Who remembers family game night from our younger years? In this digital age, it’s not surprising how many children have missed out on the fun and excitement of board and card games. As we’re adjusting to our new normal, and spending more time indoors with our families, we can now introduce family game night to our children and make it a family tradition!

Times Square Center, the ultimate community shopping destination in Dubai, has compiled a list of the Top 10 best-selling board games and card games for the family to play at home. We’d love to hear about your favourite games too, so go rummaging through your cupboards and share these with us!

Dixit

Age group: 8 years and up

Number of players: 3 – 6 players

How it works: Using a deck of cards illustrated with dreamlike images, players select cards that match a title suggested by the “storyteller” and attempt to guess which card the “storyteller” selected. Each player starts the game with six random cards. Players then take turns being the storyteller. The player whose turn it is to be storyteller looks at the six images in his or her hand. From one of these, he or she makes up a sentence or phrase that might describe it and says it out loud (without showing the card to the other players).

Each other player then selects from among their own six cards the one that best matches the sentence given by the storyteller. Then, each player gives their selected card to the storyteller, without showing it to the others. The storyteller shuffles his or her chosen card with the cards received from the other players, and all cards are then dealt face up. The players (except for the storyteller) then secretly guess which picture was the storyteller’s, using numbered voting chips.

King of Tokyo

Age group: 8 years and up

Number of players: 2 – 6 players

How it works: King of Tokyo is a tabletop game using custom dice, cards, and boards. Players choose one of six monsters which comes with a scoring board. At the start of each turn, a player rolls six dice, which show the following six symbols: 1, 2, or 3 Victory Points, Energy, Heal, and Attack. Over three successive throws, the player must choose whether to keep or discard each die in order to win victory points, gain energy, restore health, or attack other players. The winner is the first player to reach 20 points, or the only player to have any health.

Splendor

Age group: 10 years and up

Number of players: 2 – 4 players

How it works: Splendor is a game of chip-collecting and card development. Players are merchants of the Renaissance trying to buy gem mines, means of transportation, shops – all in order to acquire the most prestige points. If you’re wealthy enough, you might even receive a visit from a noble at some point, which of course will further increase your prestige.  On your turn, you may (1) collect chips (gems), or (2) buy and build a card, or (3) reserve one card. All the cards you buy increase your wealth as they give you a permanent gem bonus for later buys; some of the cards also give you prestige points. In order to win the game, you must reach 15 prestige points before your opponents do.

Exploding Kittens

Age group: 7 years and up

Number of players: 2 – 5 players

How it works: Exploding Kittens is a card game, kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette. Players take turns drawing cards until someone draws an exploding kitten and loses the game. The deck is made up of cards that let you avoid exploding by peeking at cards before you draw, forcing your opponent to draw multiple cards, or shuffling the deck. The game gets more and more intense with each card you draw because fewer cards left in the deck means a greater chance of drawing the kitten and exploding in a fiery ball of feline hyperbole.

Dobble

Age group: 5 years and up

Number of players: 2 – 8 players

How it works: In Dobble, players compete to find the one matching symbol between two cards. Every card is unique and has only one symbol in common with any other in the deck. The match can be difficult to spot as the size and positioning of the symbols can vary on each card. Once a player finds the match, they shout it out before the other players and either take the card or place it somewhere else, depending on which of the five mini-games they are playing. Whoever has collected the most cards when the 55-card deck runs out wins!

Codenames

Age group: 14 years and up

Number of players: 4 – 8 players

How it works: Codenames is a game of guessing which code names (words) in a set are related to a hint-word given by another player. Two teams compete by each having a Spymaster give one-word clues which can point to multiple words on the board. The other players on the team attempt to guess their team’s words while avoiding the words of the other team.

Ticket to Ride

Age group: 8 years and up

Number of players: 2 – 4 players

How it works: Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure in which players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who can fulfil their Destination Tickets by connecting two distant cities, and to the player who builds the longest continuous railway.

Rory’s Story Cubes

Age group: 8 years and up

Number of players: 3 – 5 players

How it works: Rory’s Story Cubes is a game to discover with family or friends. In turn, each player becomes the Narrator. Throw the dice, and create a story starting with “Once upon a time…” using the nine symbols on the faces of the dice. Then, follow your imagination!

Bonk

Age group: 8 years and up

Number of players: 2 – 4 players

How it works: Bonk is a fast-rolling ricochet game that’s ideally played with four players. Your goal? Roll steel balls down your slide in order to knock the wooden ball in the central arena into your opponents’ goal. Players compete in teams of two, with each team trying to protect one goal between them.

Klask

Age group: 8 years and up

Number of players: 3 – 5 players

How it works: The Klask game board is shaped like a ball field with two deep holes functioning as goals in each end of the field. In the middle of the field, three white magnetic pieces serve as “obstacles” – do NOT attract them to your own gaming piece! Your gaming piece is a black magnet. You control it by holding a large magnet under the board. This magnet is connected to a small magnet placed on the field. The purpose of the game is to push the small, red ball around on the field with your magnet/gaming piece, shoot the ball past the obstacles and your opponent and into the goal hole (Klask).