Playing cards on a family game night is always a fun experience. However, after a while, it can become boring, if you’re always playing the same game. In that case, it’s time for a new, fun card game that both you and your kids will enjoy. With that in mind, we picked the best card games for families, so you’ll easily find one that a whole family will enjoy.
If you don’t have enough time to read through the whole article, here’s a quick recap of our three favorite card games for families.
| Card Game | Quality | |
|---|---|---|
 | Exploding Kittens | Best overall |
 | UNO | Easy to learn |
 | Dixit | Promotes creativity & imagination |
If you’d like to know more about these games, just read on. We’ll talk about all of them in more detail. Of course, there will also be some additional ones as well. Let’s get to it!
Best Card Game for Families Overall: Exploding Kitties
- Number of Players: 2-5 players
- Average Playing Time: 15 minutes
- Recommended Age: 7 years and older
We’re starting off hot! Exploding Kitties is certainly one of the best card games for families. It’s exciting, strategic and insanely fun. Besides, it’s also very easy to learn.
Players take turns — they may play cards with various effects, and at the end of the turn they have to draw the card. The main goal of to avoid drawing a special exploding kitten. If you draw one, you lose!
Thankfully, there are cards that help you avoid it. You can defuse the cat, by distracting it with lasers. You can also use cards that let you see the future (reorder the top cards of the deck), or simply skip drawing the card at the end of your turn. There are various effect cards, which gives the game some depth, and it isn’t as heavily luck-based as some other card games.
Anyway, Exploding Kittens is a very popular card game for families, and your kids will surely enjoy the fun illustrations. You can find some illustrations, as well as its price, on Amazon. The only downside would be that the game might be a bit harder to grasp for very young children. For them, we’d recommend something like UNO.
Easy to Learn: UNO
- Number of Players: 2-10 players
- Average Playing Time: 10 minutes
- Recommended Age: 7 years or older
UNO has already become an all-time classic family card game — it’s almost 50 years old! You’ll learn the rules in no time at all, as it is a very simple game. The majority of the rules can be explained in a single paragraph:
Each player gets 7 cards, and the players take turns. When it’s your turn, you put a card from your hand on the top of the pile in the middle. It has to have the same color or symbol as the card beneath it. If you manage to get rid of all the cards in your hand, you win. That’s mostly it.
Despite its simplicity, it’s still a very fun game for a whole family. There are also special cards, which can make an opponent draw extra cards, or they change the direction of turns. The game is also a nice learning tool for younger kids, as it will encourage them to learn practice numbers and counting.
Finally, we have to mention that there are countless different variations of the UNO card game. There’s probably an UNO variation for almost every franchise. Here are just some examples:
As you can see, you can probably find an UNO variation for everyone. The biggest strike against the game would be that it isn’t great for more experienced gaming families, as once you grasp the rules, there aren’t many strategy decisions to make. So if you belong in that camp, you might as well go for Unstable Unicorns.
Best Card Game for Families with Older Kids: Unstable Unicorns
- Number of Players: 2-8 players
- Average Playing Time: 30-60 minutes
- Recommended Age: 14 years and older
If you’re looking for a card game more suited to older kids, Unstable Unicorns might be the right choice.
The game is both hilarious and unpredictable. It won’t get boring, even after many rounds of it. But beware of the unicorns, they are not your usual friendly bunch — this is a game of destruction and unicorns are pretty scary.
The game has a higher level of complexity than most of the other games on this list of best card games for families. It’s somewhat similar to Magic the Gathering. This is great if your family is full of gamers, and you’re looking for a challenge.
The creators of Unstable Unicorns suggest that the players should be 14 years and older, so keep that in mind, when buying it. However, a bit younger kids, that are used to playing various board games will probably be able to learn it as well.
One final note — there’s also a NSFW version of this game, so be careful what you’re ordering if you don’t want to play with inappropriate cards.
For Monopoly Fans: Monopoly Deal
- Number of Players: 2-5 players
- Average Playing Time: 15 minutes
- Recommended Age: 8 years and older
Monopoly Deal is classic Monopoly turned into a card game! The problem with the original, board game Monopoly was that it lacked any kind of strategy besides buy everything, and it took a very long time to finish a game, even though it was basically already decided twenty turns ago.
Thankfully, the card version, brings some much-needed improvements. Monopoly Deal is both faster and less messy than a regular game of Monopoly. So if your family enjoys the spirit of Monopoly, but doesn’t want to spend 3 hours or more on a single game — this is a great choice for you.
Most Fun Card Game for Families: Kids Against Maturity
- Number of Players: 3-10 players
- Average Playing Time: 45 minutes
- Recommended Age: 8 years and older
Kids Against Maturity is a family-friendly version of Cards Against Humanity.
