10 Best board games to play with family and roommates during lockdown
We know, it is hard to go back to the routine of being locked up at home. Nevertheless, board games can always bring a room back to life. From Monopoly to What’s the meme?, in this article we recommend to you the top 10 board games to play with family and roommates during lockdown. Ready for some fun time?
This mix of classic and new board games will help you to kill some time. Grab your favourite one, light a candle and open some tasty wine. You deserve this. We found 5 of the best table games and for the card lovers (me included) five more. Don’t forget to suggest to us some board games you like to enjoy yourself!
Monopoly
Who doesn’t enjoy Monopoly? The most popular board game has its origin in 1903 and is still a favourite. The minimalistic but colourful board, the personalised tokens or maybe the power of chance makes it one of the most addictive board games of all time! You can be the richest on the table and still be ruined after ten minutes.
Do you want to see how? Pick a token to represent yourself and start traveling around the board. You will start with $1500 and from here, your knowledge, luck and moves will help you to buy the best properties or sell them as you try to earn more money. The first to lose all their money loses the game!
What makes Monopoly even better is that there’s not only the classic version but also lots of themed versions. From Super Mario Bros, to Star Wars, to Fornite. Also, there’s the Anti-Monopoly, where there is a fight between free market competitors and ruthless monopolists.
Buy the classic one at Smyths here for €17.99.
Players: 2-N (number of tokens in the board, you can always create your own ones).
Playing time: 20-180 minutes
Skills: Negotiation, strategy, money handling, resource management
Random chance: High (dice rolling, card drawing)
Hotels
An Oldie but a goldie, what a game for nostalgia! This board game was born in 1986, and was probably influenced by Monopoly. They are actually pretty similar: you have to get as many properties as you can. However, the ones in this game are popular buildings all around the world: Taj Mahal, Safari, President, Royal, Boomerang, Fujiyama, Le Grand and Waikiki, which makes it addictive in other ways. They are dimensional buildings so you are the one that has to build them and place them on top of the board once you buy them, which makes it more realistic.
In the words of a player, “I still think this is a better real estate game than Monopoly. There is just a bit more there; it’s easy to pick-up, and it will have an ending. We’re talking about a very similar set-up in terms of buying property and trying to build on it. Aside from Junior type games, there are not a lot of games that are easier to learn than this”.
It is difficult to find, but not impossible. We recommend you to buy the latest version on Amazon because the original one has become a unique piece for collectors (which makes it very expensive).
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 60 minutes
Skills: Negotiation, strategy, money handling, resource management
Random chance: High (dice rolling)
Off Topic
Off Topic is a fun board game that gets your brain juices flowing and sparks some fun game night conversations with roommates or family. Draw a card to establish the topics and roll the dice to establish the letter that your answers should begin. Turn the sand timer and you’re on! Race against time to write responses for each topic that begin with the laminated card. Your answers will get a little outrageous and a little OFF TOPIC!
What makes this game even funnier is the fact that you don’t only have to get the right answers and can defend them in front of your friends. That’s when the real fun happens. Buy on the Off Topic official website for €29.99 and free shipping so the fun times can start!
Players: 2-8
Playing time: 30-90 minutes
Skills: Negotiation, speed, high concentration capacity
Twister
Being drunk whilst trying to move your right foot to red when your hand left is on blue, your right one on yellow and your left foot on green…I know, it sounds a little too much. Made for testing your balance, Twister is probably the funniest game of them all. Flexibility, strength and the ability to endure laughter are involved. So, move your ass from the couch and try some ‘yoga’ with Twister, you will not regret it!
You can buy it at Smyths for €16.99
Rummikub
This successful and famous board game is a mix between cards and dominoes. Be the first player to play all the number tiles from their rack in a Rummikub game of strategy and skill. Lay down two types of tiles to clear your rack: groups or runs. Groups are sets of the same number in different colours, while runs are sets of consecutive numbers in the same colour. Soon you’ll be seeing Rummikub patterns everywhere!
This game is a good choice for exercising your memory to the fullest. Who wins? The most agile and luckiest player that can get more wild tiles. But don’t forget to use your jokers, whoever runs out of tiles first wins!
Get it at Smyths for €24.99 and
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 30-60 minutes
Skills: Strategy, agility, high concentration capacity
Random chance: High (random tiles)
And for Card Games lovers…
Cards Against Humanity
Here is the most bizarre game that awakens the beasts, at least that’s what the founders say about it: “Cards Against Humanity is a party game for horrible people. Unlike most of the party games you’ve played before, Cards Against Humanity is as despicable and awkward as you and your friends“.
The game is simple. Each round, one player asks a question from a black card and everyone else answers with their funniest white card. Get ready for black humour, lots of sexual answers and fun to no limits. The funniest player wins.
