Mobile phones and digital mediums of entertainment are quite widely used nowadays. Despite that, there’s nothing like sitting down with your family members with snacks and a board game session in progress.
You get the chance to:
- Relive old memories
- Make new ones
Also, you can get to know the new or extended members of your family, when you play card games.
You can also develop vital skills like:
- Critical thinking
- Logical reasoning
- Understanding body language
Let us now talk about the games which you can play when you catch up with your family in the sections below.
Classic Board and Card Games for Family Bonding
What’s a family gathering without board games and card games, right? Let us now talk about two of these.
Monopoly – The Ultimate Family Rivalry
This classic board game has been capturing the public’s attention since 1903, since it was introduced as The Landlord’s Game.
It involves a group of two to eight players.
They attempt to purchase all or most of the properties on the board and end up with a lot of money. However, it’s not as simple as it sounds. That’s because you don’t usually get the chance to buy all the properties at once.
So you have to make deals with the other players to trade properties, mortgage your own or sell it back to the ‘bank’ if applicable. In other words, you have to prove your business sense and end up as the richest player.
This game has been a favorite since its introduction to the market due to the elements of trading, dealing, and purchase of real estate, which challenge people to put their thinking caps on.
In fact, the online version of the game, known as Monopoly Go, earned a revenue of 1.3 billion dollars in 2023. So you can only imagine the figures now.
Rummy and Poker – Classic Card Games for Strategy Lovers
Coming to Rummy online or offline, it is a game that involves one to two decks of cards. It can be played by a group of two to six players, who are dealt thirteen cards each before the game starts.
You have to attempt to meld or group these cards into valid sets and sequences. Sets refer to a meld of three or more cards that belong to the same rank. In other words, a group of four Number Eight cards is a valid set.
On the other hand, a sequence is a meld of three of four consecutive cards of the same suit. For example, a group of cards that involves the Number Four, Five, Six, and Seven of Hearts is a valid sequence.
The player who melds their cards into sequences and sets will be declared the winner.
Additionally, valid sets and sequences carry zero points. So, in other words, you should attempt to meld all their cards into valid combinations and score the lowest points to win.
This game is excellent for older family members since it involves:
- Strategically drawing and discarding cards from the draw or discard piles
- Melding them into sets and sequences.
Additionally, you won’t take much time to learn the game if you’re a beginner.
You can download a Rummy App from reputed websites to play practice games and master the game. In fact, the online mobile gaming market, of which Rummy is a part, is projected to enjoy a value of more than 489.47 billion dollars by 2032.
On the other hand, you can also play poker games, which involve a single deck of cards. There are many variations of poker, which is why players are handed a varying number of cards in each game.
These cards can be divided into hole or facedown cards, and community or faceup cards. Some games do not involve community cards. So you’ll have to use the hole cards for those games.
Your basic objective during any poker game is to ensure you utilize those cards to make winning hands like Flush and Three-of-a-Kind. You can achieve this objective by raising, calling, or checking the chips and bluffing.
Let us now talk about which word and trivia games you can play with your family members below.
Trivia and Word Games for a Mental Challenge
Word games are fun because they help you develop your grammatical capabilities. Additionally, you can also have a great time because you get to expand your vocabulary with your loved ones.
Family Trivia – Test How Well You Know Each Other
There’s no better night than trivia night! After all, you’ll get to know your family’s secrets, relive old inside jokes, and make new ones!
We would recommend getting together with your cousins and compiling a list of questions divided into various sections, like a certain popular American sitcom.
For example, you can choose ancient history to talk about old incidents, favorites to mention anything from desserts to vacation spots, and so on.
If you want to add some excitement to the trivia game, then you can include questions about:
- When certain members of your family met each other
- The date
- Location, and so on.
This will bring them closer.
You can also add rewards like a voucher to a spa or restaurant, a pass to an event, and so on to increase the competition and sense of fun.
20 Questions – A Simple Yet Engaging Guessing Game
As its name suggests, during this game, one player thinks of something, and the other players take turns to guess by asking twenty questions. However, they must ask questions that can be answered with a ‘yes/no.’
You can make this game even more competitive by limiting the time frame for asking these questions and including rewards for the person who guesses the answers in the shortest time frame possible.
Since you’re playing this with your family, you can ask personal questions like someone’s favorite dish, vacation place, and so on.
Final Remarks
We hope you’ve loved the list of card games and other classic games we’ve mentioned. Remember not to aggressively compete and enjoy those sessions since you’ll be with family. Have fun!
