Most popular board games

The premise of this game is to go through life making smart decisions and eventually be the player who retires first and with the most money.

Clue is a suspenseful murder mystery game that turns everyone into a detective. There are only six suspects and you are one of them. Move your game pieces through the rooms and secret passageways of the mansion depicted on the game board to look for clues. Who murdered poor Mr. What weapon was used? And where did the incident take place? The more clues you find, the more you will be able to narrow down the many possible answers to those questions.

The sweet game of Candy Land conjures up fond childhood memories for us. The whimsical board game features landmarks like a candy cane forest and gumdrop mountains and colorful characters like Mr. Mint and Princess Frostine. The premise of Candy Land is simple, making this a game that even the youngest family members can enjoy. King Kandy is lost and the players are in a race to find him. Players take turns drawing from a stack of cards that tell them where to go on the board.

Cards indicate the next move by either color for the next square to move to or a picture of a landmark. The first player to reach the end of the board and find King Kandy wins. The first official Monopoly game hit the market in , and this game of buying property has been creating real estate titans ever since.

The board game requires risk and luck, as players buy and trade properties and try to not get thrown in jail. If you have the funds, players are allowed to buy available properties. You can then make income during the game by charging the other players' rent if they land on any of the spaces that you own. In order to win the game, you have to bankrupt your opponents, which can take a while. Scrabble is a beloved word game. Players are given a set number of wooden letter tiles to begin, and each letter is assigned a different point value.

You will immediately start analyzing your letter tiles to see what possible word combinations you might be able to create to play the most point-rich words.

Once one player has used all his or her tiles the game ends and points are tallied, but whoever ends up with the most points is the real winner.

These games demand skill and patience as you plot out trails, claim resources, and chart new territories. There are two grids for each player. One grid is used for placing your own vessels and tracking hits made against you, while the second grid is for marking the hits targeted at your opponent.

If a hit makes contact with a ship, then that strike gets pegged with red. The number of hits each kind of vessel can sustain before it sinks is varied. In this game, a map of the world is spread out on the game board, and all of the continents are broken up into territories. The end goal is for one player to conquer all 42 territories and eliminate the other players along the way. But first, a little diplomacy is required to get there.

We should add a time warning on this one, as a complete game of Risk can last upward of a few hours. Nobody ever said total world domination would happen quickly.

Stratego is like a Napoleonic version of capture the flag. In this two-person game of military moves, players arrange all 40 of their game pieces in whatever order they choose.

There are 12 different kinds of pieces, and each plays a different role that needs to be considered during setup. There are many layers of strategy involved in a successful setup, making this game as enjoyable for adults as it is for kiddos. Tread carefully—there are bombs planted to throw you off track and spies doing recon for the enemy. Players represent the Axis powers and the Allied powers, and in every turn get to make both combat and non-combat moves across the globe as well as decide what military units to build and whether or not to fund research.

Depending on the agreed-upon end goal, the aim is for your powers to have control of of the victory cities. Will the Allied or Axis powers prevail? Game pieces consist of pawns, rooks, bishops, knights, a queen, and a king, and there are different rules about how each piece can move. The best piece of advice we can give for this game is to take a step back and assess the whole situation before making a big move.

Turns out, Chess is also a pretty good metaphor for life. Backgammon is another board game that has been around for centuries. The playing area consists of 24 triangles of alternating colors and a bar down the middle of the board. The game is often incorporated into a folding case, which makes for easy cleanup and storage. To play, you are responsible for moving a set of 15 checkers around the board, with moves dictated by the rolling of two dice. You and your opponent are each responsible for 12 uniform game pieces, which you are allowed to move diagonally across the 8x8 checkerboard.

Checkers is relatively easy to learn, making it a great way to introduce younger players to games of strategy. Chinese Checkers is an approachable multiplayer strategy game that you can play with your whole family.

The wooden game board features a series of holes in the shape of a six-pointed star. Each point on the star is home to 10 colored pegs or marbles. Players take turns moving one of their pieces at a time.

