game and if playing a “short” game, you will never achieve all those things.

Because of that I will always prefer the “long” objectives. That said it is really cool that this game offers so many options on game length. To win you must have the highest final victory point total.

Now I don’t normally like victory point total style games as win conditions but this one isn’t bad. I think it’s easier to swallow while your playing is why I like it. There are some games that throw VP’s (victory points) at you left and right and it gets hard to keep track of everything.

This one though feeds you the points in smaller bite sized chunks. You have a board that keeps track of your current total and just move it at the end of every round based around one specific action.

Then at the end of the game you have to add up a couple other things and just increased your little token on the board accordingly. The person with the highest final score wins! Components – Great components! Absolutely fantastic.

I mean once you get past the fact that this game is entirely 90’s based dinosaur action (which is amazing) the components are still great when compared to other board games. The dinosaur tokens are plastic and there are a ton of them, hot pink in color too which doesn’t bother me any.

The oversized DNA amber colored dice look amazing with the different kinds of DNA you can acquire printed on the sides. I love how they are amber colored as well, like the tree sap the mosquitoes get trapped in, love it.

The cards are all pretty typical card stock, nothing fancy there. The big stand out to me though is the four player boards. They are a good size and double layered so the tokens you use to track your various stats all stay in place.

Not only that but they look awesome. I love all the colors they use on the boards. Each player also gets a separate board to place tiles based on what dinosaurs they want to create. This board is basically where you build your park and it’s pretty bland starting out but once you get deeper into the game, it really starts looking awesome.

Box/Storage – The box…. kinda sucks. There is far too much stuff in the box for its size to begin with. On top of that there really isn’t a “good” way of cramming all the stuff back in. There is a cardboard insert that can be used….

but it mostly just takes up precious space that you need to jam everything back in to get the lid to close the whole way. Plus all the different components that this game comes with its awkward to stuff everything back in bags….

I am still using the insert and feedangled a way to make everything fit, mostly. But it’s very…oh what’s the word…. haphazard? It’s not organized like I would prefer, let’s put it that way. This actually came as a huge surprise to me when I opened the box as Pandasaurus games are the same people that made the fantastic Wasteland Express Delivery Service which has the absolute best gaming insert I have ever laid eyes on in my life.

Visual Appeal /Theme– The visual appeal of this game is off the charts. It screams eye candy. It IS eye candy. All the colors all over everything and the 90’s style artwork and theme just makes this game one of my favorites visually.

The Theme is also just amazing. I mean dinosaurs are great and you now can create a theme park based around dinosaurs…. and if you don’t keep your security level high enough, then can and will escape and eat your visitors lol.

Of course you will actually lose VP’s if that happens…. but the fact that it CAN happen is amazing. Rulebook – I was not a fan of the rulebook. The font they used is just terrible, and I’m sure they were going for a typed out 90’s style font but omg is it hard on the eyes.

When you open that rulebook and see a massive wall of text on both pages you just shudder. Not only that but this game DOES have a lot going on here as there are a number of rules to learn. The game plays out in phases and during each phase you have a batch of actions that you can take.

For the most part it is easy enough to remember what you need to do as the multiple game boards are all labeled, “Phase 1”, “Phase 2” etc. However when you need to flip back to the rulebook for any little details it is kinda hard finding what you need as all the font looks exactly the same.

They do have each phase bolded and colored in the book so you can kinda find where you need to be if you know what phase that particular rule falls in though. Table Presence/Game Board – The gameboard is comprised of multiple smaller boards based around the different phases the game takes place.

The phase 1 board has the DNA dice placements, the different dinosaurs you can create and spots for improving your DNA storage and passing. The Phase 2 board has spots for the draw piles of the attraction tiles, lab research tiles and specialists cards.

Phase 3 board is your personal double layered player board where you place your worker meeples to take actions such as creating dinosaurs for your park or improving your security. Phase 4 is your park board where you reach into a bag full of patron meeples (and a few hooligan meeples) and pull out as many as your excitement level to see how much money you get for admission.

