What are the best board games for families?

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7

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12

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Jun 18, 2020

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Here’s the Deal

7 Options Considered

Best board games for families	Price	# Players	Play Time
-- Sushi Go!	$10.99	2 to 5	15 minutes
-- Dixit	$24.99	3 to 6	30 minutes
-- Charterstone	$48.60	1 to 6	45 - 75 Minutes
-- Kingdomino	$17.95	2 to 4	15 Minutes
-- Karuba	$34.99	2 to 4	30 - 40 Minutes

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score 2 · Answer 1

Sushi Go!

Top Pro

Simple and accessible

The game can be played by both young and old due to the simple nature of the rules, the quick play time, and the family-friendly theme. The basics of the game and point scoring can be explained to a new player very quickly – once you tell the person how to get points and when to forward the cards, they’ll get it. There are 8 types of cards and they are all simple to understand – each type of card has a different point value and a specific mechanic. For example, the Tempura card is worth nothing by itself, but two of them give you 5 points. Information about values is conveniently put on the bottom of the card as a small reminder. A full game consisting of 3 rounds can be played in approximately 15 minutes or even less. The gameplay is fast-paced, and all the players are playing at once, so there’s constant engagement. The game has a quirky and comedic sushi theme, which fits the style of the gameplay quite well. The design isn’t childish either, it has a fun aesthetic to it. See More

Top Con

Lacks card denial mechanic

There is no convenient way to deny your opponent’s play other than playing the card yourself, which is not as profitable as just going for the points. The game sacrifices strategy for accessibility, which, unfortunately, makes the game a bit too light for experienced gamers. See More

Specs

# Players:2 to 5

Play Time:15 minutes

Age:8+

Top Pro

Great value

The game can be picked up for 10 to 15 dollars, which a good price for a replayable game like this. Moreover, it comes in a small tin box, which is great for portability. See More

Top Pro

Scales well

The game is great in the 2 to 5 player range. There’s even a handy section in the official rulebook for a two-player variation. If you want to go past the 5-player maximum, then it’s recommended to get a second deck. See More

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score 1 · Answer 2

Dixit

Top Pro

Game mechanics are simple to explain and easy to learn

The game mechanics are pretty straightforward and easy to understand, even to young children and people who usually don't play board games and the like. This saves everyone the headache of spending half an hour listening to someone explain the rules and still not understanding exactly what's going on when you actually start playing. Experienced players and newbies are practically on the same level when playing a game of Dixit. The basics are easy - the "storyteller" makes up a sentence from one of the cards in hand, each player gives a card that best matches that sentence to the storyteller, and the storyteller shuffles all of the cards and places them face-up. After this the players have to guess which card was the storyteller's. Points are given based on the outcome - if nobody or everybody guessed the card correctly, all players except for the storyteller get 2 points. Otherwise the storyteller and whoever chose the right card score 3. The game ends either when the deck is empty or when a player reaches 30 points. See More

Top Con

Can feel unchallenging and monotonous after some games

Given the simple game mechanics, each game after the first doesn't bring an overwhelmingly new experience, specially after you get to know the cards and/or tend to always play with the same group of people. For this reason, some people start getting bored with the game after a while. However, there are several expansions with new illustrated cards than can be added to the new game, giving it a new face, at least for some time. See More

Specs

# Players:3 to 6

Play Time:30 minutes

Age:8+

Top Pro

Amazing illustrations

For many people, this is the main attraction of this game. The cards are simply beautifully illustrated and going through the deck of cards, even if not playing, is a pleasure. The french illustrator Marie Cardouat deserves all the credit for her work creating these dream-like works of art. See More

Top Con

It's not uncommon for some players to have an unfair disadvantage or feel left out

Given that Dixit relies heavily on how well you know the other players and on experiences and knowledge you share with them, it's fairly common that, in a group of players where there are people that share a close relationship (couples, flatmates, childhood friends... ), those that aren't part of this relation will feel left out and will also be at a disadvantage. See More