You can only move one space at a time. However, if you have arranged your pieces in such a way that you can jump over them, you can advance multiple spaces in a single play much to the chagrin of your fellow players. Heading out on a road trip?

Try making your own magnetic Chinese Checkers game. Each player is given a set of 21 tiles in a specific playing color, and every tile in that set is a different geometric figure. To start the game, each player places the tile of his or her choosing in one of the corners of the square game board.

As play continues, it grows increasingly tricky to place your tiles on the board. Tiles of the same color are only allowed to touch at one corner, while tiles of different colors may share sides. Try to play all 21 of your tiles to win Blokus. In Agricola, if you work hard and play smart, your farm will flourish. The game is based on the premise that you are a farmer in 17th century Europe, and as such, you must perform the necessary duties to take care of your animals and land and provide for your family.

Work the fields and build up your homestead. Then grow your family to have more helping hands, but make sure you have enough resources to feed them come harvest. There are six harvests in a round game of Agricola.

Players accrue points during that time for things like owning animals, having fenced-in stables, and building bigger houses. After the final round has been played, the farmer with the most points and likely the most prosperous farm wins. These games are fun for kids to play and help them develop skills like critical thinking, creativity, and team building. All you need to do is take turns with another player dropping tokens into the open slots on the game.

To win, connect four of your colored tokens as quickly as possible, whether horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

If they have three in a row, you just might need to use your next turn to drop a strategically placed token to prevent them from connecting four of their own. Twister will, as the box promises, have you twisted up in knots and probably doubled over laughing, too. The mat has four rows of different colored dots and a cardboard spinner broken up into quadrants that dictates what body part goes on what color dot.

You will definitely be eliminated if you fall, but you also risk elimination if someone catches you resting a knee or elbow on the mat. See who can hold out the longest and become the Twister champion. The retrieval process can be tricky though. After all of the operations have been completed, the doctor with the most money wins. Players take turns tapping out ice cubes with one of the small plastic mallets provided. A player has to keep tapping the same ice cube until it becomes dislodged and falls from the ice tray, even if additional ice cubes also become dislodged in the process.

The more ice cubes that fall, the more precarious things become for the little penguin. Play continues until the penguin eventually falls through the ice. Hungry Hungry Hippos is a fast-paced marble-chomping game suitable for young players. Four colorful and hungry hippos on the game board are trying to chow down on 20 marbles that are launched into the middle of the board.

Players rapidly press a lever, which controls the hippo, in an effort to gobble up the most marbles. After all of the marbles have been consumed, count how many your hippo caught. The player whose hippo chomped down on the most marbles wins.

Boggle consists of 16 six-sided letter dice in a square tray. First you have to scramble the letters, which means putting the cover on the tray and giving it a good shake. Start the sand timer and write down all the possible words you can find. Words can be made from letters that are horizontal, vertical, or diagonal to one another, but they must be at least three letters long.

Once time is up, compare your lists of words with the other players. Any words that appear on more than one list are crossed out. In this game, you and the other player will play as two characters who meet, fall in love, and navigate the ups and downs of a modern relationship.

You'll have awkward encounters, funny moments, and painful situations to work through, and the decisions you each make in these moments will affect your character's satisfaction and traits, which in turn affect whether you achieve your long-term goals. There's also a possibility for one or both players to have hidden secrets, which will be revealed at the end and may affect the outcome. Like any relationship, your characters may find true love or end up heartbroken at the end, but the act of playing out this story together makes Fog of Love a truly unique and compelling experience.

Codenames is a ridiculously fun turn-based game that works with a larger group or even just two people ideally, you'd have at least four. In Codenames, you have two rival spymasters, each of whom knows the identities of 25 secret agents, which are reflected by their codenames on a 5x5 grid.

