If there is a game your kids will never outgrow, it’s family board games.
Family board games never get old, but they are a lot more fun – and complicated – as your kids grow into tweens! To ensure our tweens never get bored, we are always looking to renew our board game collection at Christmas – mixing classics from our childhoods with new and innovative games that appeal to the 9 to 12-year-old age group.
When you’re ready for your tweens to put down their tech, there’s nothing better than a family board game night to reconnect and unwind. Board games teach your tweens skills, including cooperation, strategy, patience, and sportsmanship.
Board games come in handy and can be played on those cold rainy days, during a summer camp or in a vacation home, while having friends over, when hosting birthdays, and the best time when your tweens are bored, and you’ve ruled strictly no screens are allowed!
Whether it’s a classic board game or a new sensation that perfectly appeals to the pre-teen age group, we’re never too young to join in with our tweens when it comes to board game fun for the whole family.
Best Board Games For Families With Tweens
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While the choice of board games on the market can be overwhelming, we have searched for ones that will appeal to your tweens and the whole family. Though we cannot possibly list them all, here are some of the hottest board games this year worth adding to your collection.
1. Not Parent Approved
A popular game that is sure to leave your kids laughing for hours and starts with a belching contest. It is played by 4-10 players, allowing your tweens to play their age, and is easy to learn.
The selected leader draws a question card, and the players answer by putting down a red card. The leader reads the answer cards and selects the best answer. It is a fun interactive game for your tweens, best played with peers, coz this one’s NOT for parents!!
2. The Game of Life: Super Mario Edition
The Game of Life is a great family board game, suitable for kids from 8 years and above. The Super Mario edition makes for a fabulous modern twist to this classic game, with Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Yoshi taking center stage.
The ultimate goal isn’t to retire, though, with lots of money; it’s all about beating Bowser! There are mini-games along the way, coins to buy stars and power-ups. This popular game is perfect for your modern tweens’ interests, especially those who love video games!
3. Sequence
Sequence is one of the best family board games for tweens. It is an exciting, thinking, and strategy game that is easy enough for kids yet challenging enough for adults. It is fantastic when played in teams or just two players.
In this addictive game, players need to think ahead of their opponents to create a sequence of chips. Play a card, then place a chip on a corresponding space on the game board; it is a sequence when you make five in a row!
4. Double Ditto
A fast-paced award-winning game aimed at kids 10 years and over, grab the entire family, and try and find the same answer as someone else! It’s simple to learn with no complex instructions; game time is around 30 minutes.
You can also get the Double Ditto expansion pack if you’ve played it many times over and need some new cards. This will make an ideal board game for a 10-year-old and older kids ready to take the challenge with their friends! It’s relatively portable, too, so good for family vacations and road trips.
5. Harry Potter Labyrinth
Labyrinth has been one of the best family board games for over 30 years, but you can now take a new twist on the game with many themed editions released, such as Pokemeon Labyrinth, Disney Villains Labyrinth, and our tween favorite board game, Harry Potter Labyrinth, an ideal gift for a Potterhead!
6. Jenga
While this game is not truly a board game as it does not involve any board, we still feel it sits well in this list of great games for tweens.
It’s a fun game with most tweens as it gets them to play together, which they love. It includes 54 Jenga hardwood blocks and a stacking sleeve with instructions.
You start the game by building the Jenga tower and then take turns pulling out the blocks while trying not to topple the tower. It helps your tween learn engineering skills, focus, risk-taking, and battle nerves while having fun.
With such simple rules, it’s a great game the whole family can enjoy on your next family game night.
7. Beat the Parents
Beat The Parent is a game that allows your tween what they look forward to: go head to head with you and beat you while at it! This game is played by two or more players where the kids answer stuff that adults should know, and adults answer kiddy stuff.
It has bonus or burst tokens that either push you ahead or send you back. It includes one game board,110 cards, four movers, six tokens, and an easy-to-follow instruction card.
8. Brain Games Kids
Ideal board games for 9-year-olds will stretch their brain and introduce increasing levels of difficulty, like Brain Games Kids. With fascinating facts that will get their minds ticking, this is a great educational board game for tweens working on their problem-solving skills.
9. Loaded Questions
Loaded Questions is one of the best games for families. It features 880 new and classic loaded questions where the chosen one reads questions corresponding to the color space on the game board, and everyone writes down their answer and gives it to the reader of the question.
The one with the answers then has to guess who answered what. It is a fun “get to know you better” game.
10. Ticket To Ride
A classic family game, Ticket to Ride is a fun game of strategy that two to five players can play and takes 30 to 60 minutes to complete.
It is a simple, fun, and challenging gameplay that teaches geography, as it involves creating train routes across America to get to your city.
The longer your routes, the more points you earn, provided you reach your final destination.
11. Catan
Catan is another oldie but a goldie in a family board game collection. It is an addictively fun and strategic game that plays with 3-4 players and runs for an average of 60 minutes.
Catan is a building board game that challenges players to harvest and trade resources as it grows in complexity. Players use resources at their disposal to build new settlements on the island of Catan. Players get to barter and trade for resources to further their development.
This is one of the best board games for preteens who love an involved strategy game.
12. Kids Against Maturity
Kids Against Maturity is one of the fun tween board games. It is a simple and easy-to-start card game that is lighthearted and sure to leave your tweens in stitches.
It is the kid’s version of Cards Against Humanity where each player takes turns to judge who can best complete the sentence of their blue card with their ten white cards.
The judge determines which card completes the sentence in the funniest, and whoever matches the cards wins. It includes 500 questions and answer cards. The suggested age is 10 years old+, but we think slightly younger kids can still enjoy this hilarious game.