Top Pro

The way it requires you to read people’s minds through subtle communication cues is thoroughly enticing and completely unique

Unlike many card and board games, the strategy and competitive component in Dixit is almost nonexistent. In fact, the main focus of the game is in being creative and original and in trying to figure out how the other players connect images, ideas and concepts in their minds: this makes the game much more interesting to play with people that you know well or are in the process of getting close with. See More

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score 2 · Answer 3

Charterstone

Top Pro

Accessible

Mechanically Charterstone is extremely simple, which makes it greatly accessible to people of all ages. The advanced rules are introduced to the players as the game progresses, but the basics are straightforward. On your turn you can place a worker on a tile or retrieve all your workers. You can go to any tile on any charter, each building has a different resource cost to use and a different purpose. There are five initial spots called the “Commons” that you can go to in order to gain money, score objective cards, construct buildings, or open crates. Opening crates lets players draw cards from the “Index” which adds new rules to the game. See More

Top Con

Potential information overload at the start

If the players choose to open a lot of crates in their first games, then they might suffer from information overload because of the number of new rules thrown in the game. Some users have reported that the rules are sometimes easy to misinterpret, so this can add to the frustration. See More

Specs

# Players:1 to 6

Play Time:45 - 75 Minutes

Age:14+

Top Pro

Drop-in / drop-out system

Thanks to the Automa system that lets an NPC character take over one of the player spots, you can fill in for a player that, for example, couldn’t make it to a gaming session or doesn’t want to continue the campaign. See More

Top Con

Quite long

There are 12 games in the campaign, so you must dedicate approximately 12 hours to finish the whole thing because a single game takes an hour or so. This might also be too long if you’re playing with kids because they could get bored or distracted. See More

Top Pro

Replayable after finishing the campaign

Charterstone is a legacy game, but you can keep playing it as a regular worker placement game after you’re done with the campaign on the map you’ve created over the 12-game campaign. Moreover, if you want to play through the campaign again and experience what you missed in your initial playthrough, you can buy the official recharge pack for about $30 to get back all the components you used and use the other side of the double-sided gameboard that has the same map. See More

Top Con

Aesthetic won’t suit everyone

Though the art of Charterstone is quite detailed and colorful, it’s also very cartoony and the characters are happy-looking bobble heads, so while the aesthetic might be great for children and families, it might seem childish to others. See More

Top Pro

Huge variability

Every game of Charterstone will be completely different due to card draw, personas, and strategies. Many campaigns end with situations where half of the deck is still undiscovered. See More

Top Con

A bit pricey

Charterstone retails for around $45 depending on the site, which can be expensive for some. If you add in the recharge pack for new campaigns, then that’s an extra $30, but after your second campaign there’s no more room on the gameboard, so you’ll have to buy a new one for that if you want to start over yet again. See More

Top Pro

Adjustable to player count

Charterstone is a balanced game when played with any number of players thanks to special rules that vary depending on the player count. Furthermore, the Automa system lets you introduce NPC players to the game that can fill in other players’ spots if you want to add more action to, say, a 2-player game. See More

Top Con

Requires a dedicated group

Charterstone suffers from a popular legacy board game issue - it might be difficult to gather the same people for a session to try and finish the 12-game campaign. Though the Automa system lets NPC’s fill in for other players, if it’s used in the middle of the campaign, then it renders the score tallying at the end of the campaign pointless. See More

Top Pro

Amazing components

The parts that make up Charterstone are both aesthetically pleasing and well-made. When first opening the box, you are already greeted by an organized view of the components– everything’s stored in labeled white boxes. When looking at the components themselves, there is no mistaking what they represent or what they’re supposed to be – a pumpkin looks like a pumpkin, etc. The quality is top-notch, and the components should hold up to plenty of plays. The white boxes that store most of the components are made of thick cardboard, the player tokens and the resource tokens are wooden, the cards are made of thick cardstock, and the coins are metal, which feel exceptionally nice and valuable due to the heftiness. See More

