Meaningful family games or activities for gatherings?
Our extended family lives in the same city and we're always getting together (brother/sisters-in-laws, their kids). So basically our generation and our kids. Probably 13-15 of us.
We meet maybe once or twice a month, but whenever we meet, kids just go do kids things, dads go over here, moms go over there. One of the dads invariably falls asleep, one or two of the kids kind of mull about not quite fitting in here or there.
I was wondering if any of you had any ideas for something that can be done together that might help build memories or at least structure some time so that there's meaningful interaction and we can get to know each other better instead of defaulting to whatever is least effort.
The only constraint is that is has to be that it's an in-home, indoor activity suitable for teens/pre-teens.
Gartic Phone has the Ice Breaker game mode where each person writes a prompt (for example, What's your favourite X?) and everyone draws their answer.
The various Jackbox Party packs have various games. My favourites from Jackbox 7 are Champ'd Up and Quiplash and in Jackbox 9 my favourite is Fibbage. Both of these games benefit from having a big screen TV with a computer connected that acts as the primary display where all the results show up, everyone else uses their phones or tablets to play the game.
A font of good game ideas is the TV show Taskmaster. It's a British gameshow where they set a panel of comedians to perform meaningless tasks and they are good fun to do with family and kids. We dedicate a day of our family reunion to it every year and it's become quite an event for everyone.
Simple ones to try are:
Move the most water from one bucket to another, without moving and bucket. The buckets should be a fair distance apart and provide nonsensical tools like a pasta stainer or shot glasses.
Build the tallest tower out of raw pastas, marshmallows and spaghetti.
Inflate the largest balloon while blindfolded.
Draw the largest circle with a single stroke.
There's full seasons on YouTube (will link when I get to a PC) to inspire ideas and the trick is to be vauge enough to let people think laterally and bend the rules.
The tradition in our family to is to play 'hat game' (there's a million variations with probably a million different names), but to describe it:
You hand out 2-3 pieces of paper and everyone writes down the name of a person or character, real or fictional. All the pieces get folded twice and put in a hat.
You split the room into two teams, then take turns between teams having someone go up and pull names from the hat for others to guess. They have 30 secs to 1 minutes (I tend to secretly add time for the little kids) to get as many guesses as possible, and you keep the paper to score.
You keep going until all the names are gone, tally scores, then all the names go back in the hat.
There's a bunch of different variations to increasingly make the rounds harder, we do
1st round - Can't say any of the words on the paper
2nd round - Can only say 3 words total (none of the paper)
3rd round - Actions only, no words.
I heard one variation where you do it under a bed sheet (probably give that a miss).
This game works well because almost anyone can take part (very small kids usually get the hang of it, and anyone elderly or disabled can usually do it sitting). You usually get a fun variation of names because everyone is contributing to the hat - especially fun when the same name is in there 2 or 3 times. There's the fun of 'who put that in there?'. Teams get to root for one another, but it's fairly non-competitive, and there's not too much room for rule bending/arguments.
The variations work well because even if there's names people aren't familiar with, in-jokes start to form across rounds as ways to reference certain names in the hat.
Always popular! And works well for groups of 6-15 I'd say.
Below are all games we have had a good time with on our family retreats - kids as young as 7 up to grandparents, so similar to the group you described.
satisfactionone to pick up their socks". Just skip any theme that is too "adult". Younger kids might not get all the references but can still play. The best way to play is to not keep score because reading the puns is the fun part. If the kids go off on their own it is equally fun as an adult game.Mafia/Werewolf - only need a deck of cards, rules are very easy and can scale pretty well. For large groups, looking for some sort of add-on rules so “the dead” keep playing after they die to keep them involved with the game is a good plan.
We play a game called "la vache qui tâche" which requires nothing more than a cork and something to burn the end of it. It's appropriate for all ages (as long as they can talk) and it's always a good laugh for us. The anglosphere equivalent of the game is Ibble Dibble, but I believe the rules are the same.
We're also big fans of Taco, cat, goat, cheese, pizza and variants of the game. It's like a mix of snap and dobble if you're familiar with either of those games. Dobble is good for smaller kids as well. I wouldn't play with groups bigger than 7 or 8 people though, you won't have enough cards for everyone.
