Family game night

[nermal71]

Ok we are trying to do more game nights and less "veg in front of the tv nights" with the kids. They're 17, 16 and 14 and actually enjoying this. The issue is that so many games are 2 to 4 players. We have 5 of us so either one doesn't play or we "modify" (aka teams on some games). Also scrabble we have found you can play 5 players just means one doesnt have a tray for their tiles. We have Monopoly, Life, Yahtzee, Scrabble, In a Pickle (lotta fun), Rook, Uno and a bunch of regular card games like Canasta. Open to some ideas for other games. Either card or board. After all Christmas is coming. Oh and while going through kids closets found they have (spongebob monopoly, superman monopoly, lord of the rings monopoly, here and now monopoly, Bibleopoly, and Star Wars monopoly). Of course found this AFTER I went and bought plain old fashioned monopoly ROFL.

 

[MissBinky]

Having worked in a specialized game store, I know many many board games. Lol. Here's a list of some of the best ones (from those I can think of at this moment). Just telling you, many of these are specialized games so they will not be available in large surfaces such as Wal-Mart. Some are costly, while others are cheap. I highly suggest you check them online or go to a specialized store where they can explain them to you and show you demos. Any game made by a recognizable name (Milton & Bradley, Hasbro, etc.) can normally be found at Wal-Mart for cheaper.

- Pictionary

- Cranium(extremely fun)

- Guesstures

- Settlers of Catan

- Rummoli

- Milles Bornes

- Killer Bunnies (the characters are bunniesbut satirical humor, though clean)

- Clue

- Life

- Ticket to Ride (excellent)

- Carcassone

- Jok-R-Rummy

- Jungle Speed (excellent)

- Tic Tac Boom

- Wooly Bully

- Munchkin (another satirical game)

- If you are ever 8 + players: Werewolves of MIller Hollow (if you look online they should have aspecial ruleout now to adapt itfor less players.

 

[NorthernAutumn]

Nate's family plays "what if?" at all his family gatherings...
Goes like this...
1) Everybody write down 5 interesting questions starting with "what if..." on a piece of paper.
2) Shuffle the papers around in a pot. Hand out paper to everybody.
3) Everybody writes responses to the questions.
4) First person reads their first question out loud. Person beside them answers with their first answer, then reads their second question. Next person answers with their first answer, and so forth.

Makes for lots of giggles, even with adults

 

[JimD]

Aggravation

Trivial Pursuit

Boggle

 

[JadeIcing]

Risk if you teamed up.

Clue
Trivial Pursuit
Jenga
Pop 5

 

[Pet_Bunny]

nermal71 wrote:

here and now monopoly, Bibleopoly, and Star Wars monopoly). Of course found this AFTER I went and bought plain old fashioned monopoly ROFL.

You shouldbuy some shares in Monopoly.

http://www.boardgames.com/index.html

If you get 3 more people (8 total), you can start a Bridge Club.
Take a night out for bowling to get out of the house.

 

[slavetoabunny]

Pet_Bunny wrote:

Take a night out for bowling to get out of the house.

Perhaps roller skating or miniature golf?

 

[Aina]

We do family night every week so I know how you feel. We have six, my parents and four kids, ages 21,19,17, and almost 16. We have been doing family night for three years now. Here are some things that we like to do:
- Play Apples to Apples. It is an awesome game, although I generally lose. It can be played by 4-15 people.
- Make a movie skit. Just randomness here. You know what would be a funny movie...
-Discuss politics. Ok, we are a very weird family. It is FUN
-Go out and just get desert. It is a lot cheaper than getting a meal and then we hang out and talk while we are waiting.
- Another one we do with a camera is illustrate a Proverb. Basically we each chose a proverb, generally from the Bible, and then make up a funny thing to go along with it. It doesn't have to follow the proverb exactly. Like a passage in Proverbs 7 talks about how a whore snags a young man but in the end it was like an arrow pierced his liver or a stone was tied around his neck. So what we did was make a skit where someone was selling perfume named "arrowpiercingliver" and stuff like that and how the dude was trying to sell them by disusing their names. Then he comes to a perfume called "True Love" and just says it right out. Well anyways, it is hard to explain. It looked better on the video. If you don't have a video camera a camera phone will work fine. It is just so that your family can laugh at it, so it doesn't have to be great quality.
- Make cards, a person draws one and two of your family have to debate random issues like "Is beauty or wealth better?" The other three people are the judges. Switch it around some so that a person has to argue the side they disagree with. (Yeah, ok, our family does weird things for fun.)
- Water gun wars are fun in the summer, even if I am 19, lol.

