25 Best Board Games for Parties
 If you’re wondering how to entertain your guests at your next party, look no further than Amazon, Target or a nearby toy store. Bring out your favorite new and old board games to keep everyone engaged and having a great time!
Classic Board Games
These original board games have stuck around for good reason. With these games, the adults might be showing the kids how it’s really done!
- Trivial Pursuit - Move around the board by correctly answering trivia questions in this 1980s hit! In the newer editions, your pop-culture knowledge on various topics like Lord of the Rings and Saturday Night Live will serve you well.
- Sorry! - Find out who your true enemies are in the game where all you can say is, “Sorry!” and keep moving. The goal is to get all your pawns back to the safe zone while other players try and bump you back to the start.
- Candy Land - Let the nostalgia kick in for the older players and the fun kick in for everyone with this board game for all ages! Race to the castle and uncover sweets — both sweet and sour — along the way.
- The Game of Life - Take advantage of this chance to reinvent your life. Even if it is only for the duration of the game, you can decide your relationship, education and employment status. The first to accomplish their goals and reach retirement wins The Game of Life!
- Risk - Get caught up in a game of conflict and conquest to see who can capture the most territories and rule the Earth. As easy as that may sound, Risk is filled with alliances and betrayals that you must navigate to win the game.
- Settlers of Catan - Start your event off with an adventure to see who can build various structures just like real settlers would on the island of Catan. Players must use their wit and intelligence to manage collecting resources and sabotaging other players to see who will be the first to reach ten points.
- Clue - Solving mysteries never really does get old! Lay out this murder-mystery guessing game and travel around the mansion to discover who the murderer is and how they did it. Don’t worry — no real crimes are involved!
- Pictionary - Be the first to reach the last space on the board after completing timed rounds of one person drawing a card and the others on the team guessing the image. If the team guesses correctly, you move towards winning the game!
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New and Improved Board Games
While sometimes it’s more comfortable to stick to your parents’ favorite board game, try these newer, more detailed games to increase the fun even more!
- Codenames - Get your brain thinking and working with this game to solve codes and other puzzles in the world of spies. Separate into two teams, choose your spymaster and start solving clues!
- Anti-Monopoly - If you’re wondering if this is the same game as the classic “Monopoly” board game, think again! In this spin-off, players can turn against monopolized businesses and indict cases to bring the board back to a free market system. For all anti-monopoly people out there, this game is here to help you rebalance your monopoly board game.
- Decrypto - Put your detective caps on and try to successfully decipher the other team's code words before they unravel yours. Match your code words to numbers and use your wits to decrypt the other team's puzzle to win!
- When I Dream - Enter the world of good dreams and nightmares as the Dreamer attempts to guess different elements of their dream that have been distributed to good spirits and evil spirits. If the Dreamer gets the element correct, the card goes to the good spirits’ side and to the evil spirits’ side if they are wrong. Don’t let the tricksters get away with fooling you by making sure good spirits end up with the most cards!
- Sequence - Keep your guests on their toes with this ageless favorite where Bingo meets cards. Each player starts with a hand of playing cards and gets the chance to cover the corresponding spot on the board with a chip by playing a card. The first person to cover five spots in a row wins!
- Spontuneous - If you know your song lyrics, this game is for you! Whether you sing it or shout it, the first person to sing at least five lyrics of a song containing the trigger word wins the point.
- Googly Eyes - See who the true artists are by testing who can draw their topic while impaired… by vision-distorting goggles! Roll the dice to see the level of intensity of the goggles you have to wear while drawing what is on the card. Your team will try to guess what you draw, and you keep choosing cards until your team guesses incorrectly.
- Pandemic - Four diseases have broken out across the world, and your role as players is to discover four cures to save the world! Players must work cooperatively instead of competitively to use their combined brainpower to overcome this global pandemic.
- Ticket to Ride - Learn this game about claiming railways routes, drawing more cards or getting additional destination tickets to conquer the railway system in North America. This intricate game will leave you wanting to keep playing after you’ve dominated tracks against your opponents!
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Fun Card Games
Board games are great and all, but if you want to spice up your party, bring out the cards! What these card games lack in dice and a board, they make up for in laughs.
- Cards Against Humanity - Bring out this adult-geared game at your next party - there’s no limit to what outrageous topics might be included! The “Card Czar” chooses a black card with a topic on it and everyone else hands over a white card that fills in the blank. The Czar then chooses the best answer based on which one makes them laugh the most!
- Apples to Apples - This family-friendly version of Cards Against Humanity will have you laughing in no time! Players win rounds by matching red cards with adjectives on the card to the green cards with nouns on them. The judging player chooses the winner, so it helps to know whether accuracy or laughing will win you the point!
- What Do You Meme? - Make sure you are up to date on your pop culture references in the world of memes for this game. The winner will be crowned King or Queen after matching the most captions to a picture to create hilarious combos!
- UNO - Start with seven cards and make it your goal to get rid of your hand the fastest. Place cards in the middle when they either match the color or number of the previous card. When you have one card left, make sure you say “uno” before another player catches you or else you have to pick up the pile in the middle!
- Phase 10 - Be the first player to complete all 10 phases by laying your cards down differently in each phase. Be careful! Other players may move on to new phases faster, so you have to catch up to win!
- Monikers - Channel your inner celebrity, historical figure or well-known personality to get the laughs flowing at the party and win the round for your team. The rules are simple — you pick a card with a name on it and you have to get people to guess who you impersonate. The goal is to go through as many cards as possible without saying the name of the person.
- Game of Phones - Integrate smartphones into a board game night with this card game. Smartphones are required, but you can team up to have more fun when you draw cards with phone-based tasks on them. These tasks can range anywhere from creating horror stories with emojis to taking a silly selfie in order to create an ultimate digital scavenger hunt!
- Say Anything - This card game is a more open-ended version of Cards Against Humanity with more opportunities for creativity and laughs. The Judge will draw a card with a question like, “What would be the best thing to do on the moon?” and the person with the funniest answer gets a point! The person with the most points wins.
With these board games at the table, your next party will be roaring with laughter, betrayals and fun before you know it!
Celine Ives is a college student who enjoys playing field hockey, cuddling with her dog and cheering on her Carolina Tar Heels.
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