All of the best board games have had a millennial glow up – shop our favourites in time for Christmas
Opening up some of the best board games is an ultimate passtime every festive season. Bored of your Uncle's politics chat? Divert the conversation with an adult board game. Parents falling asleep on the sofa? Keep them awake with a family board game. Yep: one of the best board games 2022 has to offer - whether that's good old fashioned Monopoly or something altogether more contemporary - is one of the best old-school pastimes there is. And we're stocking up while we still can.
We get it: up 'til now, family board games have been reminiscent of painful nights playing Scrabble with the in-laws or rainy Sundays in a Airbnb in Wales. Read: a bit dull, and probably the last thing you want to do when you’re already feeling a bit meh. But bear with us. Those classic board games you know and probably have PTSD over (*cough* Risk *cough*) have had a glow-up. Enter: a new generation of the best board games for adults to feast your eyes upon - including alcohol-orientated games and games themed around our favourite TV shows and films.
The best board games 2022 - at a glance
- Best overall - Big Potato Blockbuster Game, £17, John Lewis & Partners - TELL ME MORE or BUY IT NOW
- Best classic board game - Hasbro Trivial Pursuit Board Game, £33.99, John Lewis & Partners - TELL ME MORE or BUY IT NOW
- Best newcomer - Karen Party Game | Game from TV & Radio Personality Matt Edmondson, £22.99, Amazon - TELL ME MORE or BUY IT NOW
- Best for kids - Asmodee | Dobble | Card Game, WAS £12.99 NOW £9, Amazon - TELL ME MORE or BUY IT NOW
- Best for family - Mattel Games Balderdash, WAS £19.99 NOW £12.99, Amazon - TELL ME MORE or BUY IT NOW
- Best for adults - Ginger Fox Don't Be A Dik Dik Card Game, WAS £9.99 NOW £8.99, Amazon - TELL ME MORE or BUY IT NOW
Scroll for our pick of the best board games for adults to shop today.
Whether your family are Star Wars movie buffs or Marvel fanatics, Clipology will have them scouring the corners of their brains to remember film quotes, facts about their favourite cinematic moments and, in the game's all-play rounds, they'll have to test their attention to detail, too.
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If you've never played Monopoly Deal - the sneaky-handed card game version of the original property mogul game - then you simply must add it to your Xmas wishlist. With everything from bartering to luck of the draw gameplay with the game's iconic original Chance cards, this is a great game to introduce to your next Christmas game night.
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Everyone’s favourite Trivial Pursuit board game is still around and complete with up to date questions that aren't the same ones your parents have in their back cupboard from the 1960s. A top pick for new gamers who've just tipped over the teenage ‘stay-up-past-9pm’ cusp this Christmas, and older, time-earned trivia fanatics, too, this classic board game will never go out of style.
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A simple game, really, that challenges players to reach 100 the quickest without a dice but, instead, rolling a pair of pigs, this handy mini travel game is a top pick for younger kids and older kids alike. There are seven ways for your miniature pigs to land; is it a game of chance? Well, that depends on how you look at it…
This simple game is all about how you think - compared to everyone else. Beginning with a random question, everyone secretly writes down an answer and if your answer is in the majority, you win cows. If your answer is the odd one out, you'll land the Pink Cow and your herd will be worthless — unless you can pass it on.
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Ah Scrabble. The original crossword board game, just on a newer, less dusty board. It's the game that'll have you conjuring up seven letter words to score points aplenty, and questioning whether it really is a strategy board game after all. Younger players, be warned, the grown-ups will likely have some words you've never heard up their sleeves…just make sure to check them on it!
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The classic board game if ever we saw one, Monopoly takes you on a trip around London, whisking you on a spending spree across the city. Still celebrating the original game pieces, there’s the Scottie dog, top hat, thimble, boot, wheelbarrow, cat, racing car and battleship to choose from as well as a miniature version of the iconic shopping bag.
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The opposite of a cooperative board game, Risk will have your family enacting World War 3 in a bid to obtain control of the monopoly of countries. Not the best pick for sub ten-year-olds, but ideal for 11+, Risk is the bestselling tabletop game to crack out post-Christmas dinner.
Charades isn't exactly the new kid on the block, but it's an excellent party board game/card name nonetheless and will have you and your friends and family performing all over the shop in an attempt to act out different books, movies, songs and shows. What could be better?
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What Do You Meme is the card game that'll have you trying your hardest to make your fellow game players laugh by going to pick up meme cards with references to pop culture and general public ‘moments’ from London to New York, using them to illustrate caption cards in a bid to win the vote for funniest combination. Perhaps not the best family board game with grandma out of the TikTok loop, but a great gift idea for a teenager.
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This game will be trending after Christmas 2022, trust us. Based on the premise that your friends and family know how you would judge something, it asks players to estimate how you might rank something - could be a curry, could be a moral conundrum - within a different scale of opposites each round. Will your pals correctly guess your spice tolerance? Your pain threshold? Only time will tell.