Top Pro

Satisfying progression

The game reveals itself as you progress, be it storylines, rules, buildings, etc. It feels nice to see your village grow and bits of the story unfold over the ~12 hours of gameplay. You get attached to characters, socialize with others, and create your own stories in the process, which creates another adventure on top. See More

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score 2 · Answer 4

Kingdomino

Top Pro

Simple

Kingdomino is elementary, it’s like playing dominoes with a few extra nuances, which makes it highly accessible and easy to teach. Each turn the same number of dominoes as players are drawn from the pile and placed in ascending order (the dominoes are numbered). You must then place your king meeple on one of the tiles. The tile you chose will determine the pick order next turn, for example, if you place your king on the highest numbered domino, you’ll pick last on the following turn. When you do your next turn, the tile you picked on the previous one is freed up and must be placed. Each player starts with a single tile with their castle on it. This tile is “wild”, so you can connect any of the five different landscapes to it. Otherwise, you must connect dominoes matching at least one landscape. You mustn’t build past a 5x5 grid, if a domino doesn’t fit, then it’s discarded. Points are tallied at the end of the game; each group of connected landscapes gives you as much points as the number of squares multiplied by the number of crowns in the landscape. The player with the most points wins. See More

Top Con

Fiddly scoring

The winner of the game is determined after tallying up the scores once the final tiles have been played. There’s a bit of calculating involved, so you might need a calculator or a piece of paper laying around somewhere. You might also need to help children with the process. Each group of connected landscapes gives you as much points as the number of squares multiplied by the number of crowns in the landscape. For example, if you’ve made an area of 6 connected forest tiles and the area has 2 crowns, you’d get 12 points. This also means that if you have no crowns in the connected area, you won’t get anything, which can be very annoying. See More

Specs

# Players:2 to 4

Play Time:15 Minutes

Age:8+

Top Pro

Good components

The components of the game are both durable and nice-looking, which adds a lot to the overall value. The domino tiles themselves are cartoony, colorful, and made of nice and thick cardboard, the meeples are tiny wooden kings, and the castles are beautiful three-dimensional cardboard standups. See More

Top Con

A bit of luck involved

Although you get to choose between multiple tiles, there’s no way to tell what the next dominoes are going to have on them, so you can’t predict how valuable pick order will be. You might take first pick on purpose in your previous turn only to see tiles that don’t help you as much as you hoped. See More

Top Pro

Inexpensive

Kingdomino is available for less than $20 in most places, which is a great value for the replayability and fun that you can get out of the game. See More

Top Pro

Relaxing

There is no other player interaction in the game apart from choosing tiles, which makes Kingdomino a very laidback experience. You can slowly build up your kingdom and admire it as it grows while casually talking with the other players. See More

Top Pro

Quick to play through

A full playthrough of Kingdomino takes around 15 minutes, which is perfect if you want to play a quick game to kill some time. Even the bigger 7x7 duel mode variation is quite fast - up to 20 minutes. See More

Top Pro

A decent amount of strategy

Even though the game is very simple, it can also be quite clever. There’s a fair amount of strategic choices to be made regarding tile placement and tile choosing. Do you try to focus on one type or go for multiple landscapes? Do you choose the tile you need or one that might be useful for your opponent? Do you want to take the least valuable tile right now to get first pick on the next turn? See More

Top Pro

Variable

There are a few variants in the official rulebook that can keep the game replayable and interesting. A very popular variant is the 2-player duel mode that allows players to use all tiles and create a 7x7 grid, which can make the game bigger and longer than usual. See More