There are two types of cards — questions and answers. Each player gets some answer cards, while the question cards get shuffled in a big pile. The first question card is revealed, and each player tries to pair it with the funniest answer card possible. The judge decides which answer card was the funniest, and the player who played it wins the round. One of the players is the judge, and the role swaps every turn. That’s why you need at least three players to play the game.
So if you want to have some fun at your family game night, Kinds Against Maturity will take care of that and provide a ton of laughs. Be careful that you don’t get the wrong game, though. Cards Against Humanity is more appropriate for older audiences.
Promotes Creativity & Imagination: Dixit
- Number of Players: 3-6 players
- Average Playing Time: 30 minutes
- Recommended Age: 8 years and older
Dixit is a definitely not a classic card game. It would be better described as a game of imagination, which uses cards as an outlet. The game isn’t too complicated, yet it offers a lot of replayability.
The players start the game with six cards. All cards are different, and the only thing on them is an amazing, detailed artwork. The players take turns, but they all have stuff to do on each player’s turn. When it’s your turn, you pick a card from your hand, and you say whatever word, sentence, or idea pops to your mind when you look at the card. You put the card face-down on the table.
Now every player tries to pick a card from their hand, which best depicts your description. After that is the voting phase, and each player votes for the card that they think is yours. The goal is that your card should be obvious, but not too obvious. You get no points if nobody guesses your card, and you get no points if everyone guesses it.
All in all, the game is very easy to grasp, once you play with it. It tends to be very fun and laid back, as there’s only as much as you can do strategy-wise. It also works great if you know a lot about how other players think, which makes it one of the best card games for families.
There’s also another standalone Dixit game, plus many expansions with different art styles. If you want to know more about them, you can find the best Dixit expansions here.
Best Cooperative Card Game for Family: The Mind
- Number of Players: 2-4 players
- Average Playing Time: 20 minutes
- Recommended Age: 8 years and older
Cooperative card games are great for family bonding time. Our favorite one is The Mind, which is a really special card game.
The main idea is simple. There are a hundred numbered cards, from 1 to 100. A portion of them is dealt evenly among the players. Players have to work together to play them in the ascending order.
Sounds simple enough, right? Here’s the catch, though. Players don’t know which cards other players have, and they mustn’t communicate in any way. (That means no winking, nudging, and most certainly no talking.)
This now sounds like an impossible feat. Thankfully, not all the hundred cards get dealt at the same time. There’s also a card called Shooting Star, which can help you along the way. There are multiple levels in the game, so you can progress, even if you don’t make it to the last level. Of course, you also get multiple lives, which help you complete the game.
However, the most interesting thing about the game is how as a group, you’ll become more and more in tune with one another. You’ll learn to read the pauses that other members of your family make before their play. This way you’ll complete more levels, and possibly even win the game.
The Mind is certainly one of the best card games for families, as it’s both fun and very unique. It isn’t too complicated, but the kids need to be able to count to a hundred. The final benefit of the game is some peace and quiet for the parents, since there’s no communication of any kind.
Quick Reflexes Needed: Jungle Speed
- Number of Players: 3-10 players
- Average Playing Time: 45 minutes
- Recommended Age: 8 years and older
Jungle Speed is another in the line not-your-traditional card game. It tests your observation skills and requires fast reflexes. It’s a very fun game all around.
Each player gets a same-sized pile of cards with similar looking symbols on them. You put the wooden totem in the middle of the table. Each player turns up the top card of their pile — if the symbol on the card matches one from another player, they both have to try to get the totem as quickly as possible. The slower player has to take all face-up cards and add them to their pile. The goal is to get rid of the cards as quickly as possible.
As you can see, the rules are pretty simple, and the game is very easy to learn. Jungle Speed is certainly a great game for a whole family, although it can get a bit rowdy at times, so keep that in mind, if your kids are little troublemakers sometimes.
Best Card Games for Families – Conclusion
Anyway, that’s all about the best card games for families. To wrap things up, here are our favorite ones:
| Card Game | Quality | |
|---|---|---|
| Exploding Kittens | Best overall |
| UNO | Easy to learn |
| Dixit | Promotes creativity & imagination |
So if you don’t know which one to pick, just go with Exploding Kittens. If you prefer simplicity, as you’re playing with very young kids, you should probably pick UNO to start with. Finally, if you want an unusual card game, that promotes imagination, then you can’t go wrong by getting the Dixit base game.
Of course, you might also be looking for classic card games. If that’s the case, you can check our article about best playing cards. Furthermore, if you want to play with a more adult group, you can check the best party board games here.
Do you have a great card game that you play with your family? Leave a comment below to share it with other parents, so they’ll be able to experience it too.
Until next time, may you and your family have a ton of fun with your new card game.