15 Best Games To Play While You Isolate
We've rounded up the best board games, card games, and other unique games to keep you occupied!
You don’t have to be bored while you practice social distancing! Here are 15 of the best games to play while your housebound.
Board Games
Courtesy of Catan.com
We all remember the classic board game! Here are 5 extremely fun board games you probably haven’t tried.
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Settlers of Catan (2-4 players) As a new colonist on the island of Catan, your task is to expand your settlements to gain more resources. Winning this game takes both luck and strategy. If you want more excitement, you can find multiple expansions to the base game like Seafarers and Cities & Knights. Buy it here!
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Betrayal At House On The Hill (3-6 players) This mystery game will have you explore an old mansion. Each room has a hidden mechanic that will align with hundreds of different scenarios the game offers. You might be trying to kill a vampire or escape from sacrificial ritual, you’ll never know until you go in the next room. Buy it here!
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Pandemic (2-4 players) The world is in crisis and you and your friends need to stop the next pandemic. This is a cooperative game where you get to stop the spread of a specific disease. Each player has a role to play either as a first responder, a medic, etc. The health of the world rests in your hands. Buy it here!
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Ticket to Ride (2-4 players) Go on a new train adventure. Build new roads to connect the country (or countries, depending on the expansion) and get points for completing destination objectives. Buy it here!
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Azul (2-4 players) Inspired in old world tiling and decor, Azul will have you acquiring tiles to make a pattern. You get points for making rows and having tiles of every color. A simple game that is hard to master. Buy it here!
Card Games
These 5 card games will provide a much-needed escape from our current reality.
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Dominion (2-6 players, when using additional base cards) You are left with the keys of the kingdom. This deck building game will have you buying land and properties to expand your dominion over other countries. Extremely customizable and with several expansions, this game will never play the same. It also has an app that will put game together to make new “fair” combinations. Buy it here!
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Cards Against Humanity (3-20+ players) The unofficial adult party game. This game will have laughing till your sides hurt. Each player gets 7 cards, then one person reads a prompt (a black card) and the rest have to match the prompt with one answer (a white card), then the one who read the prompt choose his/her/their favorite as the winner. Not for the faint of heart. Buy it here!
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Apples to Apples (2-4 players) Before Cards Against Humanity there was apples to apples. Similar in rules but toned down in nature. The player with the most winning prompt cards wins. Buy it here!
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One Night Werewolf (8-10 players) Trust no one! All players receive a card, each card is a role, hidden among the players are werewolves and the mission of the game is to sniff them out. All roles have an objective to win. This game comes with an app to help with the progression. Buy it here!
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Rummy (2-6 players) You can never go wrong with just a simple deck of cards. This game is fun and it can be challenging. By making matched sets of cards by value (called a run) or kind (a meld), the players discard their hands until one of the players is out of cards. The rest of the players get to count the cards in their hands and those points go to the player that ended the round. Buy it here!
Other Games
Looking for something out-of-the-box? Here are 5 fun games worth trying:
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Telestrations (4-8 players) This fun game has all players choosing an idea or object and illustrating it on a dry erase pad, then the next player has to guess what it is, then the player after has to draw what the previous player guessed and so on. The player that gets their dry erase pad with the last guess being the same, wins the round. Buy it here!
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Balderdash (2-6 players) Truth isn’t so obvious. This game makes the players guess the weirdest words, rules, people, or objects you could imagine. Fun to play with friends, even better to play with know-it-alls (to show them they don’t know it all). Buy it here!
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Privacy (3-10 players) Everyone has a dirty little secret. In this voting game, all players get “Yes!” and “No!” tokens and a guessing counter, then a player reads a question and all players need to answer truthfully by placing a token in the voting box. After everyone votes, all players have to guess how many players answered yes and then all “Yes!” tokens in the voting box are counted. The closest numbers get points and the first to 21 wins. Buy it here!
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Taboo (2 or more players) Certain words are Taboo. The players are split into two teams. The object of the game is to have players in your team guess what the word the clue giver (the person with the word card) is describing without mentioning the words listed below the top word. Mentioning any of the taboo words will disqualify the word and you clue giver is given a new card. When time runs out, the next team goes. Buy it here!
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Dropmix (2-6 players) By the creators of Guitar Hero and Rockband video games, this game is all about the remix. It uses RF cards on a pad connected to a phone or tablet device to play music. Each card has the lyrics, drums, guitar, keyboard, bass, or tempo of a song. With many modes to play, it’s fun to DJ new songs. Buy it here!