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score 2 · Answer 5

Karuba

Top Pro

Easy to learn

Karuba is a very simple game that has only a few mechanics. All players have individual gameboards and tiles that are set up in the same way, the players decide where to place the adventurers and the temples. One player has their tiles shuffled in a deck, this player is the expedition leader. Each turn the expedition leader will choose a tile and call out the number on it, the players then find this tile and decide what to do with it. You can either place it anywhere on your map or discard it to move one of your adventurers. The game ends when either all tiles are played, or a player has reached all four temples. The goal of the game is to gather the most points, be it by reaching temples or gathering gems on the way. The temples give more points to players that reach them first. See More

Top Con

One player is at a disadvantage

The player that takes on the role of the expedition leader must have their tiles shuffled in a deck. Each turn this player will draw a tile and call out the number so every player plays the same tile. This means that the expedition leader, unlike other players, doesn’t get to see what the remaining tiles look like and whether it’s possible to, for example, finish the path they have started or reach the temple in time. See More

Specs

# Players:2 to 4

Play Time:30 - 40 Minutes

Age:8+

Top Pro

Aesthetically pleasing

The game looks great and the components are detailed and add a lot to the theme. The gameboard is a stylized map of the jungle with portraits of the four adventurers on the left. The tiles form a clear and understandable path through the jungle when placed, and the numbers are easy to read. The meeples are designed to look like temples and adventurers, they are colored and easy to distinguish and spot on the gameboard. The treasure tokens are detailed, colorful, and come in many sizes to represent more points. The little crystals and gold pieces are very shiny and come in different shapes. See More

Top Con

Not a lot of player interaction

Karuba is basically a solitaire experience. You’re trying to solve the same puzzle in a different way. The only player interaction comes in the form of drawing tiles that determine which tile all players must use and watching other players’ progress in reaching the temples. See More

Top Pro

Well-made components

The components in Karuba are durable and should hold up to regular wear and tear very well. The gameboards are big and don’t feel flimsy, the cardboard tiles are thick, sturdy, and have a pleasant weight to them, the little crystal and gold nuggets are made of plastic, the temple treasures are made of cardboard, and the temple and adventurer tokens are nice wooden meeples. See More

Top Con

Takes a while to set up

Karuba has a lot of components that take a while to sort through and set up. On top of shuffling the deck, placing the gameboard and the treasure tiles, before every game you need to arrange 36 tiles in an ascending order, which be quite annoying. See More

Top Pro

Accessible

Karuba can be played by pretty much anyone and in many settings. The game is great for families with players of many ages due to its simplicity and still good for a group consisting of experienced gamers because of the decent amount of strategic depth. See More

Top Pro

Meaningful strategic decisions

Karuba can be quite strategically deep because it offers some interesting choices to players. Everyone’s trying to solve the same puzzle and use the same tiles, but the way you do it is going to be different. Is it better to place the tile or to discard it for movement? Which adventurer do you move? Adventurers can’t pass through each other, so it’s important to plan ahead. There are many ways to gather points – reaching temples and gathering gems. If you reach the temple faster, then you’ll receive more points, but often gathering gems can also be very profitable, so it’s important to keep an eye on what your opponents are doing and adjust your strategy accordingly. See More

Top Pro

Engaging

Since all turns in the game happen simultaneously, there’s never a dull moment. A player calls out the number of the tile, the players decide what to do with it (place it or discard it for movement), and the game progresses in this fashion until it ends. See More

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score 1 · Answer 6

Ice Cool

Top Pro

Memorable moments

The game can lead to some awesome moments because of the little penguins. Depending on where you hit the penguin, it will move differently. For example, if you flick the head of it, it will make the penguin jump. This can lead to some crazy trick-shots where someone manages to jump over walls. You can also flick them on the side, which will make the penguin spin. By doing this you could spin through multiple rooms and gather a lot of points or catch several penguins on the same turn. See More

Top Con

Has a learning curve

Ice Cool is quite skill-based and requires practice on flicking the penguin pawns to get them to go where you want to. The rulebook has some tips, but the techniques can only be learned by playing the game. A new player won’t do well against a player who has already played a bit. See More

