Revitalize Game Night With These Awesome Board Games

In the olden days, Family Game Night meant a combative round of Monopoly, yawn-inducing game of Life, or hours-long session of Risk. Board games have come a long way in recent decades; they cover so many genres and can have such complex storylines that they rival books or film. You may be familiar with some of the new wave of board games, such as Settlers of Catan, but there are so many amazing new games out there that we think you should give board game night another try. We’ve put together a selection of our favorites for you to scope out!

Terror In Meeple City, an interactive kaiju monster adventure

We’ll begin with Terror in Meeple City, the game the awesome employees of Imgur are playing in the above gif. Terror in Meeple City turns even the most mature gamer into a silly little kid again. In this game, you are a giant, Godzilla-esque monster, and your goal is to destroy as many buildings and eat as many citizens of Meeple City as possible. Unlike more sedate games, where you might state your actions, in this game you must act it out! Would you like to make a breath attack to knock down a building? To do so, you leave your chair, go to the side of the game board with the building in question, take a deep breath, and blow. In this game, be prepared to flick pieces, knock down buildings, and become the biggest monster on the block.

Protip: Terror In Meeple City was first released under the name Rampage, and is still available for sale under both names. The only difference between the two is the name on the box!

Betrayal at House on the Hill, a haunted house horror story with a twist

You know those movies where the characters should NOT go in that one scary house, but they do anyway, and terrible things happen? That’s Betrayal at House on the Hill. What begins as a cooperative effort in exploring a haunted house turns into a battle for your lives as one random player turns against everyone else. With dozens of betrayal scenarios and a randomly laid out map, the game varies greatly with each play. Will it be vampire bats, ghostly possession, or cannibals that tear your friendships apart? You should probably stay away from this house, but we bet you’re going to find out anyway…

Smash Up, a deckbuilding game with more flavors than Baskin Robbins

Another great game that varies each time you play it, Smash Up is a card game in which you select two armies, build your deck, and try to capture bases. The first person to fifteen victory points wins. It’s very simple in concept, but allows for a lot of variety!

The charm lies in the selection of your armies, which cater to odd and specific interests, feature great art, and witty jokes. There are over twenty armies available currently, with more expansions in the works. Here are some examples of armies you can combine:
- For the bro who must smash: Bear Cavalry + Cyborg Apes
- For the parent who can quote Disney in their sleep: Princesses + Mythic Horses
- For the HP Lovecraft superfan: Cthulhu Cultists + Elder Things
- For the Anglophile: Time Travelers + Super Spies
- For the lover of B movies: Killer Plants + Aliens

Our personal favorite? Ninjas + Pirates. It’s a classic combo, but it doesn’t disappoint!

Timeline, a game where history and trivia buffs can really shine

Timeline is a very simple game to learn but quite tough to master! Its concept: make a timeline of events from earliest to latest. Sounds pretty easy, but how well can you order the most iconic inventions? What about movies and music? How about events in American history?

Each set of Timeline focuses on one theme (e.g. inventions), and players must place all cards in their hand into a central timeline in correct order. At the onset, this is quite easy, but when you have more than 20 cards lined up, pinpointing the exact year gets quite difficult! This game is really fun to play with folks of all ages (i.e., is not too complicated to explain to your parents and grandparents). It also sparks a lot of conversation, either in reminiscence of a film mentioned or surprise in how early an object was actually invented.

Pandemic and Contagion, post-apocalyptic games with opposite goals

Pandemic is a collaborative strategy game in which you try to save the world (literally) against a medical catastrophe. The party selects different roles in science, government, and medicine in an effort to combat the outbreak of four diseases before the world is consumed. There are several expansions available that add new scenarios to conquer and roles to play, just in case saving Earth becomes old hat! If you enjoy strategizing with your friends to win, Pandemic is the game for you.

If you like to watch the world burn, you might be interested in Pandemic’s evil twin: Contagion. Contagion allows you to become the disease, and this time there are no other players to stop you from contaminating the world. To win: build your little disease self up strong and destroy more cities than your opponents.

Will you choose to be the savior or the villain? We prefer both, depending on our mood.

Forbidden Desert, a cooperative struggle to survive an arid desert

Forbidden Desert is another game that requires cooperative effort between players, simply because the game itself is more than enough to kill you on its own. Your group is a party of explorers who crash-landed in a desert, where you face death by dehydration and sandstorm. Each player’s unique job role factors into your survival, from storing water to traveling more efficiently through the sand. If you work together, you might be able to recover the pieces of the flying ship you need to escape before the desert defeats you.

Protip: If you like Forbidden Desert, you’ll definitely enjoy the first game in the series, Forbidden Island. In this game, your group of explorers must find hidden artifacts before the island you’re on sinks into the ocean.

Mysterium, a visual game of whodunit

If you’re a fan of mystery games like Clue and visual charades like Dixit, you will love Mysterium. This game, originally from Poland, has recently been translated to English and is sure to become a huge hit on American soil. In Mysterium, a murder has been committed and the party must work together to figure out the details. One player is the amnesiac ghost, whose only method of communication is illustrated cards. The remaining players are a group of psychics who have seven in-game hours to suss out who the killed the ghost, in which room, and with what weapon. We think it was Mr. Green in the hall with the revolver, but we may be mistaken.

Cat Tax: Exploding Kittens, the most-backed Kickstarter campaign of all time

For our cat tax, we must choose none other than Exploding Kittens. This simple and fun game, designed by The Oatmeal’s Matthew Inman, is the most backed Kickstarter project to date. If you’re not one of the 219,382 folks who pledged a copy, we recommend you check it out. It’s a very simple premise: cats are trying to blow themselves up, and you must stop them. What could be quite morbid is actually very ridiculous and silly, thanks to The Oatmeal’s writing and art. It even comes in an NSFW version, for those who prefer a more risque set of cats.

In case you don’t win, you can always quit with style.

We hope you enjoyed our look at amazing tabletop games, Imgur! Nothing beats a great game night with family and friends, especially when there is more fun things to do than steal your sister’s Monopoly money when she gets up to use the restroom. Happy gaming!

Thank you Imgur employees Carlos, Zak, Andy and Aaron for participating in our promoted post!