Then place patrons based on how many attractions and dinos you have. Then see if the threat level is higher than your security and if so……well…. yum yum. So the table presence is pretty good however I am not a fan of the multiple board layout at all.

I find it difficult to set this game up with players sitting on the opposite side of the table and with everything being easily able to read. For example during phase 2 you need to be able to see all the exposed attractions, lab research tiles and specialists.

Not only that but you need to be able to read what’s on the tiles and cards and this can be difficult if they are on the opposite side. Basically no matter how you set these multiple game boards up, someone is going to be far away from at least 1 of the boards that they need to interact with, as such this game takes up a ton of table space.

I almost wish they would have incorporated all these into just one big board. Table Talk/Fun Factor – This game doesn’t really create much table talk which is pretty standard with worker placement games in general.

I spent more time talking to other players asking them to pass me some dinosaur meeples from the pile across the table. There is some bickering to be had during the first couple phases as the first player to go every round is the payer with the least victory points.

Which kinda creates this strange rubber band effect where if you get behind, you have the opportunity to catch up because you get to go first till you do. Which means you get the first choice on DNA that gets rolled or the first dinosaur.

Plus the first pick of attractions, lab tiles or specialists. I’m kinda torn on if I like this or not. On one end it kinda stinks for good players as they never get first pick BUT for subpar players like myself it’s really nice to be able to at least keep up with my wife when she usually totally destroys me on worker placement games.

One time she only beat me by 3 points! Optimal Player Count – Hmmmm the game plays up to 4 players out of the box and even includes a completely separate solo deck JUST for solo play which is amazing.

I haven’t played a 4 player game yet but have played 2 and 3 players. I can say that 2 players is a ton of fun and the fun didn’t really increase with a 3rd player per say. HOWEVER there are specific cards that get added into the draw decks for 3 and 4 player games.

So for each additional player you get new stuff that can be drawn! I find that kinda stuff super exciting so I’m always on the lookout for more players. I would say if you are worried about it not being as fun with less players, don’t.

It is a blast with 2 players and even though I haven’t won a game yet…. I’m hopeful. Final Thoughts – It may have seemed like I griped about a lot of stuff in this review but honestly this game is outstanding.

There are a lot of things to learn but it’s easy to get down since the boards are labeled. Not only that but this game thrives on its theme. This has quickly climbed to the top of my all-time favorite worker placement game primarily because I’m building a dinosaur theme park.

Omg just saying that makes me giddy. But you are not just building it, you are researching DNA and hiring specialists and managing what you spend your money on. If you are looking for a fresh worker placement style board game, then look no further!.

This really is one of the best Pop’s made, definitely among the best, if not the best in LOTR line. Super High details, and finish. Different from any other pop.

Good game for 2 to 4 people. Has some strategy. We, and several of our friends and family enjoy it. It takes about the right amount of time to play to keep the interest, but we might make our own rule to go to 19 or 21 points to win since so many cards remain unused and sometimes it seems to end so abruptly right when I am getting close to having enough points to win.

(However, by keeping the winning amount at 15 points it keeps the game shorter so I am more inclined to play an additional game or two, so. ?) There is competition to in that one may want to keep an eye on the other players color (gems) and points accumulation in order to slow their progress.

It’s a good game. Hard to figure out how to play by reading the rules. We tried for awhile and then called our daughter who walked us through it.

Love this game! I played it at a friends house with a group and just HAD to buy one for myself. I love that I can play it with just my husband or with a whole group for game night. It’s a fun strategic game that’s easy to understand.

I caught on pretty quickly and won a round, coming close in the others. The game definitely pulls out your competitive side in the most fun way. Highly recommended to all!!.

This game was recommended to me by a board game enthusiast. It was easy to understand and super fun to play – with not too many pieces needed. Enjoyed it immensely and would recommend! Unfortunately it’s only for 2-4 people (love when games are up to 6 people) but it’s a solid game that will provide hours of entertainment.

Some luck and some skill involved, the best kind of game.

Jenga game is very small, almost looks like regular kids building blocks. Not impressed especially for the cost. Found a better version at local grocery store, made better and much bigger, for more than half the cost!!!!.