Each spymaster's teammates are trying to make contact with all of their agents before the other team. To do this, spymasters give one-word clues that could point to any number of codenames on the grid; for example, "animal" could refer to codenames like "Cat," "Dog," and "Turkey.

Players have to guess which codenames on the board belong to their team's spies while also avoiding codenames that could belong to the other team. Some cards on the grid are neutral, belonging to no team, and there's also an assassin--flip that card, and the game is over. Codenames is super easy to learn, and the variety of codename combinations available keeps each round interesting.

Exploding Kittens is another party favorite and a great family game for younger kids and adults alike. This card game involves tense minute rounds of drawing cards and using various actions to avoid drawing an exploding kitten, which means losing the game immediately. You'll draw certain cards that let you defuse an exploding kitten, peek at the next card in the deck, activate special powers, and more, so you can both save yourself and set up your fellow players to lose if you play your cards right.

Recommended for ages 7 and up, Exploding Kittens is one of the best party games to have around for family game night or a casual get-together with friends.

This beautiful card game has a simple premise: You're growing a tree in a forest and must expand it outward with branches that contain various icons, like mushrooms, caterpillars, or fireflies. The goal is to link branches that contain some of the same symbols on them, which will earn you points in return. With each season, the rules of the game and your hidden goals will change, earning you the chance to score extra points at the end of each round if you meet certain conditions.

Essentially, Kodama is a strategic pattern-matching game, but there's also something so calming about just trying to grow the best tree you can. It's a low-stress strategy game I'd recommend to anyone looking for an easy-to-learn game with a cute aesthetic. In addition to the standard edition, you can buy Kodama Duo , which tweaks the base game to make it more ideal for two players, and Kodama 3D , which maintains the same basic gameplay except you're actually building out the tree three-dimensionally, making it feel more immersive.

Stardew Valley the video game is often thought of as a casual, relaxing game in which you go around romancing NPCs, planting crops, and taking care of animals, but Stardew Valley: The Board Game is neither casual nor relaxing.

Instead, it's a fairly deep and challenging co-op strategy game that involves racing against the clock to complete a series of goals before the end of Year 1.

Don't get us wrong: It's incredibly fun. Whether you've already put hundreds of hours into the video game or just love a challenging co-op board game, you'll find a ton to love here. The board and pieces are absolutely gorgeous, and almost every gameplay mechanic from the video game is represented in some fashion, including mine diving, fishing, and befriending villagers.

Because players only have a limited amount of moves and actions each turn, intense cooperation and planning is required in order to achieve everything you need to by the year's end. Be warned that this is a longer game as well--a four-player game can easily take three hours to complete.

However, we still highly recommend Stardew Valley: The Board Game as a faithful and challenging tabletop adaptation of everyone's favorite farm sim. As of August , the game is currently out of stock at the Stardew Valley store, but developer ConcernedApe has promised future printings , so keep an eye out.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news gamespot. Number of players: 1 to 4 Time to play: 1 to 2 hours It's difficult to talk about great board games without mentioning Gloomhaven, which multiple GameSpot staffers listed among their personal top three. See at Amazon. Pandemic Legacy. Number of players: 2 to 4 Time to play: 60 minutes Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 ranks right behind Gloomhaven on BoardGameGeek's list of the best board games, and it happens to be one of our favorites as well.

Betrayal at House on the Hill. Number of players: 3 to 6 Time to play: 60 minutes If you're someone who finds haunted houses thrilling, you're sure to love Betrayal at House on the Hill. Number of players: 2 to 4 Time to play: 60 to 90 minutes Don't be fooled by the adorable woodland creatures on its cover--Root is an asymmetrical war game that's fairly complex, and you'll probably need to play multiple times to fully get the hang of it. Number of players: 1 to 5 Time to play: 90 to minutes Scythe is designed for one to five players, but it also comes with a built-in single-player mode, if you have trouble getting a group together or live alone.