13. Spontuneous
Spontuneous is some side-splitting fun, the perfect game for those who love their tunes. It’s one of the best board games for tween girls, though it might also appeal to your tween boy who love music.
It is a fun, fast-paced game with simple rules where each player writes down several trigger words on their hit list. When it is your time, you announce a trigger word from your list and flip the timer.
Everyone races to be the first to sing out any song containing that word (but you have to sing at least five words before the trigger word) and gets to advance on the board.
14. Telestrations
A new favorite in our house, Telestrations is a board game that your tweens will love as it is hilarious and showcases everyone’s drawing (or lack there of!) and guessing skills.
It is more like the old game of “telephone” but with pictures. In this game, each player gets a dry-erase sketchbook and a word that must be drawn.
Set against a timer, a player attempts to draw a picture of their word when it starts. When it stops, the sketchbook gets passed on to the next player, who tries to guess what the image is. They write their guess down in words, then pass the book to the next player who has to draw the guess in a picture and give the book to the next player.
The game continues until your original sketchbook gets passed back to you for the big reveal. It includes 1700 words, eight erasable sketchbooks(played by eight people), eight dry eraser makers, and eight clean-up cloths.
15. Pandemic
Are you looking for a strategic family game to play? This pandemic card game is the real deal. It is an easy-to-learn cooperative game that two to four players can play.
Players have to work together with their co-gamers to stop the spread of a disease before it takes over the world (sound familiar?)
Your team must unite and plan carefully to stem the tide of infection while finding cures. It is a genuinely cooperative and strategic game where you win or lose together.
16. Forbidden Island
Forbidden Island is a strategic board game that will help your tween learn problem-solving and teamwork. It is a 30-minute game that 2-4 players can play.
It involves lots of collaborations with adventurous do-or-die missions to capture four sacred treasures from the ruins of this perilous paradise. It’s the perfect game for tweens who love using a little strategy and thinking during their no screen time.
17. Apples to Apples
This game qualifies as one of the good games for tweens played by 4-10 players. It is a family-friendly game that entertains tweens for hours. It includes 504 green and red cards, with the green cards, has two clues per card and the red ones one per card.
You match up words and phrases that best describe the topic at hand to collect as many green apple cards as possible.
18. Exploding Kittens
Exploding Kittens is a good game for families. And, no, there are no animals to be harmed, as the name might suggest! It is a party game for families that are into kittens, explosions, laser beams, and sometimes goats.
The whole objective of the game is not to draw an exploding kitten card, as it is a game of chance. The game is over once you draw an exploding kitten card, and the last person standing wins.
With 2 to 5 players, the game runs for around 15 minutes, which is great for when you want a rapid-fire, fast-paced family board game. Expansion packs are also available to add more cards.
19. Unstable Unicorns
Unstable Unicorns is one of the best tween girl games, as it has unbelievably adorable cards. It is a strategic card game that will destroy your friendship, but in a good way.
The premise of the game is to build an army of unicorns before anyone else. You get to use magic and other kinds of cards to prevent your opponents from building their own armies.
20. Trivial Pursuit Family Edition
I’ll bet there’s a box of Trivial Pursuit in every family’s games cupboard! The Family Edition is an excellent game for preteens, as separate questions are aimed at kids aged 8+ and adults, so all family members can equally join in.
The board is simplified from Classic Trivial Pursuit for a faster game and more chances for your tweens to get the correct answer and win their ‘slices of pie’ in this popular board game for families.
21. Codenames
Codenames is a super simple game that promises hours of fun. It is one of the good games for families. It is a guessing game involving stealth, strategy, and the ability to work well in two or more groups.
It includes one-time, one rule book, 40 key cards, one card stand, one assassin card, one double agent card, seven innocent bystander cards, 16 agent cards in two colors, and 200 cards with 400 code names.
The objective of the game is for two rival spymasters to have the identities of 25 secret agents. The other players only know the code names and must guess the actual identities. Using clues and problemsolving skills, the team that guesses all the names first wins.
22. 7 Wonders
If you are looking for a good boy board game, then the seven wonders it is. It is an easy-to-learn game, with skills getting more complex as you progress. In this game, each player becomes a leader in one of the seven ancient cities of the world.
This player must build the city with architectural structures that withstand time and war. You use Cards and games to build the cities. The winner is the one who has the most points, amassed by their cards and battle conflicts.
23. Azul
This new board game is a tile-placement game in which players become artisans tasked with creating the most beautiful tiled mosaics.
Players have a choice of tiles to choose to complete their designs, whereby they can select tiles specifically to take from other designs, pushing them in the lead.
The player with the most points in their tile designs at the end wins the game. This game not only challenges players to think critically and strategize, but it is also beautiful.
24. Scrabble
Classic games like Scrabble never go out of style, and there’s a good reason it always appears on the list of most popular board games for families.
It is a fun word-based board game, perfect for building vocabulary, spelling, and language skills.
It can be a long game depending on how much thought and strategy players put into their moves, but it has stood the test of time as a family favorite board game everyone should own for those rainy days indoors!
25. Monopoly
How can we finish this guide to good board games for tweens and families to play together without including Monopoly!
There are so many variations now on the classic board game, so you can really pick your theme to suit your tween’s growing interests – or stick to the classic London edition for an authentic board game experience essential to every childhood!
Breaking out the board games is a great way to bring the family together. And whilst they’re having fun, your tweens may not even realize they are working on their problem-solving, teamwork, and critical thinking skills that they will undoubtedly use later in life.
Let us know below which one of the above-board games is your tween’s most beloved – or do you have a classic favorite you’ve now passed on to your kids?
Dive into our full collection of tween gift guides, including: