Board Games aren’t always good for kids, whether they are too long, complicated, or worse — shudder — both. Here are nine games that are fun for the whole family.

Qwirkle – 2-4 players

Qwirkle is an abstract strategy game which is almost as simple as it is fun to play. All you have to do is place tiles next to each other that match either shape or colour but not both. Points are scored by assembling lines of these tiles without duplicates. If a line manages to contain all six shapes or all six colours, that is called a qwirkle and scores even more points.  

Pandemic – 2-4 players

Cooperative games are great for soothing the competitive burn or, dare I say, sibling rivalries. As a team, you’ll win or you’ll lose. You’ll cure the deadly diseases threatening the world, or the diseases will wipe out humanity. Welcome to Pandemic, a game of medical mayhem in which there’s so many ways to lose and only one way to win: cure all four diseases.

Blokus – 2-4 players

Blokus is a space management and territory control game in which only the corners of your colours are allowed to touch. Your colours can sidle up nice and cozy to another colour, that’s fine, but once you run out of room to expand or pieces to place, your turns end. Your score is the leftover blocks you were unable to place. Lowest score wins.

Camel Up – 2-8 players

Probabilities, camel racing, and extravagant bets. What’s not to love about the glorious world of Camel Up, in which camels will actually stack up onto each other for a free ride. At its core, Camel Up is a game about probability. It’s usually quite simple to determine the odds of something happening, and yet we like to act surprised when the most likely thing to happen, doesn’t always happen. The winner of Camel Up is the player to make the most money betting on camels by the time the race ends.

Codenames – 2-8 players

One of the most popular party games out there, Codenames is a great teamwork oriented game in which one player on each team is the spymaster and must give clues as to which codenames their team’s agents are going by.

Ghost Blitz – 2-8 players

It’s so fast it’s spooky. Ghost Blitz is an easy to learn game that does its best to bamboozle the player. It’s a game that requires the brain to work through three steps. Comprehension: what items are on the card and what colours are they; deduction: If one of the items matches exactly, grab it, otherwise grab the one that doesn’t match at all; reflexes: whoever grabs the correct object scores a point.

Spinderella – 2-4 players

Spinderella is a game in which two to four players race three of their ants across a forest floor, all the while avoiding the spiders — Peter and Parker – who lurk above on the canopy, just waiting to descend on unsuspecting ants and carry them back to the starting line.

Animal Upon Animal – 2-4 players

Sometimes referred to as Animal Jenga, Animal Upon Animal is a dexterity game about stacking animals up higher and higher until it tumbles. The game is as simple as rolling a dice, then taking that action. If the tower falls then you lose!

Magic Labyrinth – 2-4 players

Have you ever been in a maze so immense and confusing that you lose your marbles? No, I’m not talking about Ikea. I’m talking about Magic Labyrinth, the maze game with invisible walls that block your progress. Players attempt to navigate the maze collecting tokens, but if they hit a wall, it’s back to the beginning with you! Can you memorize the maze enough to collect five tokens? If so, you win!

Some honourable mentions that didn’t make it onto this list include: Rhino Hero Super Battle, Kitty Chaos, Dixit, and Caracassonne.