Since 2013, the creators of Cards Against Humanity have held satirical promotions on Black Friday. In 2013, an “anti-sale” was held in which the game’s cost was raised by $5. Despite its higher price, the game maintained its best-selling status on Amazon and experienced a minor spike in sales during that period. Two years ago, the creators held a “99 Percent Off Sale”, selling random items (such as a used 2015 Ford Fiesta, medieval weapons, and even cash) for 99% off, with a new item every 10 minutes. Read here if you want to know more about it.
Many versions and extensions are available apart from the classic: Family Edition, Absurd Box, Red Box, Blue Box, Green Box, Ass Pack, 2000s Nostalgia Pack, Period Pack, Pride Pack, Theatre Pack, Saves America Pack, World Wide Web Pack, Jew Pack, Geek Pack, Sci-Fi Pack, Design Pack, Science Pack, Holidays Packs and Your Shitty Jokes. Buy the classic one in the Cards Against Humanity official website for €25 and get wild!
Players: 3-20+
Playing time: 30-90 minutes
Skills: Creativity, fun, agility, high concentration capacity
UNO
One more classic for the list, UNO is a must be playing during lockdown. Uno, meaning “one” in Spanish and Italian, it is the ultimate game for all the family but also for playing with your roommates. All you have to do is match colours and numbers while bothering the player next to you, and then…shout UNO when you have one card left! There are also special action cards and wild cards for unexpected excitement and game-changing fun.
It’s on sales now in Smyths for only €5.49!
Players: 2-10
Playing time: 10-30 minutes
Skills: Hand management, agility, high concentration capacity
Random chance: High (random cards)
Virus
Personally, my favourite game of them all, even more in Covid-19 times! The aim of the game is having a healthy organism made of four different ‘organs’: a red heart, a green stomach, a yellow bone and a blue brain. To win, the organs can’t be infected.
Purple cards (wild cards) make the game much more competitive as well as fun. With them, anything can change in a few seconds. Perhaps, you think you are winning because you have three healthy organs plus the one that is missing in your hand and, suddenly, another player puts a card on top of the table that makes you have to exchange your full body (your cards) with his…Time to start over again, aghh!
Buy Virus here for €18.95 whilst keeping yourself as safe as possible!
Players: 2-6
Playing time: 20 minutes
Skills: Strategy, agility, high concentration capacity
Random chance: High (random cards)
Timeline
Are you a freak when it comes to general knowledge? Timeline is a card game for the curious ones. It features major events, innovative inventions and discoveries from around the world like: Titanic movie release date, the foundation of whiskey, the year Martin Luther King uttered his famous ‘I have a dream’ or even when the Rock and Roll genre was born.
The game is simple. Every card represents a historical event, innovation or discovery on both sides, with only one side being made of the year in which the event took place, innovation or discovery. Players take turns putting on the table a card from their hand in a row. The player shows the date on it after inserting the card. The card will remain in place if the card has been positioned properly with the date in chronological order with all other cards on the table; otherwise the card will be eliminated from play and the player will take another card.
Three versions are available, you can buy them via Amazon:
- Timeline base game – Guess the date of dozens of scientific, technological, and medical achievements in Timeline Science Museum
- Events Expansion – Guess the date of creation for dozens of historical events
- Inventions Expansion – Guess the date of dozens of inventions
- British History Expansion – Had tea been brought to Britain before cricket’s first Test Match? Had Jack the Ripper’s murders already been committed by the time that women received the right to vote? Guess the data of these British historical events and much more!
Players: 2-8
Playing time: 15-30 minutes
Skills: Historical knowledge, high concentration capacity
What Do You Meme?
This game will make your night. What do you meme? is the adult party game taking the internet by storm. Find out who will be crowned Meme Queen/King by competing with friends (or family if you’re brave) to match photo cards with caption cards, creating your own outrageously funny meme combinations.
Each round, a rotating judge plays a Photo Card and everyone else plays a Caption Card to complete the meme. The judge decides the funniest pairing, and whoever played the winning Caption Card wins the round. Lather, rinse yourself, repeat.
Can you create the most striking combination? Make everyone laugh to win! Buy it for €25 here and check all versions available at the official website.
Players: 3-20+
Playing time: 30-90 minutes
Skills: Creativity, fun, agility
What is your favourite board game from all times? Any game you recently discovered and you can’t live without?
Don’t forget to check out these links:
Fantastic article, I’m going to thirft shop to find any of them…
Tyyyyyy????
Happy Halloween
Might I suggest doing some actual research next time. This list displays nothing relevant in the hobby these days. Check out the board game geek website for some inspiration.
The aim was solidarity, but there are always people who get upset. There are a thousand articles on new and more elaborate games, so the criteria on which I have relied are classic games and some to discover. What’s more, the old headline was Top 10 Classic Games to play with family and roommates during lockdown. Still, thanks for your visit! 🙂