Greatest board games of all time

Each color along the game path indicates which of the four card categories you have to pull from to proceed. If you successfully complete the challenge presented on the card you get to roll a die and continue that number of spaces. As an added bonus for time-crunched families, the game board offers three different rates of play.

Dominoes is great fun for players of all ages, so grab Grandma and a set of dominoes and start play! While there are a variety of games you can play with dominoes, one of our favorites is Mexican Train. The first player to complete his or her train wins. The Chutes and Ladders game board contains squares and depicts a series of ladders and slides. Each ladder represents a good deed and its reward, but every slide represents the consequences of bad behavior. Every player starts in the first square and a spinner dictates how many spaces a player can advance from there.

The first player to the square wins. Watch fields, roads, and cities rapidly expand in the Medieval-themed game Carcassonne. Players take turns placing one of the game tiles in an attempt to build up their land. The role and subsequent point value of a follower varies depending on what piece of property you put them on. For instance, a follower placed on a monastery tile is a monk who earns different points than a follower placed on a road tile as a thief.

Calculate your moves carefully, because once all the tiles have been played, the player with the most points wins.

In this single-player game, try to free the red escape car by maneuvering the cars and trucks out of the way. This will likely take lots of little moves, as the blocking vehicles can only move forward or backward in the direction they are facing. Traffic Jam comes with 40 different challenges with varying levels of difficulty. Depending on the puzzle, up to 15 cars and tracks can be in the way but, slowly and carefully, you can shift them to free the red car.

Buy It: Rush Hour Jr. In Trouble, the goal is to be the first player to get all four of your pieces around the board and back home again. The premise is simple, but there are challenges along the way. For a piece to leave home base, you first have to roll a six.

After that, pieces can advance normally based on the die roll. If another player lands on a spot occupied by one of your pieces, your piece is sent back to home base and has to start the process again. All aboard! The stakes are high in this game to see who can visit the most cities in North America in just seven days. In Ticket to Ride, players lay claim to railroads across the United States and Canada and compete to connect the most cities with their trains.

Draw cards to see what kind of train car you can play or what your next destination might be. Earn points for placing trains and for successfully connecting two destination cities.

The game ends when a player has less than two trains remaining, and bonus points are then awarded to the player who created the longest continuous route. The player with the most points wins. You have a ticket to ride, so where will your journey take you? Move your four pawns around the board and safely navigate them home again in the game of Sorry.

Sorry is a competition, and there are two ways to set back your opponents. Win by being the first to get all four of your pawns home. A scoring system exists if you wish to play multiple rounds of this game.

Buy It: Sorry! Each round, players receive three opportunities to roll up to five dice. After each roll, you can evaluate the dice and choose which, if any, you want to roll again. You are looking for a pattern that will work for one of the 13 possible Yahtzee categories. At the end of your turn, choose which category you will use for that round and tally the score accordingly. You can only use a category once per game, so choose carefully. At 50 points, a Yahtzee is the highest possible score you can roll.

Play up to 13 rounds and then tally your scores; the player with the highest score wins. Nothing gets the fun going like an invigorating game that prompts players to shout, act, and strategize on the fly. Pictionary is a party game suitable for players of all ages. Teams take turns drawing and guessing as many words or phrases as possible in a timed round. You might think a game of drawing sounds easy, but this game can be more difficult than it seems. The path on the Pictionary game board is comprised of different colored squares, each denoting a different level of difficulty for a word on the corresponding game card.

Play using the board and be the first team to make it all the way to the finish line, or ditch the board altogether and play just for the laughs. We dare you to try and keep a straight face during a game of Apples to Apples.

This clever party game will have everyone laughing out loud. Each box contains a set of green apple cards, which have adjectives on them, and a set of red apple cards, which have nouns on them. Each round, a new player gets to be the judge and presents a green apple card to the group. The rest of the players select one of the red apple cards from their hands to play. Sometimes the nouns match the adjectives perfectly, sometimes they make no sense at all, and sometimes they are downright hysterical.

Once everyone has contributed a red card, the judge chooses a favorite. Depending on your group you could play just for fun, or designate a set number of rounds and see who can play the most winning cards in that time. Scattergories is a fun list-making game that requires thinking fast.

The idea of the game is to come up with creative answers to 12 different categories—things like TV shows, U. At the start of each round, you roll a sided letter die which decides the letter that every answer must begin with. Then you set the sand timer and get going! When the time is up, players compare their answers with one another. If the same answer appears on more than one list it gets crossed off, but a player receives one point for each unique word.

The winner is the player who has the most points after three rounds. In this fast-paced game, players try to get their teammates to say the word on an electronic disc without actually saying that word or any variations of it.

The disc has some 10, words stored in it. Get your teammates to say a word and then quickly pass the disc to the opposite team. This process continues, passing the disc from team to team until the round ends.

A timer embedded in the disc gradually beeps faster and faster until it abruptly sounds a loud buzz, signaling the end of a round. Move fast! Taboo is the game of forbidden words. Moon and published in by Days of Wonder. Pandemic is based on the premise that four diseases have broken out in the world, each threatening Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a chessboard, a checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid.

