The coronavirus pandemic has completely changed our lives. With the altered schedules, tonnes of Zoom meetings and wearing a mask while outside being the new norm, there has never been a better time to be with our families. After all, this is the extra time that we all craved for, right? If you’re a movie buff, planning a family movie marathon is your best bet, but if you want your family time to be exciting and interactive, we’d suggest a games night!
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Games are a universal way to connect with people – be it virtual or family games you can play at home. To make your life easier, here are some fun games to play with your family at home.
Family Games To Play At Home
We fished out some fun family games that you can play at home, and the best part- every member of your family can play these!
- Movie Quotes
- Pass It On
- Jenga
- Never Have I Ever
- Tic-Tac-Toe
- Minute To Win It
- Twister
Movie Quotes
Simple and fun, this is one of the best games to play with your filmy family at home.
What You Need: A pen, small piece of paper and some famous movie quotes
Number of players: The more the better
How To Play:
– Divide yourselves into two teams.
– If you want, select a genre and start writing your favourite movies (or movies with titles that would be hard to guess) on a piece of paper.
– Once done, you have to give the name of the movie to one member of the opposite team. They will have to either say a quote from the movie or enact the title of the film while the other team members guess it.
Pass It On
This family game will turn out to be a lot of fun, trust us!
What You Need: Pen and a blank paper
Number of players: The more the better
How To Play:
– The first player writes the first line and starts the story. He/she has to fold the paper horizontally in such a way that the second player can only see a couple of words from the first sentence.
– All the subsequent players have to guess the previous line and complete the text.
– They then have to add a couple of words to the next line and fold the paper in the same way.
– Once everyone is done, unfold the paper to read the final story and get ready for the laugh riot!
Jenga
One of the most fun family games for parties, Jenga is always a crowd puller.
What You Need: 54 precision-crafted, specially finished hardwood blocks
Number of players: 2 or more
How To Play:
– First, shake the blocks out from the box. Then, stack the blocks in sets of three until you have a tower that is blocks high.
– While stacking, make sure that each layer is rotated to 90 degrees along the horizontal axis in comparison to the last stack.
– Once your tower is built successfully, start playing. Each player has to try to take a block out by tapping on the other side or by pulling it out by using just one hand.
– Once you pull it out without crashing the Jenga tower, place it on the top of the tower. All the subsequent players have to repeat this until the tower falls.
Never Have I Ever
If you haven’t played this drinking game before, do it now. Never Have I Ever is one of the most entertaining games to play with family, especially your cousins.
What You Need: Shot glasses, a drink of your choice, a pen, pieces of paper and a big bowl
Number of players: The more the better
How To Play:
– Write down some funny ‘Never Have I Ever’ questions on the pieces of paper. Fold them and put them in the bowl. For example: Never Have I Ever tasted dog or cat food!
– All your family members can sit in a circle with shot glasses in their hands.
– Each player will pick up one piece of paper and read the question aloud. The player, who has done that particular thing, has to take a shot.
Tic-Tac-Toe
Your kids are gonna love it!
What You Need: A piece of paper and a pen
Number of players: 2
How To Play:
– Take a piece of paper and draw a grid of two horizontal lines dissecting two vertical lines. – — Both the players will then take turns to choose a box and place your mark – ‘X’ or ‘O’ – in it. – – The goal is to fill in the boxes with your chosen mark in a row (vertically, horizontally or diagonally) and stop the other player from doing so.
Minute To Win It
Minute To Win It is a fun family game that everyone including kids and elderly will enjoy.
What You Need: Your phone and some cookies
Number of players: The more the better
How To Play:
– Each player has to place a cookie on his/her forehead while one of the other players can time them on their phone.
– As the timer in the phone starts, the player has to move the cookie into his/her mouth within a minute. Without touching it, of course!
PS: You can play it with anything you like, a piece of chocolate or mithai.
Twister
Now, who hasn’t played Twister?! It’s one of the games to play at home that can be fun for both kids and adults.