Specs

# Players:2 to 4

Play Time:20 Minutes

Age:6+

Top Pro

High quality components

The components of Ice Cool are very interesting and well-made. The game’s playing surface is made of five 3D boxes that all fit in the game’s box. The player tokens are four penguins made of hard plastic that are weighted in the base so that they keep wobbling when hit. Throughout the game players gather fish tokens, which are nice and small wooden pieces similar to pegs. There are also some cards in the game – ID cards and fish cards, which are all made of durable cardstock. See More

Top Con

Luck-based scoring

Catching penguins and gathering fish to get victory points in Ice Cool requires skill, but the values on the fish cards you get range from 1 to 3, which means that even if you’re good at the game, you can lose because of pure chance. Someone could potentially score the same amount out of one card as you with three cards. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful design

Aesthetically Ice Cool looks very impressive. The playing surface is a 3D school consisting of five different rooms that feature many little details all over the walls – maps, fish, basketball hoops, etc. Everything has a blue, cold-looking color scheme, which kind of mimics an igloo. The cards also have some great artwork on them. The ID’s are two-sided for boys and girls. Each colored penguin has a different look and style. The fish cards depict, you guessed it, fish. The bigger the point value, the bigger the meal. See More

Top Con

Only one layout

The gameboard can only be arranged in one way, so the game can get quite repetitive in this aspect. See More

Top Pro

Easy to learn

Ice Cool is very straightforward, it all revolves around flicking little penguin pawns. Doorways will have fish pegs attached to them, when you flick a penguin through it, then you’ll receive the fish and get to draw a fish card that gives you victory points. Each round one player will be the hall monitor who will try to catch other penguins and gather their student ID’s by hitting them instead of gathering fish. The round ends either when the hall monitor has gathered all ID’s or when someone has gathered all three fish tokens. The game ends when everyone has been the hall monitor. The player with the most points on their fish cards wins. See More

Top Pro

Easy to set up

The gameboard of Ice Cool is big, but it’s quite simple to set up. The playing surface consists of five boxes that all fit in the game’s box. You connect them in the correct places, all of which are marked with colored dots on the edges of the boxes. After that you take the little beige colored fish tokens and place them in the marked spots to keep the gameboard in place, and you’re good to go. See More

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score 2 · Answer 7

King of Tokyo

Top Pro

Good for parties

The game’s whacky theme of different monsters battling it out in the city of Tokyo gives the game a silly and light-hearted feel that the players easily take over. There’s constant engagement between the players, be it trash talk, begging for mercy while in Tokyo, anger or delight for dice rolls, or persuading others to gang up on someone. See More

Top Con

Component design

Apart from the wonderful monster boards, the rest of the components have quite a few drawbacks. The special dice are large, so it’s very uncomfortable to throw six of them, especially if you have smaller hands. The energy tokens are small, dark green cubes that can easily be displaced with a small shake of the playing surface or lost if they drop down on the ground. The cardboard monsters and ability cards show wear quite quickly. Lastly, the only purpose the gameboard serves is to have two spaces that represent being in Tokyo. This function could just as easily be replaced by just putting a monster in the middle of the table, making the gameboard purely aesthetic and otherwise useless. See More

Specs

# Players:2 to 6

Play Time:30 Minutes

Age:8+

Top Pro

Great artwork

King of Tokyo features some unique monster-y artwork, sort of parodying the movie cliché of huge beasts destroying urban environments. Everything is very colorful, cartoony, and highly detailed, from the box itself to the cardboard cutout monsters, the ability cards, and the gameboard with a burning Tokyo in the background. See More

Top Con

Player elimination

As soon as a monster reaches 0 health it’s out, so you’re going to have to sit and watch the remainder of the game if that happens to you. See More

