Board Game for 6, 9, 11 year old and the family

nightsky224

We will be spending xmas day with nieces (6 and 9 years old) and nephew (11 yrs old) plus family and I thought it would be great to have a game that we can all play together.
Has anyone got any suggestions or am I asking too much...?

moneybunny123

You can buy a family version of Trivial Pursuit now - it has separate questions for adults and kids so nobody's disadvantaged.

carlamarie_2

Picturika (sorry I have no idea how it's spelt!) I have played it with a 5,6 and 11 year ok'd, went down well

cte1111

My 7 year old loves Monopoly City (it's quicker than the old version) and Uno. My 11 year old will play either of them for a bit, but is less keen on games on the whole.

kingfisherblue

I would go with either Pictureka or Uno. Both are visual, so no problem if the children can't read clues or questions, and both are great fun. Uno is also very portable - handy to carry if you are going on holiday next year and might face flight delays, for example, but you do need at least four people to have the best playing experience.

DigForVictory

Snakes & Ladders, Ludo - old fashioned but loads of fun, in part as players are allowed to bet sweets.... The competitive blighters play to win, the scheming demons play for sweets & Granny's decisions are Final.
Beetle (pencil & paper & dice) & pontoon/vingt-et-un/21 also played under her aegis & great fun.
Children may watch and count at poker "tournaments" but all comments must be written. Age of poker consent is 14 before 6pm & 18 after - as they get tired, they get acrimonious...
Have a great family time!

suejb2

Who's in the bag or What's in the bag.Each card has a choice of 3 options 1 of which is child friendly (in my case grandma friendly)

maggy50

Monopoly my youngest loves it and even more so when thrashing grandpa in a game no cheating

All ages love this game.

tlchimera

I might be a little late replying to this, but as I work in a board game shop (they do exist!) I though I might be able to give you a few slightly more unusual suggestions:

It's hard to find a game that will appeal to both younger and older members of a family, and a lot of 'classic' board games are best from age 8 upwards.

For your six year old niece I would suggest Sleeping Queens - which is a really nice memory game. It's very cute with a strong fairytale theme and some nice jokes - like you cannot hold the "Cat Queen" and the "Dog Queen" at the same time.

A lot of the Gamewright games are great for that ages and a little older - other nice ones are Rat-A-Tat-Cat, Too Many Monkeys and Monster Cafe.

If you're looking for something lively then Escape: The Curse of the Temple is great (especially if they happen to be into Indiana Jones) It's a cooperative game where you all work together to beat the game, which is nice if anybody sulks when they lose... The basic premise is that you are all rolling dice at once and depending on the dice rolls you can explore different rooms in the temple, search out more rooms (in the hope of finding an exit) or collect gems (the more gems you collect the easier it is to get out of the temple.) The cool thing about it is that it comes with a CD, which provides a really good soundtrack to the game. Each game only takes 10 minutes and is for up to five players.

A more traditional game is Survive: Escape from Atlantis. This would be too complex for the 6 year old, but anybody over 8 years old would enjoy it (including adults!) In this game you are trying to get as many of your mini people (meeples!) off a sinking island to safety. To do this they have to either swim or take a boat towards the safe land at the corners of the board. However there are sharks, whales and sea monsters in the sea that other players can use to attack your boat or swimmer and prevent them from getting there! This is not for the faint-hearted as there are a lot of "gotcha" moments and it can be easy to pick on people. I just suggest you pick on Dad

If you're looking for something that plays higher numbers of people and is perhaps a little more "party-ish" for Christmas Day then either of the next two suggestions are great:

Dixit
A really simple card game. Every card in Dixit is a beautifully drawn picture. The object of the game is to give a hint about the card you have chosen from your hand that will allow others to guess what it is (and you can hint with words, phrases, songs or actions - whatever you prefer) - everybody then chooses a card from their own hand that is reminiscent of the hint you have given. Everybody then puts their card face down in the centre of the table and they are shuffled. Once shuffled you turn the cards face up and everybody has to guess which one you chose! You only score points if some people guess what you said but not all (so if you say anchor and it's a picture of an anchor you get punished for being too obvious, and if you say mouse for the same picture and nobody votes for it you get punished for being too obscure.)
With help I think the 6 year old would cope, but she may need help.
Dixit comes in two main varieties - "Dixit" which plays 3-6 players, and "Dixit Odyssey" with plays 3-12 players. They are the same game.


Snake Oil
A really silly talking game. Somebody pulls out a card which has a role on it - they might be a gravedigger, a ring master, a caveman etc. Everybody else has 6 cards, each with a noun on it. They have to put two of those cards together to create an item to sell to the person. They then have to so a 60 second pitch. The person they are selling to then chooses who has done the best pitch and gives them their role card. The first to three role cards wins.
Provided the children aren't shy, this may work well.

All the games I've suggested are available on Amazon (other than Survive.) I apologise for not adding links - my account is still quite new so I'm not allowed to as yet. If you do happen to have a local games store near you, I do recommend visiting them and seeing what they have to offer - there is much more out there than Risk and Monopoly!

If anybody would you like a board game recommendation or more information on what's out there feel free to pm me - I lurk far more than I post!

tlchimera

I was just closing the Amazon pages I had up to check if the above was in stock and spotted "The Magic Labyrinth" (called: Drei Magier Spiele The Magic Labyrinth English Edition Board Game on Amazon) - this a really nice little game that would work for all three of the children. Very simple: you roll a dice and move your wizard that many spaces towards a spell token. You have to collect five spell tokens to win. The twist is that underneath the board is a maze constructed out of little wooden walls and the wizards are magnetic and have a ball bearing attached to them. At any point if you move the wizard and his ball (!) falls off from hitting a wall you have to go back to the start. This becomes a memory game where you try to remember where the unseen walls are. You can add and take away walls to change the difficulty. Plays 2-4, and has been really popular this year. Really tactile little game.

zanuda

Trex game - dinosaur persute board game. The rules could be adjusted to less difficult level. It's classic, you could find it in many toy shops, link from amazone: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paul-Lamond-Games-90314-Tyrannosuarus/dp/B0000A121I