Board Games for a Variety of Ages

Words, probability, and a bit of fun deceit

Photo by Andrey Metelev on Unsplash

I love board games and have since childhood, even though winner-take-all games like Sorry! and Monopoly can be rough on someone who doesn’t take to losing very well. (Ahem.)

In my adult years I discovered the enjoyment of more European-style games that tend to focus on individual strategy, with the winner only revealed at the end, like Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Carcassonne.

I’m also a big fan of ‘party’ board games, where everyone is in on the action, like Charades, Pictionary, and Cranium.

(And if you’re trying to live even a slightly more low-tech life with your people, board games are a great place to start.)

Luckily for me, this summer we’ve been visiting households filled with people various ages, which means that basically any time I’ve said, “does anyone want to play a game?” The answer has been yes.

I thought I would share a few that turned out to be a lot of fun.

Banagrams

I played this with my 11-year old godson and everyone else said it was the “longest game of Bananagrams they had ever seen,” so I think it’s meant to be a pretty fast one! Players simultaneously create what looks like their own crossword puzzle with individual letter tiles - only, you can re-arrange as much as you want every time you get new letters. The first person to use all his/her letters wins. (I didn’t re-arrange, which I think extended the length of the game quite significantly.)

Boggle

We played this with everyone in the house who can write, ages 7 to adult. Shake up the random letter grid, flip the timer, and see how many words you can find. Points are assigned based on uniqueness: if no one else writes down your words, you get points. The longer the word, the more points you get. The 7 year old was obviously at a disadvantage, but apparently, so was I! The college student trounced us all, every time.

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Cryptid

Think of it like Clue, but on steroids. The board is arranged in a unique way for each game, and each player is given a secret clue as to the winning space. Players take turns asking each other if any given space could be the winning one, based on their clues. There’s a lot of complicated probability to be worked out: is it likely that the winning space is always two spaces away from a building? Is her clue tied to terrain or animal habitat? You can complicate it further through misdirection by asking questions that contradict your own clue. We played with teens on up, and once again, a college student took the victory.

Codenames

This is one where you have to work hard at cryptic communication without misdirection. Give your team one-word clues and hope that they guess the correctly associated word on the board without blowing everything up by choosing the wrong one. We played this in teams with elementary on up. Personally I think shared cultural memory must be key for this game, because my British husband and I can never win when we play alone! Siblings with inside jokes would probably make great teammates.

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The Chameleon

This is a fun game of deceit and misdirection. Everyone knows which word on the card is the correct one… except the chameleon, who must try to blend in by giving a clue to the unknown word. It must be vague enough to be applicable, but not so vague that it looks like you don’t know. It also has to be specific enough not to rouse suspicion, but still generally applicable. (A card with words under the theme “drinks”, for example, might list anything ranging from chocolate milk to champagne. “Cold” is too vague, but “fizzy” is too specific.) At the end of the round, everyone votes on who they think the chameleon is. We played with teens on up, but elementary kids could probably manage most of it. Once again (I’m noticing a theme here), the college students managed to pull off several victories. 

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I’d love to hear if you have any favourite games you play, either in groups of various ages, or just with two adults. We’re always looking for new games to try!