King of Tokyo. Number of players: 2 to 6 Time to play: 30 minutes Designed by Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield, King of Tokyo is a card game that has you and your friends go head-to-head as monsters battling for control of Tokyo. Blood Rage. Number of players: 2 to 4 Time to play: 60 to 90 minutes Blood Rage is a board game inspired by Norse mythology, casting you and your fellow players as Vikings during the time of Ragnarok.

Mountains of Madness. Number of players: 3 to 5 Time to play: 60 minutes Inspired by the H. Number of players: 2 to 4 Time to play: 30 to 45 minutes Azul is an easy-to-learn game where you collect tiles based on azulejos , a type of Portuguese tile used as decoration in buildings.

Number of players: 1 to 5 Time to play: 40 to 70 minutes Wingspan is a newer board game released in , but it's become an instant hit, winning the Kennerspiel des Jahres award and selling out at launch. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong. Number of players: 4 to 12 Time to play: 15 to 30 minutes Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is one of the most fun social deception games we've ever played, and it's a great choice for big groups as well, as you can play it with up to 12 people.

Number of players: 2 to 6 Time to play: 15 minutes Coup is a card game about bluffing and bribing your way to power, so get ready to put on your poker face before challenging your friends. Number of players: 2 Time to play: 15 minutes If you love playing Tetris, you'll probably enjoy Patchwork, a two-player game where you place Tetris-like tiles on a 9x9 board of squares to slowly assemble a quilt.

Number of players: 3 to 4 Time to play: 60 minutes Even those who don't play board games have probably heard of Catan, a classic board game that focuses on resource-gathering and settlement-building that's simple to learn and addictingly fun. Ticket to Ride. Number of players: 2 to 5 Time to play: 30 to 60 minutes Another classic game, Ticket to Ride is incredibly simple to learn, but it also maintains enough tension to keep things interesting.

Number of players: 3 to 6 Time to play: 15 to 45 minutes Skull is the ultimate bluffing game, and the best part is that it's incredibly easy to teach to new players. See Skull at Amazon. Mansions of Madness. Number of players: 1 to 5 Time to play: to minutes Despite their similar names, Mansions of Madness has nothing to do with another game on this list, Mountains of Madness, although both are inspired by the works of H. Fog of Love. Number of players: 2 Time to play: 60 to minutes Another two-player board game, Fog of Love is a romantic drama played out in tabletop form.

Exploding Kittens. Number of players: 2 to 5 Time to play: 15 minutes Exploding Kittens is another party favorite and a great family game for younger kids and adults alike. Number of players: 2 to 4 Time to play: 30 minutes This beautiful card game has a simple premise: You're growing a tree in a forest and must expand it outward with branches that contain various icons, like mushrooms, caterpillars, or fireflies.

Stardew Valley: The Board Game. Number of players: 1 to 4 Time to play: 45 minutes per player Stardew Valley the video game is often thought of as a casual, relaxing game in which you go around romancing NPCs, planting crops, and taking care of animals, but Stardew Valley: The Board Game is neither casual nor relaxing. By playing this game, one can learn certain business strategies on a practical level. This is a board game popular amongst friends.

This board game requires wit as well and there are certain strategies which should be kept in mind while playing. This board game serves as a good pass-time and helps you to think well as you have the winning instinct.

In this board game, the players do not compete against each other. The players, instead, work in a team in order to save the world from diseases. This game is apocalyptic in nature and is popular amongst siblings and friends. It can also be played with the family. Scrabble is basically a game for kids who are being introduced to alphabets and are learning to form words on their own.

In this game, the player needs to arrange the blocks containing a letter to construct a word. The words can be created vertically and horizontally, both. This game helps the children to learn new words and should be taught to form them by themselves. Clue game happens to be another family favourite in which certain clues are given to find a particular object. This can be categorised as one of the mystery games which is interesting to play as you play the sleuth, think about the clue to find the object.

This game happens to be the favourite of children though this game is not for the very little ones. This particular board game happens to be famous among children. It can be played even by children who are unable to read or count.