Family Games to Play This Summer

Are you looking for some fun family games to play this summer? Summer is a time for vacations, family reunions, travel, and having your children home from school. A lot of time is spent outdoors, but sometimes it is rainy or just plain hot. It is a great time to play games!

Family reunions bring a lot of people together and a lot of people with which you can play games. Vacation and traveling also give you a lot of free time for games.

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#1 — Travel-Size Games

A lot of regular-size games also come in a smaller size for travel. Some of these include: Battleship, Yahtzee, Scrabble, Guess Who, and Connect 4.

There are also games which are just small in size. You can play a lot of different games with a deck of cards. Other card games include Phase 10, UNO, Old Maid, and Rook.

Some of my favorite small-sized games are Quiddler (a word game), Water Works, and Pit (a commodities trading game).

#2 — Classic Games

There are some games that have been around for a while and continue to be popular with each generation.

Monopoly, Masterpiece, Taboo, Catch Phrase, Scattergories, Clue, and Life are some of these games. Sometimes there are variations of these games such as Bible Scattergories, Star Wars Life, and The Office Clue.

These family games are great to play because most people already know how to play them.

You can even make your own versions of these classic games. Check out some of our tutorials for making your own board games:

Harry Potter Game: DIY Candy Land

DIY Star Wars Mystery Date Game with Printables

DIY Harry Potter Monopoly Game with Printables & Instructions

#3 — Two-Player Games

Sometimes you don’t have a bunch of people to play a game with. There are a lot of great games that two people can play easily.

Chess, Checkers, Mastermind, Yahtzee, Stratego, and Battleship are a few games for two people.

Some other less common games for two people include: Quinto (a number game similar to Scrabble), Quarto (a strategy game), and Crossfire. Crossfire is a game with targets in the middle and each side is shooting small metal balls at the targets trying to get it in the other person’s goal. It is sort of like a table-top hockey game but shooting balls out of a chute at the targets.

#4 — Music Games

Music games are fun even if you don’t have musical talent.

Bigger games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are fun but expensive if you don’t already own them. There are other music games that are fun, too.

Hummble (a humming song game), Encore (a singing game where you try to think of certain songs with a word in it), and Songburst. Songburst has three versions — 50’s & 60’s, 70’s & 80’s, and Country. You have to sing the correct lyrics of a song which can sometimes be hard.

One other game that we have is called Disney’s Wonderful World of Music. It has trivia cards that ask questions after you push a button to listen to a Disney song. Sometimes it asks you to identify the movie the song is from or the name of the song.

These are all fun family games to play if you like music at all.

#5 — Word Games

I really like word games, so that is the kind of game that will always get my vote. Scrabble, Upwords, and Word Yahtzee are fun word games.

Quiddler, which I mentioned earlier with the travel-sized games, is also a great word game. If you aren’t familiar with Quiddler, it is played in rounds. You start with three cards the first round and have ten by the last round. You try to make words that will get you the most points (which are determined by the letters you have). There are bonuses for the longest word and the most words in a hand.

#6 — Trivia Games

Who doesn’t love a great trivia game? Trivial Pursuit is probably the most common trivia game, but there are lots of others as well. There are different versions of Trivial Pursuit, too, like Star Wars and 80’s version. Other trivia games that we have are Dr. Seuss Trivia and MASH Trivia.

#7 — Movie & TV Games

My son is a big movie buff, so he does well at movie games. Scene It games are great if you are inside and have access to a DVD player. There are many different Scene It games to choose from such as Star Trek, Harry Potter, Seinfeld, Friends Scene It, Movie Scene It, and Disney.

A couple other good games for this category would be Pass the Popcorn and Nick at Nite.

#8 — Perception Games

Another fun type of family games are perception games. How well do you notice things that others don’t? Games like Scrutineyes, Where’s Waldo World Game, and Picture/Picture are games that you have to look for things in order to win.

#9 — Games for Everyone

There are always games that almost anyone can play, which makes them great family games. Some games that fall under this category are: Jenga, Connect 4, Guess Who, Quelf, and Name 5.

Quelf is a game that we found at a thrift store. It has silly tasks to do or questions to answer. You might also draw a card that says something like “For the rest of the game, you have to say everything twice” or you move back two spaces. It can get kind of crazy.