It is one of the world's most popular games, played by Ticket to Ride: Europe. Ticket to Ride Europe takes you on a new train adventure across Europe. From Edinburgh to Constantinople and from Lisbon to Moscow, you'll visit great cities of turn-of-the-century Europe.

More than Dominion is a deck-building game created by Donald X. Vaccarino and published by Rio Grande Games. Each player uses a separate deck of cards to which only they have access; players draw their hands Risk is a strategy board game produced by Parker Brothers. It was later Axis and Allies. The tiles must form Senet is played on a board divided into 30 squares, referred to as houses. The objective of the game is to move your pieces through the board, eventually reaching the finish line with all your pieces off the board.

In addition to Senet, other early evidence of board games include boards, dice, and counters found at Ur in Iraq dating back to about that same time period as when the Egyptians played Senet. They served a variety of purposes. Here are just a few:. Eventually, games even gained religious significance. One such game was the Ancient Egyptian game of Mehen.

Traveling forward in time a few thousand years, what was the first board game ever invented in America? The story goes that Monopoly was invented in by a woman and game designer named Lizzie Magie. Modern Monopoly was published in by Parker Brothers and is now considered one of the greatest board games of all time. Monopoly comes in first in our ranking of the best board games pre Coming up next is our ranking of the best classic and best contemporary board games, featuring 10 of the very best games of the last decade.

When researching this board game ranking, RAVE Reviews surveyed game experts from across the internet, using some of their input in our results. We also consulted similar rankings from all across the internet as well as manufacturer specifications, consumer reviews, and, of course, personal experience. Like the classic version of the game, played with two to four players, a virus is on the loose.

In a race against time, the story arc morphs over the course of a year, with new challenges, objectives, and rules. Events are triggered and strategies revealed as tools are unlocked and characters develop. If your character dies, they remain dead. The game is suitable for ages 14 and up. It comes recommended to us by Kristen Seikaly, founder of Cats and Dice , a website dedicated to all things tabletop gaming.

In the engine-building game, for one to five players, new and exotic birds are attracted to the aviary in one of three habitats. All the while, players gain food to feed birds in their aviary so that the birds will lay eggs, all while drawing from beautifully illustrated bird cards.

For ages 14 and up. It could be said the next board game in our ranking, Azul, from , is a gateway to modern board gaming. In the game, players make the best tile mosaic wall they can on their personal board.

Tiles are claimed and arranged to score points, and extra points are awarded for collecting tiles of the same color or for creating particular patterns.

With simple rules and varied gameplay, this game for two to four players starts slowly, but tension soon builds as the board game fills up. Eventually, play becomes cutthroat as opponents are forced to take tiles leading to a loss of points while mitigating point loss on your own board. To play the game well requires critical thinking and the ability to plan ahead. Most learn the game in one round, but it takes time to build an effective strategy.

For ages 8 and up. The next pick in our ranking of the best board games of the last decade is Codenames, our pick for best party game of the last decade.

In gameplay, two rival spymasters hold crucial information: the identity of 25 agents, otherwise known only by their codename. Playing with cards and a timer, teams are assigned a color. They then compete to uncover the true identity of each secret agent through single word clues. Additional objectives include guessing words matching the team color while avoiding colors of opposing teams.

It stands ups well under repeat play and is a little bit different each time. A Disney version of the game is another popular choice. Otherwise, Codenames is a great party game for those who still want to think, says Seikaly from Cats and Dice. Rounding out the top five in our ranking of the best board games of the last decade is Modern Art. For three to five players, this game turns art auctions into a competition. But what might be valuable one season, may not be as valuable the next season; track the trends to win the game.

Experienced gamer Jill Sandy of the lifestyle blog Constant Delights recommends the game. What she likes most of all is the mix of trade and negotiation at the heart of the gameplay. It starts slow, she says, but as the pace increases, players can easily swing outcomes in their favor. The game is appropriate for ages 14 and up, and the fan-favorite wooden auction gavel is new in the updated edition.

Looking for a board game to help blow off some pent-up anxiety about politics and current affairs? Then the award-winning board game Election Night!

The game uses the patent-pending PlaySmart Dice, a uniquely numbered sided dice system. For family play, the system makes challenging math facts easier to learn through well-conceived gameplay. The game also comes with a double-sided game board, two dry erase markers, and two decks of strategy cards. Perhaps best of all, Election Night! Election Night! We Rate Dogs, the card game based on the popular Twitter account, lets players do just that as they choose their favorite pups to enter and win a competitive dog show.

The goal: to be named the best in show. The next game in our ranking, Oh My God, Stacy! But a twist comes every day with morning announcements. With fast-paced gameplay, Oh My God, Stacy! Oh My God, Stacy! Enjoy dinner while managing to avoid becoming dinner with Donner Dinner Party, the next board game in our ranking.