This game is hilarious. It’s like a combo of chinese whispers and pictionary. It sounds weird but it’s really good fun once you know how to play. My family consists of 5 people and I believe the more people that play the better the game will be, I think it’s 4-6 players that can play at once.

This game might not be great for people with a smaller vocabulary, (really old people, young kids, ect. ) as it much easier to play when you understand words. Overall, I highly recommend this game as it’s such good fun for everyone and so so funny.

How to play Playing With this game everyone has a little marker book. On the first page you write your name on it with the (erasable) marker. Everyone decides which colour side of the cards everyone collectively will be using, either yellow or blue.

I think one side is meant to be harder but they tend to be just as hard as each other most of the time. Everyone picks a card out of the card box at random and someone, (doesn’t matter who), will decide the fate of what everyone is drawing by rolling the dice.

The cards, on each side, consist of 6 different options. When the dice is rolled, the thing that is numbered on your card the same number as the number decided by the dice must be written on the first page, (there will be a box there to write itin.

) You the turn to the next page, (which will be completely blank,) and pass it to the person to your left. You will recieve a new book from the person to your right. You then flip back one page and you think how you should draw the thing written in the middle of the box, (you cannot use words or numbers at all and you cannot tell anyone what the thing is.

) You turn the page back to the blank page and someone, (doesn’t matter who,) turn the timer on and everyone hurriedly tries to draw the best picture of their thing as possible. When the timer runs out, everyone once again passes the book in their possession to their left.

You will receive a new book and you have to turn the page back and look what has been drawn. You turn the page and write down what you think the thing that has been drawn is, turn the page and give it to the next person.

You will continue drawing and guessing until you get your own book back. Scoring There is then a scoring system used to determine the ranks. Each person one by one will do a show and tell of their book.

This is usually the funny part. Everyone gets to see what has been drawn and guessed. If what has been drawn gets guessed the word that the artist was going off, the artist and the guesser will each get a point.

If the original word is guessed at the end, the owner of the book aswell as anyone else that fits into the guessing and drawing scoring will also get a point. Once your book has been shown and scores from, the owner of the book will pick their favourite drawing that has been draw in their book and the person who drew it will get a point.

All of this has been one round. Once everyone’s books have been scored, everyone rubs everything out and does everything again. Ranking The game consists of three rounds, (unless you finish the game prematurely,) and you then add all your points from each round together to discover your grand total.

The person with the greatest grand total wins the game.

This is a great game to play with a large group. There is also a 12 person party version of this game available. It is nice that since the game comes with the spiral ‘flip’ pad that you write on, you can just site around in a family room and pass the pad around.

It is not required that you sit around a table, which is sometimes a challenge with a large group.

This is similar to the old game of gossip but you use dry erase markers and erasable pads to play. One player writes down the word(s) and then draws a picture of it on the next page. The pad passes and the next player looks at what the previous player drew and writes the word or words that the picture evokes.

Then the pad passes to the next who reads the word from the previous player and draws a picture of it. And on it goes up to six players. Each player had his/her own pad and starts a different word so everyone is playing each round.

This is such a fun classic game to play with the family. Even my youngest son, age 3, has fun playing it with us. My 5 year old son first requested this game after playing it at school with the counselor.

They have been working on his “over reactions” to situations, and they thought the jenga tower falling down might trigger a reaction from him that they could then talk about. Little did they know, he was a jenga master and he ended up beating the counselor.

He has been requesting this game since then. Its easy to set up and the smooth wooden pieces easily slide out during play. This is a must have, classic game to include in your game collection, you won’t be disappointed.

The game itself and how it plays is great. The issue I have is Walmart’s delivery of the item. It showed up at my door significantly damaged, which is the last thing you want for a Christmas gift you plan to give to a younger child.

And when I tried to request a replacement, I was told that it was not an option and that I could only return it for a refund, then buy it again at a significantly higher price. So I will order this somewhere else and just keep this damaged one for myself because it looks awful and I would be embarrassed to give it as a gift.