What You Need: A twister mat and the game spinner
Number of players: 2 to 4 plus one referee
How To Play:
– All the players will stand near the mat while facing each other.
– To start the game, the referee will spin the spinner and will call out the body part and the colour the arrow points at. For instance, left foot, yellow, right hand, green.
– All the players then have to follow the instructions while making sure that their elbows or knees don’t touch the Twister mat.
– The last one standing on the mat is the winner.
Family Card Games
When we’re talking about a family game night, leaving out card games would be a sin. So, let’s get started!
- Rummy
- UNO
- Slapjack
Rummy
When it comes to family card games, Rummy is the one you just can’t leave out of the list.
What You Need: One or two deck of cards depending on the number of players
Number of players: More than two
How To Play:
– All the players get 10 cards each. The remaining cards are placed face down on the table, forming the draw pile.
– Each player has to form two sets of three cards and one set of four cards. They should be sequences of the cards of the same suit.
– The first player will pick a card from the remaining stack. If the card is helpful, he/she will keep the card otherwise throw it face up for the next player.
– The next player will then pick the card either from the stack or otherwise, depending on his/her requirement.
– The first player to complete the sequences wins.
UNO
If you’re looking for a fun card game to play with your family, give UNO a try.
What You Need: UNO cards
Number of players: 2 to 10
How To Play:
– Shuffle all the 108 UNO cards properly and hand out seven cards to each player.
– The rest will become a draw pile for the game. While the draw pile is face down on the table, to start the game, the dealer has to pick the top card and put it face up.
– The first player will lay down a card from his/her hand if either one of these things matches the card lying on the table — colour, number, word, or symbol.
– If you don’t have a card, draw one from the draw pile. You can play this card immediately when it matches the criteria with the top card on the table.
– If you get a wild card, you can play it anytime. Wild cards are special cards that don’t have any numbers on them.
– As the game continues, the player, when left with just one card in hand, has to say UNO. Other players can hand out two cards as a penalty if the person doesn’t say the word UNO.
– The player who finishes his/her cards first, wins.
Slapjack
This is worth trying as well!
What You Need: A standard 52-card deck
Number of players: More than two
How To Play:
– Deal all the cards, one at a time, to all the players. And don’t worry, the hands do not have to come out even.
– Without looking at the cards, each player has to make a pile of the cards dealt to them.
– Beginning on the dealer’s left side, each player has to place one of their cards face up in the centre. When the card played to the centre is a Jack, the fun begins!
– All the players have to try to slap their hand down on the Jack. The first one to do it gets the Jack and all the cards under it.
– If a player slaps his/her hand down on a card that’s not a Jack, they have to give a card to the person to whom the card at the centre belonged.
– Once a player finishes his/her card, they remain in the game till they get another chance to slap on a Jack. If they do so, they get the pile of cards under it. But if they fail to do so, they are out of the game. The last person to remain in the game wins.
Also read: 10 Fun Games To Play With Your Best Friend At The Next Sleepover!
Family Board Games
For those seeking a useful way to spend quality with their families, how about getting a new board game!?
- Puzzles
- Scrabble
- Ludo
Puzzles
Coming to family board games, solving puzzles with your kids or partner can be a really good and constructive way to spend your family time.
What You Need: Any puzzle board (easy or difficult)
Number of players: 2 or more
How To Play:
– Solving a puzzle doesn’t have a set list of rules. You can either go for simple puzzle boards if you have your little munchkins at home, or go for a 100 or 1000-piece puzzle.
Scrabble
Scrabble is another board game you can enjoy with your entire family. Here are some things you should know before you start playing.
The point values for each letter used in Scrabble, one of the fun games to play with family at home, are listed below:
1 Point – A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T and U
2 Points – D and G
3 Points – B, C, M and P
4 Points – F, H, V, W and Y
5 Points – K
8 Points – J and X
10 Points – Q and Z
Extra Point Values
Double Letter Score – When someone uses the light blue cells in the board, the value of the tile placed on that square doubles.
