Getting Family Game Night Just Right

Family game night is simultaneously the most and least fun night of the week.

On the one hand, you get to spend time with your loving family and play some silly games. On the other hand, you have to first organize the night and ensure that you choose the games that will make everybody in the family happy and also avoid any unnecessary squabbling or arguments. So, as with any fun family activity, there’s a slightly stressful and not-so-fun element that comes with it. Here are some tips to help you get family game night just right.

✓ Get some board games.

You might be laughing at that idea, but it’s not quite as ludicrous as it might sound on the surface of things. Yes, you’ve probably heard the joke that board games make you bored (and, most likely, you heard that from your children), but you might just be suggesting the wrong ones. Forget all the complex games with endless rules, cards, instructions, and other obstacles that will stress your kids out to no end. Go for games like the Jenga-styled Igloo Mania game we reviewed; essentially, you only have to stop the parka guy from falling into the igloo, but the simplest games are often the most effective. The point is that you shouldn’t dismiss all board games. Just think outside the box and surprise the family with something a little more creative than a dull quiz game.

✓ Try out bingo.

It’s a straightforward game, and you don’t even need to buy anything other than some paper and pens. You can create your own bingo game quite easily, and it’s certainly one that’ll get your family’s competitive juices flowing (hopefully, not in an argumentative way). Bingo is the kind of game at which we all roll our eyes, but it’s another simple and effective one. You’ll get into the excitement of playing bingo if you give it a chance; there are lots of great online sites like Unibet on which you could play it too. Everybody likes to win prizes, and if there’s something appealing at the end of your family bingo game (e.g. the winner gets to pick the film you watch) then everybody will be far more pumped to play it. Better still, it’s not a game of skill; there’s a definitive answer as to who wins, so there shouldn’t be any arguments.

✓ Drawing games.

Drawing games are always fun. Pictionary is a classic, of course, but you might want to think outside the box on this one to keep the family excited about game night; you don’t want to be repeating the classics endlessly. You could try a game like Pass It On, which involves drawing a picture, passing it on, and then seeing what the person guesses your drawing to be. It’s usually a funny game because the guesses are way off the mark. You get the idea.

✓ Scrabble.

At the end of the day, you can’t beat some of the greats. Scrabble is a fun one because you learn about new words without feeling like you’re in a stuffy, dull English lesson. You can all have fun and joke around about whether words actually exist or not (just make sure nobody’s using their phones to cheat because games like this do become more difficult to govern in the technological age).