Then again, I would be incredibly embarrassed to pull this product and deliver it if I were the management of the Elgin IL Walmart.

Jenga Mini is a compact and durable product. It’s pieces are only a little smaller than the regular Jenga game pieces so still relatively easy to handle and manipulate during game play. The pieces are finished to the same high standard as the regular sized game pieces.

The box of pieces is compact, lightweight and ideal to take away when travelling. The Jenga Mini also has fewer pieces with only 18 pieces compared to the Regular game, which has 54 pieces. This adds to its compactness by having only one-third of the pieces.

This does though shorten gameplay rounds. If you want the full 54 piece experience you can get an additional two sets – this is still more compact than regular sized Jenga.

This game is so much fun! We played this game on a multi day trip with several couples and had such a good time. Synopsis of game play: Divide into two teams and set up the board in a 5×5 grid. Choose spymasters that are responsible for giving the clues and the field operatives which guess the cards to select from the grid you’ve set up.

You then draw a key card that shows which cards are neutral, which cards belong to the the two teams and the one assassin card. Choosing the assassin card ends the game. The teams prepare to play by trying to come up with a word that will allow for a card, or ideally multiple cards to be guessed during the turn.

The spymaster cannot say any of the words on the board or words that are contained within words on the board. Screenshots of the rules for more specifics. Be creative and take some risks to jump ahead of the other team.

A very fun game with lots of replay value. There are loads of words included in the box- all double sided. As these can be pulled in any combination, and then assigned to each team in any combination, you are guaranteed to never have the same game twice.

It’s also quick to set up, easy to learn and quite quick to play too – you can play in groups, rather than being limited to 2 players per team, so is good for larger groups or groups with an odd number of people.

Only problem is, it can get pretty tense – especially under pressure when you realise that you and your partner/friends are on totally different wavelengths. Your relationships may never heal, but you’ll probably have fun along the way.

Received this Headbanz game from Spin Master and Tryazon in exchange for my honest review. We truly enjoyed playing this game. It’s a perfect family game for both kids and parents to play together. Headbanz is simple enough for even younger children to participate and guess correctly.

There are several different headbands to choose from & tons of card choices. This is an excellent game to assist children in developing their question-asking ability & deduction skills. Truly had a blast playing it, and I’d definitely recommend it.

Headbanz is entertaining, fun, & is a perfect game for the entire family.

If you’re looking for a really fun game for family/friends night, this Headbanz game is the one! This is recommended for ages 8 , and 2-6 players. It comes with 6 headbands, 16 scoring badges, 1 timer, 69 picture cards, 3 sample question cards, and instructions.

The headbands are adjustable to fit as needed. When playing, pick a headband, place a card in it and play to figure out what’s on your card. The first to guess three card correctly gets to crown themselves the winner! My boys are 6 and 8, they really had a blast with this one.

Overall, this is a really fun and entertaining game!.

We LOVE Headbanz! It’s the perfect game for friends young and old and always brings laughs. This game allows our kids to use their creative skills while improving their language skills and can be played in as little as 15 to 20 minutes or longer with a larger group of friends.

Looking for a fun new game to introduce to friends after dinner? Headbanz is perfect for the entire family and will easily become a favorite of yours as well. Disclosure: We received a sample to assist us with our review.

All opinions are our own.

We bought this game and even though all the reviews are great, I wasn’t so sure it could be too much fun but it is!! My husband and and I played for HOURS with our 7, 9 and 11 year old! We were a little lost at first at what we were supposed to say when everyone woke up but got the hang of it quickly! I also thought there is no way we won’t hear/feel people sitting next to us moving the cards when directed to do so but we must have played about 50 times since last night and none of us could sense anyone moving cards.

Definitely recommend this game of deception, so much fun. Seriously exactly what we needed to switch up from our normal board game collection! I highly recommend!.

I had so much fun playing my brother’s game that I wanted my own. The rounds are fast so you won’t get “stuck” playing this game; Players can rotate in and out for breaks. However, you probably won’t want to stop playing.