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A grown-ups only version of pairs, Don't Be A Dik Dik is a word game and card game that asks adults to be the first player to get rid of all their cards by trading with their opponents matching the absurdly named animals into pairs but, they musn't be the player left with the ‘Dik Dik’ or they'll lose!
Save money on games involving a deck of cards and more with these John Lewis discounts
A game of fast-moving action cards and head-to-head rounds, Blockbuster brings back the old timey feel of heading out to pick up a new VHS each Friday by asking its players to compete in teams to prove who has the most cinema know-how. We've tested this one ourselves and, well, it's certainly an adult board game…not in terms of content, more the classic Christmas fall-outs that it'll set off!
Dobble (from game maker's Asmodee) unlike some of the best strategy games - Pandemic, Settlers of Catan etc - has no strategy. It's fun for kids and is based off the premise that on every card with its eight images, you and one of your co-players will share an image. How to win? Be the first player to get rid of all your cards by finding that image in each round.
A great gift or purchase for kids and adults of all ages, Exploding Kittens will have families on the edge of their seats as they draw and play cards, hoping to avoid drawing one of the - you guessed it - exploding kittens. If you do, you'll be out of the game, and so the game continues until one game player is victorious and hasn't been killed by the oh-so-dangerous exploding felines.
It's a classic, and it'll have you matching non-PC, sexual and immoral statements with equally horrible occurrences in a bid to make your fellow players laugh and/or guffaw the most. Cards Against Humanity is horrid, it's hilarious and you won't know what to think of it until you give it a go.
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A real traditional board game that your parents will remember playing when they were kids, Cluedo has players enacting a murder mystery by process of elimination to discover who was the killer. It's by no means a cooperative game - it's everyman for himself out in that manor.
Much like building a brand new Christmas LEGO when one of your little ones receives one from Santa, putting together a jigsaw under the tree is a great festive pass-time and this one is full of all sorts of little characters and illustrations to marvel at. Start with the corners, of course.
It's had a makeover since you might have seen it last, but Balderdash - from Mattel Games (previously Absolute Balderdash) - has family members making up ‘Balderdash’ lies to try and sound like a real fact. If your lie is picked by the majority as the real deal, then you can rack up points and, you guessed it, the player with the most points wins!
As far as we know, it's only been around since 2020, Things They Don't Teach You In School is a game of ‘useless’ knowledge for young adults and adults age 17+ that'll have you querying why doesn't the Mona Lisa have eyebrows? Good, clean, fun and likely one that you won't have played before unless you're a real aficionado of the best games.
Now with updated brands to bring in those younger family members that won't likely know that Jif changed to Cif in the ‘70s, the LOGO game has roundups of questions that increase in difficulty, with those game players with trivia special abilities going further on the board and closer to the winning square. That said, you might experience a bit of betrayal in this game, with one way to win the game sending players further forward with less correct answers…so there’s certainly a bit of strategy there.
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A game that'll be just as accessible for 5-year-olds as it will 50-year-olds, Do You Really Know Your Family is a relatively new kid on the block that asks players to answer rogue trivia about their family - what's dad's favourite colour, does mum have a wacky phobia? Plus, the challenge rounds will have the whole family dancing, role-playing and more, all at the mercy of that round's judge.
You know it and love it, Pictionary is the fast-drawing game that has players drawing out certain prompts for their teams to guess as many as possible within a set time. While there are newer expansion and spin-off Pictionary models - some involving apps and an interactive ‘Pictionary Air’ pen - this, the original base game, will always have a place in our hearts.
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We are well and truly obsessed. Scrap The Game of Life because Karen's on the scene and she's ready to complain to her heart's content. Based off of real life Trip Advisor reviews, Karen is a quick 30-45 minute playtime game that'll have you all trying to write your own hilarious 1-star reviews, in a bid to win the favour of the group as the review that sounds the most like the real one (planted among the others).
If you've watched Tenable on the telly, then you've understand the premise of tension. You and your fellow gameplayers simply have to name as many (up to a total of 10) names within a certain category as you can - e.g. Harry Potter actors, most popular video games. The twist? Only the 10 most popular will be on the card, so you've got to think wisely.
Ticket to Ride is popular with kids, teens and adults, asking players to compete to see who can travel the most parts of North America by rail within a short (and fictional!) seven-day period. More easy going than a game like Scythe or Risk, and, if you're after a one player game, you can actually play this came against Alexa - cool, right?
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After more Christmas guides? Check out our guide to the best gifts for kids, the best Christmas gifts for dads, the best Christmas gift ideas, the best Christmas gifts for women, the best cheap Christmas gifts (that won't look cheap), the best Christmas gifts for in-laws and the best Christmas gifts for long distance relationships.
For more from Glamour UK Commerce Editor Sophie Cockett, follow her on Instagram @sophiecockettx.
