A classic gaming tradition has been making a comeback in recent years with a slew of new card games, board games and tabletop games geared towards folks who grew up playing Monopoly and Yahtzee with Mom and Dad on Friday night. I’m talking, of course, about family game night, and while the classics are all still around and still a lot of fun, there’s a whole new crop of games that bring a lot of laughs and excitement to the table. With Christmas right around the corner, I wanted to share some of my group’s favorites for anyone that’s looking for a cool gift for the gamer on their list.

First up is the one that started game night between Steph and I and our group of friends: Cards Against Humanity. *Disclaimer: Dubbed “A Party Game for Horrible People”, this game is NOT for kids. The gameplay is very similar to Apples to Apples, but a little more — umm — horrible. Players draw ten white cards which contain hilarious and often kinda dark phrases, and one player plays a black card with a Mad Lib style fill-in-the-blank question like “Why am I sticky?”. Players each play a white card that completes the thought and whoever flipped the black card decides which answer is the best — or worst, or most silly, or what have you. We rarely keep score when we play; it’s just a lot of fun to see what kind of twisted things we can come up with.

A much more family-friendly game that is high on our list is Taboo. This game apes the classic game show $10,000 Pyramid, as players attempt to get their team to guess a word or phrase. The catch is, you can’t say a lot of the things you would typically say to make folks guess the word. A member of another team is on hand with a buzzer if you slip up, and there’s a timer running each round. Synonyms and inside jokes win the day (I once got Steph to say “carnival” by saying “You eat your way through these”), and the stress of the timer makes for some fun stutters and slip-ups. A good time for the whole family, Taboo usually gets played for at least a little while during each of our game nights. There is also an adult version called Midnight Taboo that has slightly more racy phrases for you to make your team guess for the evenings when the kids are away.

The newest addition to our game night rotation’s must-play list is Telestrations. This one plays a bit like Telephone, where one person whispers something to their neighbor and so on down the line until the phrase becomes something completely different by the time the last person hears it. The difference is, you draw it instead of saying it. Make your sketch, and pass your booklet to the left, and that player has to guess what you drew, then pass the booklet on. The next player in line then draws what they guessed the first player drew. Sometimes it’s correct, and everyone guesses and draws the same thing, but more often than not the pictures and guesses go off on an amusing tangent. This game also has an adult version called Telestrations After Dark that has you drawing chuckle-worthy images that would make Beavis and Butthead proud.

For the trading card game players out there looking for something a bit quicker and accessible while still satisfying that strategy itch, I’d recommend a game called Gloom. This fun little gem has you sealing the fate of a family of five that all look like they came straight out of a Tim Burton movie. You play modifiers, one-time events, and reactionary cards to make your family members as sad as possible before ultimately having them meet a grisly demise. The cards are transparent, and you stack them on the family members, applying negative ones to your own family like having them be “beset by boils” while applying positive ones to other players families to raise their spirits. Once someone is sad enough for your liking, you can play an Untimely Death card on them to remove them from play, and once an entire family has kicked it, the game ends. It’s a simple set of rules, but there is a lot of strategy involved as you try to manipulate the numbers to make sure your family is the saddest.

The last game I want to talk about is a fun little adventure game I was just introduced to recently called Munchkin. This easy to learn game has you kicking down doors, fighting monsters, and equipping your hero with weapons and armor to fight bigger and badder monsters. Each monster grants a level when defeated, and it’s a race to level ten. Much like Gloom, there are reactionary cards that can steal levels, aid players OR monsters, etc., adding a fun bit of strategy and politics to the game as you jockey for position. Quick to learn, and fun to play, this one is great for young gamers and adults alike.

While the classic games like Life and Battleship will always be staples of any good family game night, I urge you to check out some of the new games available this holiday season. There are certainly worse ways to spend an evening than sitting around the kitchen table playing games with friends and family!

By Erik Nordstrom