post off: do you enjoy a game night?
Growing up, my family could often be found around the table playing a wild game of Yahtzee or Pictionary. These days, I’ve been spending more evenings in my living room and less out on the town in an attempt to save some money. Instead of sitting in front of the TV all night, my boyfriend and I often play a game of Scrabble or cribbage. Do you have game night at your house? If so, what are your favorites? –Erica P.
Photo by Sam Hatch.
Just had one last Friday.
Apples to Apples and Taboo are GREAT for game night entertainment.
We are pretty board-game obsessed at our house, probably also because we don’t go out much anymore either. Our current favorite is Settlers of Catan (which you have pictured above), and we’ve gotten a good number of our friends obsessed with it too. We also play the 2 player Settlers of Catan card game, since it’s often just my husband and I playing games together. Carcassone and Alahambra are good investments because they can be played with 2 people or more people. Ticket to Ride is another fun game that’s pretty easy for a group of people to learn.
my husband and I love board+card games and (we were married 8 years before kids) we spent many an evening playing mille bornes, chinese checkers, othello, monopoly, battleship, yahtzee and so on. Our little boy turned four recently and we are happy to be at the game age at last (we had to take an extended break!). Now many nights after dinner we have a family game of crazy eights, candyland, or chutes and ladders. :) We’ve also found it’s a great way to fill the gap between dinner and bathtime (esp. in winter when it’s too cold/dark to do anything outside).
I grew up with 5 sibs and played a ton of card games and board games, I love them!
living alone I don’t get the chance at home, but as a kid 7:30 weeknights meant a mean game of cribbage and now I regularly go to a friends house to play pop5 or cranium or one of those would you rather style games.
Also iphone trivial cribbage is pretty good and lets you count your own cards.
Every Sunday night we have game night in our house. My kids are only 2 and 4 so our favorites right now are candyland, shutes and ladders and bingo.
We don’t actually have game night, but we have Unplugged Night. No computer, no video games, no TV. Sometimes it turns into game night with the only boardgame we have right now, Mancala, but other times it turns into reading night, or going to sleep early night.
I love the idea of unplugged night.
My 12 year old and I play a very competitive game of Scrabble set to the backround of streaming Jazz from a France radio station.
Don’t ask me why but that’s what we do!
We often get up to 300 pts. and it is so much more fun than sitting around our 13″ TV.
My 2 younger sons love charades and we play in teams.
Growing up with a bridge playing mom and a poker playing dad, I wish I had that adult diversion but don’t know either game.
If you like Scrabble, you owe it to yourself to check out Bananagrams. Not to replace Scrabble, surely no, but to get that Scrabble feeling without all the Scrabble rigmarole. We’re sort of becoming addicted at my house.
When we were home for Christmas, our Christmas day party was kind of devolving into the “everyone sits around in a food coma and stares.” So we badgered my 13-year-old niece to find us a game and the “young folks” and a few adults (like me) not afraid to make fools of themselves ended up playing Guesstures for a couple hours while everyone else watched. It was hilarious.
Skip-Bo and Phase 10, both easy to set-up card games, are staples for my boyfriend and I!
My family was very competitive growing up. The pressure at our game nights was intensely unpleasant.
Now that I’m grown, I never play board or card games because I simply want to win too much.
I’m both a poor loser and a poor winner, which is a socially unacceptable combination to have at a game night.
Also, I don’t even enjoy playing at all. I just hate the whole stressful feeling. I end up crabby no matter what happens, even if I win, so no, I really don’t enjoy game nights.
Love a good game night! Our favorites – Balderdash (for a large group), Phase 10 and Yahtzee.
Game nights rule! My roomie and I are big fans of Trivial Pursuit and Yahzee. We’ve taken some liberties with Yahtzee and now call it Saki! Whenever one of rolls a yatzee we yell out “saki!” and both of us have to do a shot of saki. Obviously, not for the kids, but lots of fun with a group of friends.
Love game time! Cribbage is my favorite but a newer game I like is apples to apples. Game night also always brings out good food.
I love board games. We haven’t had game night in a while. We should start that again. I love Scattegories for a group. My hubby and I used to play Cribbage prekids. Now that they are older we could play again. Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions of games. I hadn’t heard of a few and they would make great new additions to our collection of games.
Catan is my favorite game as of late. I love it!
I also have to plug Bananagrams! My parents gave me and my sister each a copy a couple years ago, and everyone we’ve played it with has gone out and bought it for themselves – it’s a great little game, and wonderfully portable as well!
Citadels is a really great game that works with 3-8 players. Pit is also highly amusing (though it can get pretty loud!).
I just learned how to play Mexican Train Dominoes this weekend and it is my new favorite game!
Games of all types were important in our house growing up. My dad taught us to count with Cribbage, and taught us about probability with backgammon. And my mom would buy a family gift every Christmas of a new board game.
Luckily my husband likes games too, and we have a few couples that we play with – one friend has a line item in his budget simply for his game buying. It’s great for our friends with small children. We can meet up at someone’s house so not as many people are paying for childcare. We like several of the games already mentioned (banagrams, settlers, ticket to ride). Other favorites include Epidemic (a cooperative game about stopping outbreaks! go public health!) and Powergrid (a supply and demand game).
I am not a huge fan of board games, HOWEVER – Celebrity is the best parlor game that I have ever played!
[Everyone puts 2-4 names of celebrities (politicians, writers, actors, fictional characters...) into a bowl. You get 30 or 60 seconds to get your teammates to guess the name per turn. Teams of 3-4 people are best. Each turn one person on one team goes for the designated time trying to get as many names as possible, then the bowl gets passed to the other team, rotating team members as you go. It is best to listen to all the descriptions, even from the other team as you will most likely have to get your teammates to guess the same names later on.
Round 1: You can use words to describe the person as long as you don't use their name. And I say, no rhyming. Put the same names back in the bowl and start
Round 2: You get one word to get your teammates to guess the celebrity. If you use the one word you can't pass or say anything else during that turn.
Round 3: Charades, no talking at all.
You can't pass if you don't know the person, but you can consult with a teammate who is then stricken from guessing.] So much fun!