Top Family Fun Games during Lockdown

As much as we all adore our families, suddenly being around them 24/7 is a bit of a struggle. The calls to a family board game night might cause those groans of people thinking they’re about to be dragged into a game of Monopoly that takes hours and hours to play, three people want to be the dog, the banker’s cheating and someone’s flipped the board. These games bust away boredom. The bigger the group - the more ramped up the fun.

1. Disney Colourbrain

Landing our top slot is this fun trivia game where all the answers are colours. Each player has their own set of coloured cards. When a colour is read out, they will put down whatever colour(s) they think answers the question. Everyone reveals their cards at the same time and hilarity ensues when your mum forgets that red is in the rainbow. Does your family like a bit of competition? Each player also gets an extra card that allows them to steal someone else’s colours once in the game - stopping other players from answering that question. The best thing about this game is the number of questions - there’s so many, you can play it countless times before you start learning the answers off by heart. Total family winner!  (Published by Big Potato Games)

2. Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle

We’ve catered for Game of Thrones fans (over at our ‘Top 5 Games for Couples to Indulge in’ blog) now for one of the other fantasy phenomenons - Harry Potter. If you’re in lockdown with a group of kids that just won’t get on - this game might just force them to work together! You and up to three players are each playing one of the Golden Trio (and arguably the real hero of the series, Neville) to try to defeat Voldemort and his Death Eaters. The best thing about this deck-building game is the incredible attention to detail that’s gone into it. There are actually seven individual games within the base box - one for each of the Harry Potter books. Each new game contains new locations, new villains, and new cards for your characters to collect. Each character starts with their basic ten cards - you only know one spell at this point. Throughout the game, you build your deck by buying new spells, potions, items and allies as you go, to try to make your team as strong as possible. (Designed by: Forrest-Pruzan Creative, Kami Mandell, Andrew Wolf)

3. Photosynthesis

A truly beautiful game that helps you get your nature fix while being trapped inside. The aim: grow the biggest trees in the forest. The sun, moving around the sides of the board, helps your trees grow big and tall, but that just means that other trees are suddenly in the shade, and trees in the shade don’t grow. If you plant your trees carefully, you can avoid blocking any of the sunlight on your own trees, but slow down the growth of your opponent’s trees. (Designed by: Hjalmar Hach)

4. Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a city in the South of France, which is the largest medieval fortified city still standing in Europe. Apparently, it’s also very famous for being attacked a lot of times by very important people. The game, however, is slightly less aggressive than its namesake. In Carcassonne, players draw and place a tile to add to the map. Once a tile is placed, the player can opt to put a ‘meeple’ (which is a cute name for the little person-shaped pieces in the game) on a part of the tile: but remember you only have a limited amount of meeples to play! Completed parts of the city, with meeples on, gain you points. (Designed by: Klaus-Jürgen Wrede).