If you like slap games, you might try Egyptian Rat Screw. We always play with the double slap rule, but it seems there are many more complicated ones. This game is nice because you just need a deck of playing cards and it scales up for bigger groups by combining multiple decks.
We used to have the additional rule that if three cards in a row were slapped, you had to burn the deck at midnight. We never did need to exercise the rule though.
My go-to in this situation is Code Names which is a deceptively simple word cluing game. I've played with both 5 and 75 year olds at the same table and it's great fun. Four players or more, I think we've done ten or twelve a couple of times and it's worked OK. Best with maybe six though.
Even the board game sceptics in my family/friends have been converted within a few minutes of play. I've never encountered anyone who couldn't play, and enjoy, Code Names although you might struggle a bit if you have some people who speak different languages. There's a reason it won a ton of awards. You can also play online
The game Monikers (or Taboo) is a pretty good one with big groups! It might not be as good with younger kids though, but you can probably take out the inappropriate cards in Monikers at least. I also try to bring out "Cards Against Humanity"-style games for groups, if you want some different ones, Snake Oil and Trial By Trolley are two that I bring out.
Up to 10 people, Avalon/The Resistance/Werewolf/Mafia are always fun! You can always try Two Rooms and a Boom too, I think that scales to 30+ people, but I don't personally know how well it plays tbh.
Codenames could be great with that big of a group, but if you want to split down to 4 groups, that would work too!
All the above can be found as board games! A game called Fishbowl can also be used in place of Monikers, might be more personal too, but more setup, since you have to create everything by yourself.
I also second Jackbox, with the caveat that most of the best games only go up to 8 or 10, with everyone else needing to join as Audience members. Rotate through them as you will.
(Quick note, my personal favorite game in Jackbox 9 is also captured in board game form, called Wavelength, which can be played up to 12 people, probably more if you want)
Tic Tac Together is a similar game that has the same concept, but it's only one game and plays up to 8 I think. I've never played King of the Castle, but that's also in the same vein and it seemed fun, very Game of Thrones! All these can be found on Steam.
For Thanksgiving and Friendsgiving, I do a really simple "game" based around a gratitude practice.
I pass around slips of paper and pens, everyone writes down something they're thankful for, and I collect the answers. Then I read them out loud one at a time and ask everyone to guess who each one belongs to. It's fun to test our knowledge of each other's personalities, and sometimes you learn new things about each other. At first I gave people just one piece of paper each, but the guessing game is more fun if people submit multiple answers.
It fits with the Thanksgiving theme but can be done anytime, (and you could also choose different themes, like favorite foods, books, activities, etc. Or even asking a thought provoking or fun question of any type.) I like that you don't have to buy anything or plan ahead in order to play it.
My large family has enjoyed Masquerade and One Night Ultimate Werewolf as fast, easy party games with a social mechanic. Both of them involve deception/lying which in a big group can be a heck of a lot of fun. Another game that everyone has really enjoyed is a very simple, up to 4 player cooperative building game called Team Up. It’s like playing Tetris, except with a limited number of pieces and in 3D. Great for spatial awareness and everyone has to work together to build the tallest pallet possible. Very easy to pick up, very hard to master.
You could also get a really big puzzle, like one of those 2000 piece ones. People can wander in and out of puzzle assembly as they like, it’s a great focal point and a good ongoing activity, and conversation gets started just by asking “oh, do you have one that looks like this?”
We used to play pass the trash card game with anywhere from 6 on up. Lots of stories get told, and its a good deceiving card game which gets hysterical. Its so simple, anybody can play. We play with 4 quarters, once you have no quarters you are out. Winner gets the pot.
https://ourlivelyadventures.com/how-to-play-pass-the-trash-card-game/
Mennonite Manners is fun if everybody can handle pressure and the kids won't cry
What you need:
Everybody is in a circle. You roll the die; if you get a six you start legibly printing the numbers from 1-100. You get to keep going until someone else rolls a six. You could run two pieces of paper and two dice at a time, which would be fun chaos.