Triple Letter Score – Similarly, the dark blue cell in the board will be worth triple the amount.
Double Word Score – There are some light red-coloured cells on the board towards the four corners. The entire value of the word doubles when a word is placed on these squares.
Triple Word Score – Similarly, the dark red square will get you triple the word score.
One Single Use – The extra point squares on the board can only be used once. One cannot use the word as a multiplier by placing another word on the same square.
What are Accepted Scrabble Words?
Any word that you can find in a standard English dictionary can be used in Scrabble.
What You Need: A scrabble board, letter tiles, a pen and a paper
Number of players: 2 to 4
How To Play:
– Each player has to take seven letter tiles out of the tile bag. The one closest to letter ‘A’ goes first. Each player then draws seven letter tiles from the bag and will start all their turns by doing so.
– A player has three options at his/her turn – exchange the tiles, choose to pass or form a word.
– The first player making a word will place their tiles on the star spin at the centre of the board. The star will offer a double word score.
– Keep track of the word scores for each player and make sure that the players are using only acceptable words.
– Count the score and the player with the highest score wins.
Ludo
Ludo is one game which families always enjoy.
What You Need: A ludo board
Number of players: 2 to 4
How To Play:
– There are four colours on the Ludo board, so the game will start once every player has chosen their colour.
– Place all of your pieces onto the corresponding colour pockets.
– As the game starts, each player will roll the dice. The player only gets to bring his/her first pawn onto the playing area of the board once they roll a six.
– Roll again to determine your first move. All the players will follow the same rules.
– Continue to roll at the beginning of your turn and make sure to move your pawns in a way that you land on the opponent’s piece. If this happens, your opponent will have to take his/her pawn back to where he/she started.
– Keep playing and once you’ve completed a lap, you will be moving into the home stretch area. The one who gets all his pawns inside the home base wins.
Also Read: Best fun games for kitty party
Family Games That You Can Play Online
Here are some family online games that you can binge-play with your loved ones.
- Housie
- Skribbl
Housie/Tambola
One of the most enjoyable games to play with family, Housie or Tambola is a game of yesteryear that has made a comeback.
What You Need: Your phones/laptops
Number of players: 5 players, minimum
How To Play:
– The most popular Tambola app is Tambola Bingo. Either download it in your phone or play it on your laptops.
– Upon successfully entering the app, it gives you an option of choosing between a public game or a private game.
– Once you choose to play a private game, you have to invite your family members to join the game.
– Each player, then, has to buy a ticket and strike off the numbers as the dealer calls out.
Here are some of the winning combinations in the game (fastest, of course):
Early Five – The ticket with the first five numbers marked off.
Top Line – The ticket with all the numbers of the top row marked off.
Middle Line – The ticket with all the numbers of the middle row marked off.
Bottom Line – The ticket with the numbers of the bottom row marked off.
Four Corners – The ticket with all four corners marked first — first and last numbers of top and bottom rows.
Full House – The ticket with all the numbers marked off.
Skribbl
One of the most captivating family games online, Skribbl is sure to get everyone hooked up.
What You Need: Your phones/laptops
Number of players: 2 to 12 players
How To Play:
– Again, let’s go with one of the most popular ones – Skribbl. Either download it on your phone or play it on your laptops.
– If you’re playing it on your laptops, go to the site – skribbl.io. Enter your name and create a private room.
– It will then give you an option of selecting the number of rounds you want to play, the drawing time and the language.
– Send the code at the bottom of the page to your family members so that they can join in.
– Wait for the first player to draw something and you would have to guess it. If someone has guessed the word, they win.
– Keep a tab on the scores and decide the winner at the end of the rounds.
While the government is gradually easing the restrictions, it’s still recommended that you go out only if absolutely necessary. Till then, play some family games and enjoy the time with your loved ones before we’re back to the grind again.
Featured Image: Unsplash
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