Board Games

This may be the first time I post about a game, but it won't be the last. I love love love the Offbeat Empire, and have since before I planned my wedding using tons of inspiration from Offbeat Bride. So yesterday, when I saw this post in my Feedly feed, I had to chime in. I also wanted to make sure that I saved the post so I could come back to it and try out all these games.

Our whole family, and I mean WHOLE family, loves games. Every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, and most big family get togethers, we play board games or card games. And drink lots of wine, of course. A few of our classic favorites:

Apples to Apples 

A classic game guaranteed to bring laughs. Match up one of your cards to a category, then fight to convince the dealer that your card is the best. Plus, they have blanks, so you can create cards that fit with your favorite inside jokes, or cards tailored to the 12-year-old in all of us. My personal favorites include "boobs," "dudebros, dude," and "Bob."

  Double Solitaire

A screw-your-neighbor version of solitaire that is easy to learn and fun to play. Set up a four pile solitaire playing board in the middle, buildable discard piles in front of every player, and add in a "throw a card at whoever misses a move" clause, and you've got a great 20 minute game that'll have you yelling at your family in all the best ways.

Qwirkle

It's like Scrabble and dominos and Uno all in one. I heard about this from my first TV crush Wil Wheaton, who of course has the excellent show Tabletop. I bought it for Ross for our anniversary this year, and we've played at least twice a week since then. Portable, fun, simple, strategic, excellent.

 Tripoly

I didn't believe my mom when she first told me this game was really good fun. To be fair, I was probably 12, and hardly anyone believes their mom about what's fun when they're 12. But seriously, all you have to do to make this a totally excellent game is replace the poker chips with jelly beans. We used Jelly Bellys. The motivation to win increases exponentially when you're battling to get the last of the juicy pear flavor jellybeans

Cranium

There are grown-up versions and kid-friendly versions, and you probably already know all about this one. The absolute highlight of my Cranium playing experience was the time my husband had to hum the song "Like a Virgin" by Madonna, to my mother, who had no idea what he was trying to do.

  Balderdash

This is probably the king board game for us. Roll the dice, hear a word that you've never heard before, make up a definition. It probably doesn't sound nearly as fun as it really is, but trust me, it's hilarious. Somehow it just begs for running jokes, tongue-in-cheek answers, and double ententres. The way you're supposed to try to win is by convincing people you know what the word actually means, but that's not how we play. The winner is almost always the one who can make us laugh the most. The alternative version, Beyond Balderdash, is also excellent - it adds obscure movie titles, abbreviations, dates, and laws into the mix.


Regardless of what I've recommended, this post from Offbeat Home has a ton more games to peruse. If you like gaming, check it out. And if you don't, what's wrong with you? Go try a new game!

Great board games for every group | Offbeat Home