Great board games to ward off boredom.

We live in Southern California, but because of the pandemic shutdown, we're treating this time like we live in a wintery climate, which means more time inside with the family. Let's make it more fun. Let's play some games!

While chess is experiencing a resurgence due to Netflix's "The Queen's Gambit", and puzzles are back in demand (and increasingly on backorder), we decided to look at board games as an alternative. We know there are some new ones out now and we wanted to expand our library beyond the old favorites: Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk...and these games are as much fun for adults as they are for kids. Here are our family-friendly favorites...

Exploding Kittens

Exploding kittens is the perfect card game for adults, teens and kids who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats. Like Cards Against Humanity, but less crude and more family-friendly.

Codenames

It can be taught in under five minutes and provides a ton of fun. Codenames is a social word game with a simple premise and challenging game play. Two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents...

Blokus Strategy Game

Stake your claim and protect your territory by fitting as many of your pieces on the board as possible while strategically blocking your opponents! This teaches skills related to visual/spatial acuity, math, and strategy, all within a really enjoyable game for all ages.

Calliope Tsuro

This is a tile-placement game. Simple as that. Each tile has a set of paths on it. Great for different and mixed crowds.

Catan

The incredibly popular, multi award winning civilization building board game of harvesting and trading resources. Players control their own civilization and look to spread across a modular hex board in a competition for victory points.

Ravensburger Labyrinth

Whoever finds their way through the labyrinth wins. But the journey to getting there is a veritable treasure hunt filled with a cast of mythical characters.

Hopefully this list gives you some ideas for something new to play or at least inspiration to break out old favorites. May the merriest player win!