We LOVE "The aMAZEing Labyrinth". It's a Ravensburger game. It claims to be for ages 8 and up, but our daughter has been playing it as well as any adults since she was 5. They do have a Junior version as well, but we went straight for the regular version. It's a family favorite, and all of our gifted adult friends love it to. I highly recommend it!
Blokus is another great game. We also love Rat a Tat Cat (a card game) and The Last Word. But Labyrinth is our all-time favorite. And Ravensburger is great - we just filled out an internet form and they sent us 5 replacements for missing pieces. Very nice!
Have to put a plug in for a classic. We were at the cabin and found Parcheesi (the royal game of india). The whole family became addicted. So fun! I don't remember playing this as a kid, but there's so much fun strategy involved. DS4 liked it too, until he got 3 double in a row and had to send a piece back to start... Great for beginning math, too.
We love Parcheesi, too! Love those shakers...
Another challenging and fun game is the 4000 year old Game of Go (Wei-ch'i, Baduk, Igo).
It's one of those minutes-to-learn lifetime-to-master type games.
http://www.usgo.org/resources/whatisgo.html
My DH loves Go! Good addition to the list.
We are big go fans here, too!! Love the idea of 'problems of life and death'. It's just so complicated and yet simple. DS8 of course beats us all
ps, there is a fun manga series call 'Hikaru No Go!' about a boy who has a great Go playing legend in his head helping him master the game. It describes in some detail the culture of Go in Japan and how people get to be pro Go players. DS and I have read through about 8 of the books.
My DS5 loves Labyrinth. Since we began homeschooling, we have been joining in with homeschoolers and there is a fun math/critical thinking game day each month where kids bring their favorite games to play with others. My son brought his Labyrinth this last time and it was a huge hit.
Labyrinth is the top game in our house
Master Mind, Mah Jongg, Chess
After reading this thread a while ago, we got Blokus for DS7's birthday and it was a hit! (Did I mention that I love this forum...)
Last night after the boys were tucked up in bed, DH and I found ourselves playing Blokus until late - how did that happen
Our family loves Set and Blink (both card games) and our new favorite is Qwirkle. It's played with a domino type playing piece. I ordered it from Hearthsong,but I picked up Blink at Target.
We love all three of those games too! We also bought a game called Wordigo this winter that is scrabble-ish, but played simultaneously on separate boards. The boards are at four different levels, so players can compete even if they are not well matched on the scrabble board
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http://www.blokus.com/online-game/ Play blokus online, have not tried it myself.
We love Blokus. It takes planning.
Mancala was one of my daughter's first games and this game takes planning as well. I cannot remember how old she was when we began playing it, but she was not in school yet. If you have the marble and wood version, it has a unique sound to it that feeds the senses.
The Amazing Labyrinth is a great game! We've had it a few years. I should actually try that one with our almost 5 year old now. I'm sure she could play it.
Settlers of Catan is allot of fun, I don't know how educational but allot of fun as long as my brother isn't playing.
My little brother (the one with ADHD) actually loved Chess for quite awhile, got really into it!
Monopoly is still a great game! However it has been banned in my family's home because of fighting
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I remember playing labyrinth when I was very young but I think the pieces were spread out over the house.
This made me smile: We finally bought Settlers of Catan (we were waiting for DD9 to be old enough) and played it for the first time this weekend. We are so hooked. We stayed up until 1:30am Saturday night playing (yes, we even let DD9 stay up playing with us)! It was so fun, so I decided to come and post it on this forum to make sure you all know about it.
I first searched for it thinking I should make sure everyone doesn't already know about it. My search results included this thread, which I think I started a while ago. We still love Labyrinth, but Settlers of Catan is a new family favorite.
OH, and we decided we waited too long to get Catan since DD9 beat us the first time we played ;-)
Anyone have other game recommendations?
We got Labyrinth for Christmas. I'm not sure we're playing it right, but we're having fun with it.
DS9 just got knet. It was a expensive game but thought we needed something different. It's somewhat like chess. Pieces are captured with lazer lights that reflect off mirrors. We had a lot of fun with it. It's a different kind of thinking. I don't think he could just have someone over and just play easily but it's a good game to play with parents.
DD just got Qwirkle. This is very fun. This is a great game to learn quickly and play with freinds.
We have scrabble junior which has card board tiles and no points. I'm thinking of upgrading to the scrabble with the wooden tiles. I like the board that hold the tiles in place. I've seen a few other scrabble type games. Has anybody compared? Which is the best way to go?
We have bananagrams. I like that you can play shorter or longer games with it. Scrabble is great too, but the timed aspect of bananagrams is a great challenge for us.
Another short scrabble-like game is Quiddler, which you can play with others or in solitaire mode (just a card game with letters).
Settlers of Catan sounds worth checking out, thanks WannaBe, et al.
Oooo ... DS9 got Settlers of Catan for x-mas and we've started a few short games but haven't had time to play the full deal. Good to know you enjoyed it! We'll have to set up a game night! If I tell DS he can stay up until the game is over, he'll be way into it.
We have a lot of the games being mentioned! We've been on a dry stretch on the board games and should get them out.
A great game for kids in my mind is Set. Set is fun, fast-paced and all about pattern matching. My younger son loves it.
We also really like Made for Trade and Ticket to Ride.
Rat a Tat Cat is my all time favorite.
Chrys
My kids are teenagers. We love the Book Lover's edition of Trivial Pursuit. Also, although it is not a board game, the Perplexus puzzle D2 got for Christmas is very popular.
http://perplexus.net/products.php
We like "The way things work". It's a fun game that teaches the mechanics and physics of...the way things work. there are 3 versions you can play. One with just the question cards, one with models you have to build, or there is an experiment version too. it's quite fun and very eduational.
Just ordered Go and Labyrinth. We are a big board game family and always love adding some to our collection. A good one we like is Qwirkle