Adult Game Night Favorites

...that aren't Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity.  Don't get me wrong, I love both of those, but everyone has them!  Mike and I are definite games people; we bring cribbage whenever we go to the bar together (yes, we're old people), and we love having neighbors over for game night to introduce them to new ones.  Having friends who love games as much as us is a definitely plus, and they've starting sharing some different ones with us, too.  Today, I've rounded up ten of our current favorites, a mixture of Mike's family's favorites and ones we've acquired after we played them with friends, to share with you!

one: Sequence - Technically, this game is played with playing cards, but it's not a traditional card game.  Each person receives 6 cards from a double deck, and each time it's your turn, you put one down, place a playing chip on that card's image on the board, and pick up a new card.  The only images not on the game board are jacks.  Play a one-eyed jack, and you can remove any one of your opponents' chips, or play a two-eyed jack, and place your chip on any available card image you want.  Depending on the number of people playing (you can play up to 2 or 3 players individually or up to 6 on teams), one or two sequences of 5 chips in a row wins.  They even make a cats version!

two: Mastermind - This one is only a two-player game, but it's still a great one.  The first player makes a sequence on the decoding board of 4 pieces and hides it from the second player behind the shield.  Then, the second player creates a guess on the other side of the board.  The first player lets the second player know if they have any correct by placing pegs next to the guess, indicating if any pieces are the right color but in the wrong spot (white peg), or the right color and in the right spot (red peg).  The second player continues to guess again and again, across the board, until he/she decodes the sequence or runs out of rows.

three: Takenoko - On New Year's Eve, we had the best game night at our next door neighbor's house.  They received this game for Christmas, and granted it took about a half hour to learn the rules, once you get it, it's a blast to play.  The premise is that the emperor of Japan was gifted a panda and the players (the emperor's court) are tasked with cultivating land plots, irrigating them, and growing 3 species of bamboo with the help of the imperial gardener.  The player who manages his land plots best, growing the most bamboo while feeding the the panda, wins the game.  After we read all of the rules, we watched this video to see it played first-hand.  You can play 2-4 players.

four: Suspend - Here's another one we learned at a friend's game night.  Each player (up to 4) is given a set of different shaped wire pieces to hang from the structure.  You roll the die to determine what color (each color is a different shape piece) you'll add to the structure.  If your piece or any others fall from the structure during your turn, those pieces are now yours.  Whoever gets rid of all their pieces first is the winner.

five: Ligretto - Mike's family has been playing this game for years, since his family's foreign exchange student from Germany introduced it to them.  Imagine a giant game of spit where everyone is throwing cards into different piles to make sequential 1-10s.  It's definitely wild and a lot of fun!  Each Ligretto sets comes with cards for 4 players.  Each player is coded by color, so you can buy additional colored sets and play with 8 or more people!

six: LCR - I love that you can play this game with as many people as you want.  We have everyone bring 3 quarters instead of using the chips.  Then, you roll 3 dice.  They will either land on L, pass a quarter to the left, R, pass a quarter to the right, C, pass one to the pot in the center, or a circle, keep it.  You keep going around in a circle until only one person has quarters left, and that person gets the whole middle pot.

seven: Rack-o - This is one of Mike's family games that I fell in love with.  Each person is dealt 10 of 60 total cards and places them in their racks back to front, without looking at them.  The goal is to get all of your 10 cards (that have a number 1 through 60) to go from lowest number (in the front) to highest number (in the back).  Each turn, you can either pick up the card at the top of the discard pile or draw a card from the deck and replace that card with one of the cards in your rack.  You keep going until one person has all 10 in order.

eight: Rummikub - Two to four players start by drawing 14 upside-down tiles.  Players try to make groups (sets of the same number) or runs (consecutive numbers in the same color) on their boards, and "meld" when they get to 30 points.  Each turn, you try to discard more tiles from your hand by adding to existing runs, groups, or moving tiles around to make new ones.  If you cannot add with anything from your hand, you draw a tile.  The first person to run out of tiles wins.

nine: Uno - But this isn't just any Uno!  We have added a few rules that make it super fun (and can keep one hand going forever).  The first rule is for drawing - you have to draw until you can play.  That means, you can wind up with 10 or more cards in your hand from one turn.  The second rule is stacking - if the person ahead of you plays a Draw 2, you can either draw 2 cards or play another Draw 2 that you have in your hand (doesn't have to be the same color for this rule).  Then, the next person either has to draw 4 or play another Draw 2.  This also works for Wild Draw 4 cards.  The third rule is "samesies."  If a person anywhere in the circle plays a card, and you have the EXACT same card (color and number), you can jump in before the next person goes and play that card.  Play continues from the person who jumped in with "samesies" as if it was their turn.  The final rule happens when "Uno" is (or isn't) called.  If someone has "Uno" and didn't call it, you can call them out, and they have to draw 7 cards.

ten: Rollers - A lot like Yahtzee, you roll dice to collect sets of each number.  The added component is that when you successfully get and close a set of a certain number, if you roll that number again, you collect chips from those who have not yet closed it.  You win the game by getting all your sets and having the most chips.

What's your favorite game for game night?  We're always looking for new ones to add to our collection!