Top Pro

Very nice monster boards

The base game includes six different playable monsters and their matching cardboard cutouts and player boards. These monster boards are of great quality, feature the same wonderful artwork as the whole game, and are nicely designed. There are two spinable parts that show the monster’s health and victory points, so it’s a very easy way to keep track of what is happening. See More

Top Con

First edition is pricey

The first edition of King of Tokyo costs $62, which is two times more than the newer edition, though the only differences between them are in the artwork and in one very minimal rule change about entering Tokyo – you don’t need to roll a claw, you enter straightaway. A lot of people prefer the first edition’s artwork. See More

Top Pro

Simple rules

King of Tokyo is highly accessible to people of all ages because it’s very easy to learn but it still provides enough room for strategy because of the “being in Tokyo” part. The whole game revolves around rolling dice and trying to either reach 20 victory points or destroy everyone and everything. On your turn you roll six dice. With the dice you can receive 1, 2, or 3 victory points (if you roll three of the same number), attack other monsters by rolling the attack icon, receive energy for ability card purchases, or heal yourself. After you’ve rolled you can re-roll any amount of dice two more times. Rolling an attack icon lets you attack the monster that is currently inside Tokyo, or, if you are inside Tokyo, all monsters outside. The monster inside has the choice to retreat before the attack hits, forcing the attacking monster inside Tokyo. Why is being in Tokyo good? You receive 2 victory points if you’re inside at the start of your turn. See More

Top Con

Some very powerful card combinations

King of Tokyo has a few quite overpowered ability cards. If a player pulls off a specific combination, then they might be unstoppable and create a long, drawn-out and frustrating game until they finally win. For example, the wings card lets you cancel all damage if you have more than two energy. This basically means that you can keep evading hits and just stack up on victory points. Some players recommend removing a few cards from the game for a better experience. See More

Top Con

Highly random

Since King of Tokyo is a dice rolling game, it should be no surprise that pretty much all of it revolves around getting lucky with your rolls, so if you’re not a fan of that then this isn’t the game for you. The game tries mitigating the randomness a little bit by having the re-roll mechanic and ability cards in play, but there are still plenty of opportunities to come back from crushing defeats or drop down from being in the lead. See More

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7 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Sushi Go!

My Recommendation for Sushi Go!

Simple and accessible

Lacks card denial mechanic

Great value

Scales well

My Recommendation for Dixit

My Recommendation for Dixit

Game mechanics are simple to explain and easy to learn

Can feel unchallenging and monotonous after some games

Amazing illustrations

It's not uncommon for some players to have an unfair disadvantage or feel left out

The way it requires you to read people’s minds through subtle communication cues is thoroughly enticing and completely unique

My Recommendation for Charterstone

My Recommendation for Charterstone

Accessible

Potential information overload at the start

Drop-in / drop-out system

Quite long

Replayable after finishing the campaign

Aesthetic won’t suit everyone

Huge variability

A bit pricey

Adjustable to player count

Requires a dedicated group

Amazing components

Satisfying progression

My Recommendation for Kingdomino

My Recommendation for Kingdomino

Simple

Fiddly scoring

Good components

A bit of luck involved

Inexpensive

Relaxing

Quick to play through

A decent amount of strategy

Variable

My Recommendation for Karuba

My Recommendation for Karuba

Easy to learn

One player is at a disadvantage

Aesthetically pleasing

Not a lot of player interaction

Well-made components

Takes a while to set up

Accessible

Meaningful strategic decisions

Engaging

My Recommendation for Ice Cool

My Recommendation for Ice Cool

Memorable moments

Has a learning curve

High quality components

Luck-based scoring

Beautiful design

Only one layout

Easy to learn

Easy to set up

My Recommendation for King of Tokyo

My Recommendation for King of Tokyo

Good for parties

Component design

Great artwork

Player elimination

Very nice monster boards

First edition is pricey

Simple rules

Some very powerful card combinations

Highly random

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