Family Board Games Bucket List

Pull ingredients from a bag and stop before your cauldron explodes.

Expansion 11 puts historic wonders on the map, each one with a rule of its own.

A cycling race with dice, drafting and a peloton that behaves like one.

Plan a route through a fantasy map using transport cards others also need.

Five detectives hunt Mister X across a London map; he surfaces every five turns.

Expansion 2 adds wine, cloth and wheat to collect off finished cities, the builder who buys you a second tile, and the pig who fattens a field.

Paddle steamers race downriver, picking up passengers and running out of coal.

Bid, steal and exhibit antiques; simultaneous card selection with a lot of bluffing.

Liar's dice under a cup: raise the bid or call it, and lose a die when you are wrong.

Lay tiles into a peaceful landscape, campaign by campaign; the digital game as cardboard.

Colours and shapes on wooden tiles; Scrabble without the words.

Roll dice, trigger buildings, race to finish four landmarks.

Two players decorating the vaults of the palace, one by day and one by night.

Domino-shaped land tiles and a five-by-five grid; a masterclass in small design.

The gateway co-op: grab four treasures before the island sinks.

Yahtzee monsters smash each other for control of the city.

The expansion that gives Catan a real mid-game and a barbarian clock.

The roll-and-write take on the tile-and-wildlife hit.

Card drafting so light you can teach it in ninety seconds.

Tunnels, ferries and stations on the best-loved map of the series.

Trick-taking where you must predict exactly how many tricks you will win.

A two-player quilt of Tetris pieces and a time track instead of turns.

The palace garden on hexes, where a tile has to share a colour or a plant with its neighbour.

Three rounds of the same names: describe, one word, then mime.

A dial between two extremes and a clue that has to land exactly right.

Hike a trail through the US National Parks, collecting memories and photos.

Broken telephone with sketchbooks; the fun is entirely in the reveal.

Fantasy races overrun the map and then go into decline on purpose.

Quilt-building for cats: a spatial puzzle that punishes one wrong tile.

Trees cast shadows over each other as the sun rotates around the board.