Game night nerds unite! One of my favorite things to do is unbox a brand new board an/or card game and give it a spin with some close friends and family. I don't always find the time for an excellent game night, but I do dabble in collecting games for when the time comes.
Here are 5 games that I am absolutely digging the crap out of right now!
Made by one of my UK pals, Big Potato Games, this trivia-friendly game gives you four specific questions per card and then has you (or your team) figuring out the link between the four answers. Example: 1. What's the name for a slug with a house? SNAIL.
2. Which animals represents Cancer in the zodiac calendar? CRAB
3. A John Steinbeck novel, The _____. PEARL
4. What are often painted and given out at East? EGGS
LINK: SHELL
Get it? I get it, and it's really fun for you or your team to figure these out. There are several hundred cards too, so lots of variety. There's an app, too, if you want to try it out!
#4. SCRABBLE (MAGNETIC WALL EDITION) Are you still playing Words with Friends and destroying your relationship with your Aunt Gail? If so, you will dig this magnetic wall-hangable version of Scrabble that also doubles as a message board. The tiles stick to the board and the back of your metal tile rack, to hide your letters from opponents, and the game can last for weeks with you taking a turn every few days. Best of all, it's all portable, so you can bring it on something like a camping trip and the magnetism make it easier to not lose letters. The whole thing's really well made, so if you're a word nerd, you need this.
The gnarliest party game of them all keeps on finding ways to make everyone uncomfortable, and the stocking stuffer I got this year is no different!
Mine was holiday themed, but with so many additions like The Weed Pack, The Geek Pack and the Your Sh#tty Jokes Pack (blank cards for you to write your own stuff on), this company knows how to make you howl with friends and awkward relatives.Even in my small pack of 30 cards or so, there are so many great combos. Definitely wants to make me explore the other packs.
You really can't go wrong with any of the old You Don't Know Jack games from the PC days, and you really REALLY can't go wrong with the newer party editions where everyone's smartphones become the buzzers. I grabbed the Jackbox Party Pack 4 on the Nintendo Switch featuring the 5 games Fibbage, Survive the Internet, Monster Seeking Monster, Bracketeering, and Civic Doodle, all of which are amazingly fun in their own right. Fibbage is the classic staple where you guess weird facts about your friends, and all of the games have a Cards Against Humanity picking or voting vibe so if you like that style buy literally all of the Jackbox volumes for insane fun.
Man, this game is a blast. I had it on my Amazon Wishlist for the podcast and my pals The Wanzers actually bought it for me! We've played this at 3 family get togethers and everyone young and old has had the funnest time trying to remember the cards. Here's how it works. You create a deck of cards (around 50 for a decent sized group) and you split into two teams. There are three rounds, the first of which is getting your team to guess the words by saying anything except the word (ala looser Taboo). Round 2, you use the same deck of cards but you can only use ONE word to get them to guess, so this is where the memory comes into play. Round 3, you can only act out the words without saying anything, again using the same cards everyone now knows twice. It seems simple enough but with cards like CHARLES MANSON and BLACKULA you will be in stitches trying to guess. Buy the hell out of this game. It also has hard-to-find expansions.
I hope these recs help make your next game night a huge success! Hit me up with your favorites in a tweet, @ryanbudds.