Our family has been officially doing family night for three years, but we are all really close and have been doing a version of it for a long time. The key thing is just to *do something* If you can't think of anything to do, make it up. Sometimes it is a lot easier just to say "well, I can't think of anything, so we wont have it this week." But I think family night is a great idea and has really made our family closer even as we start to grow up and move out. I also think it has made the parents closer to us so they can more easilly interject their opinion when we have decisions to make without being pushy, bosy, or us being like "You just want to hold me back"

 

[amundb]

Beyond Balderdash
Taboo

 

[Dublinperky]

We have six in my family (actually with similar ages! Just one extra!) so I can relate. We like to play crainium games. A great one is Hoopla which is really fun. We love to play scatigories alot too. Dominoes is fun and you can play with alot of players! I'll think of more gmes we play later....

Aly!

 

[Bo B Bunny]

In Indiana we play a card game that most people outside of Indiana do not know! it's called EUCHRE (pronounced YOU-KER). If you could learn that - it's a fun game!

You could get a HOYLE official rules book. There are TONS of card games you can get from that.Learning new card games might be a fun thing for the family. We have Euchre clubs and stuff here. I've also heard of BUNCO but never played.

My family would love to have a place to do a nice puzzle together also. My kids tend to (and hubby and I are as well) learn/do things that are visual in nature. My son was tested and got a perfect score, through high school tests, at age 8 for visual educational/learning tests - they basically ran out of a way to measure his ability. So, we like those sort of things.

Here's something we used to do, and each person could take a turn being "Boss" or "Leader" for this game:

• Get a tray, and everyone has paper and pen
• The person who is "boss" goes and gets30 items for the tray from around the house, places them on the tray and covers them.
• He sets the tray down on the table and uncovers it for just 10 seconds or so and then recovers it and the other people have like 1 minute to list as many things as they remember were on the tray.

Around here, there is a game that is HUGE, and you could get it for your family (there are even people making custom ones).... CORNHOLE. It's merely bean bag toss but it's fun and you can have as many or as few people as you want.

 

[nermal71]

We played In a Pickle last night. Oh my gosh...if you can get it....do!!! It's a riot especially when people start trying to justify why they put a card where they did. It was only 10 bucks and I say in one night of laughter (side splitting, stomach hurting, I think I'm gonna wet myself ) type laughter we already got our moneys worth out of it.

 

[kirst3buns]

5 crowns is good for more than 4 people. It's a card game that you have to purchase the cards for. It's my son's favorite new game.

In a pickle sounds like a good one to put on the family Christmas list. We always get a new game for Christmas. Last year's was apples to apples - we love that for large groups (4 or more).

 

[pinksalamander]

Cranium is so fun!

Fran :hearts :brownbunny

 

[Luv-bunniz]

Well we go over to our friends on haloween and have a games night, after an hour or two on the nintendo wii we sit down and make up a game called picture perfect-
Split up into two teams (usually we choose kids against adults, guys against girls or family against family),
Get some paper and pen for each team and an aprox. 1 minute timer (we just put a funnel into a pot, get about 700g of sand and pour it into the funnel until it runs out lol)
1 member from a team has to choose an object, this can be ANYTHING.
Now the member that chose what the object will be has to explain how to draw it, but only using shapes, (ie, an ice cream is a cone with a circle on top, a bus is a long rectangle with 4 circles underneath, 5 squares(windows) and a rectangle(door) and they have to guess what it is, but only from the drawing, you can NOT say anything like "draw a door.." it has to be "draw a rectangle or square.." but once the timer runs out (starting when the team start drawing) it pass's on to the other team. We keep going until one team has 5 points up from the other team or once we get past 20 minutes.
Its quite funny, and some of the stupid drawing are hilarious! and I also have to agree with the cranium, some of the stuff from that game is enough to make your sides hurt and it can get quite competitive.

 

[pinksalamander]

Cranium really is amazing, we used to have game nights and play either that or Cheat 5.

Fran :hearts :brownbunny

 

[HoneyPot]

Settlers of Catan is my favorite game ever - I second MissBinky's suggestion!
Cranium is also an awesome game, although i find it's easy unless drunk.

Nadia