Usually, after a round, my family runs to get drinks and use the bathroom so we can start playing again. This is a great game for adults and children. It take a few rounds for kids to understand the motivations in the game but there are plenty of roles they can do easily until they get the hang of it.

You can also pair children with adults until they feel comfortable but they will catch on fast and want to play on their own. This game is still tons of fun even when you don’t know how to play. I played a round with friends, most of which had never played before, and we were rolling with laughter.

Definitely jump right in and play. Recommendation: Play around a low coffee table that every one can reach across. Large/long tables make it difficult to reach everyone’s card and limit the range of play.

I bought this game for my husband and 2 boys, ages 10 and 8. It is a fun, game that everyone really enjoyed. Once you learn the rules, the game itself only take 10 minutes or less to play. My kids compared it to Among Us.

It has been the game they keep asking to play. Definitely a ni staple for future family game nights.

We’ve recently purchased this game to play as a family, we enjoy it. It’s a fun game, but isn’t an extremely fun game. Its definitely more fun with 4-5 players, I find it sort of boring personally with only 1 player.

Good game night game, my children 6 years to 17 years old really enjoy it and we usually play it a couple times on game night. They definitely seem to enjoy it a lot more than myself. The game is 2-5 players (because there are only 4 exploding kittens in the deck), but you can buy two games to make it playable for more people.

However, I noticed after buying this game there is also a party addition game that is pkayable for up to 10 players I believe for only a few more dollars, that’s a better value if you need this game for more than 5 players.

I absolutely LOVE exploding kittens! I am 25 years old and love playing this game with my friends. It is perfect for two people or a larger group of people. It is similar to UNO, but with a twist! For any new players who don’t know how to play, I usually show them the instructional YouTube video, so explaining the game is really easy.

I HIGHLY recommend getting the two expansions (imploding kittens and streaking kittens). If you don’t want to get both, I recommend adding the imploding kittens expansion first. The reason you can’t play with more than the max number of players is due to the limit of defuse cards and exploding kitten cards.

However, a game hack to play with more players is to select one of the the generic kitten cards (taco cat) and tell players to use them as defuses for the game. Additionally, if a player is eliminated from an exploding kitten, add the exploding kitten back into the deck at random (normally you are supposed to take it out).

Repeat this until there is one fewer exploding kitten than number of players.

I have been playing Connect 4 for forty plus years. Every five to ten years, a new version is purchased. Even the box gets more flimsy with each new model. The slide mechanism is cheaper and less effective as well.

It is still a favorite on game night. We just prefer the older, durable model.

My kids love playing Go Sushi! The game is easy to learn, easy to play and a lot of fun. Game play is fairly quick, there’s only three rounds, and the game gets rather addicting to play. The cards are a heavy cardstock, that don’t tear easily.

They’re beautifully illustrated, glossy and easy to shuffle and deal out. This set came in a nice tin to store the cards in. There’s a molded plastic card tray inside to hold the deck neatly in two sections, so they aren’t just rattling around inside the tin.

The lid of the tin of fits on tightly and is easy to take on and off. This game is perfect for family movie nights, rainy days or any time you’re looking for something fun and silly to play with your kids.

I love this fun and fast game. It’s a pick a card and pass your hand off card game. It’s easy enough for most ages to learn and enjoy playing. The instructions are easily read and understood. The cards and instructions come in a cute and sturdy tin can.

An added bonus is a 20 percent coupon they give you to purchase other games. Each game consists of 3 rounds. Everyone gets 9 cards, you choose a card from your hand then pass your remaining hand of cards to the next player.

Everyone reveals their card then picks a new one before passing off their hand again. At the end the scores are tallied up and the winner with most points wins.

This game is fun and easy to play. It is fast-pace game and good for kids/families as well as with my college/young adult friends. You can employ different elements of critical thinking and chance into your choices and your strategy may differ depending on who you are playing with.

The directions are very easy to follow. The tin itself is well made and easy to open (but sturdy to keep the cards safe and protected). It is easily stored too which is really nice! I have found this to be a great “staple” game/item to have.

Would recommend checking it out if you have interest.