In this game, players recreate the story of the ill-fated Donner Party in a game of social deduction, pitting cannibals and pioneers against one another in a fight for survival. A fast-paced game with a wicked twist, Donner Dinner Party is set in the winter of You can play a pioneer hunting for food while striving to eliminate the cannibals from the party.

Players then add one card face down to the communal dinner pot for dinner. Rowdy and irreverent, this game is suitable for up to 10 players ages 12 and up. The game includes a game board, playing cards, and 62 identity cards, including pioneers, cannibals, and more. The next game in our ranking, Carcassonne, comes to us from Shawna Newman of geekymatters. Carcassonne is inspired by the medieval fortress in Southern France of the same name. A tile-laying game, players fill in the countryside around the fortified city, choosing from tiles that depict cities, roads, monasteries, and fields.

Players can then add their followers on the ever-expanding board, like knights, monks, farmers, and thieves, each scoring points differently. And because the board is always changing, so are the opportunities. Not every game promotes the active use of such a wide variety of smarts, sillies, and even artistic abilities than Cranium, the next game in our ranking of the best contemporary board games.

In the game, players spell, act, draw, or just make guesses as they parade through a brightly colored game board. The one minute you have to complete your task feels fleeting, which only adds to the frantic fun of the game. The board, set pieces, and cards require players to take notes. The type of ship will determine the number of squares it will receive relative to the grid.

Just a few weeks ago I observed some kids playing it, and it reminded me of my own childhood. Got this for my nephew. He didn't know anything about it. Now, he loves it. We play every time I visit my sister's house. Clue is an exciting murder mystery game designed for three to six players, created by Anthony Pratt from Birmingham, England.

It is currently published by Hasbro. The goal of the game is to figure out who murdered the game's victim, "Mr. You must also determine where and what weapon was used in said murder. I remember playing this game when I was growing up and how much fun it was.

While there are newer versions of Clue available today, I very much prefer the original version of Clue. The 'murder weapons' are all made of quality material as well as the board and cards. I would definitely recommend this product to anyone who loves to solve a good mystery.

It accommodates two to four players. You play as royalty, a monarch that is the sole ruler of a small benevolent kingdom. You must quickly gain as much of the surrounding unclaimed land as possible. You can hire minions, build, upgrade your castle, to defend yourself and to conquer. The game begins with each opposing player possessing an identical ten-card deck. As the game starts, a group of ten special action cards are selected from the 25 categories in the bin. The rules outline specific selections for scenario play or you can design your own layout.

There aren't any moderators or bankers. Every player starts equally with access to the exact same cards. The best part of playing Dominion is every game will be limited to about 30—40 minutes. So, if you're a fan of quickie board games and have a taste for conquest, you might really enjoy Dominion as I do. Ticket To Ride is a railway-themed board game designed by Alan R. Moon and developed by Days Of Wonder in Every player receives 45 train cars in one color, and places a matching token of that color on a scoring track.

A large board is placed in the middle of the table, with a map of America imposed upon it. Thirty-six cities are there, each connected by one or two railroads. These lines are made up of one to six spaces, and are one of eight colors; red, yellow, black, purple, white, blue, brown, green and gray. The tickets deck is then shuffled, and three cards are dealt to each opposing player. Players may choose to discard one of these two cards, but must keep at least two of them.

Then the train cards are shuffled, and four cards are dealt to each opposing player. The remainder cards are shuffled and placed next to the board, then five of them are turned over and placed face-up next to the draw pile.

The player who has traveled the most distance goes first, and then action continues clockwise around the table. This game won the Origins Award for Best Board Game in , and it was well deserved, super fun and exciting game. Has anyone ever heard of a board called Triples? It's played on a wooden board with little tiles that have little 3 pronged arrows on them and each player takes turns trying to direct the other player's path of play.

It's a strategy game that claims to be more complex than chess and it's at least years old. I have been a passionate of board games since I grew up with other 4 siblings and two loving parents, all of us enjoyed board games.

I really enjoy board games so this was a fun article to read. I haven't heard of a few of these games though. I also play with my Grandma Hangman, card games too, and depwnds on my cousins board games arsenals. I also had Candyland, checkers, chinesse checkers, Parchessi, Trouble, Some based in toy characters or cartoon characters too. This brings me toons of good memories and ideas to got some more board games. To teach and play with my boys.

I found this small company called Adacio from Silicon Valley that has created a game called latice. We play it as a board game but their iOS app is actually also quite entertaining and helps us practice. It is simple to learn and has depth! I want to thank everyone for taking the time to share their opinions and insights on my list of classic board games.

I've been getting many messages about including more modern board games, to which I have taken much to heart. Additionally, I am planning to write another article that highlights new and popular board games currently being played today. Not saying they are better, but I personally enjoy them more. I feel that if you give them a try, you may like them too! Much easier to teach than chess, but with an arguably deeper strategy.

Here there are only 5 possible moves that the pieces can take originally grabbed from a deck of cards. Both players will use these 5 moves the rest of the game, but in a rotating fashion.