Lists

Best Board Games for Teens and Tweens

We’re sharing some of the best board games for teens and tweens!

Find All of our Age Based Game Recommendations

Age 2 — Age 3 — Age 4 — Age 5 — Age 6 — Age 7 — Age 8-10 — Teens

I absolutely love this age group! In many ways it feels like a reward for making it through the toddler and kid years where the demand for you as the parent is so high all of the time for every little thing. Now you can enjoy some of the fruits of that labor.

Continuing to connect with your kids as they grow is so important. And while it’s not always smooth sailing, making a continued effort to spend time with them will have a positive impact. Playing cards with my parents and adult family members growing up are some of my most cherished memories and in large part what led me to creating Tabletop Family in the first place.

If you are in this season of life where you are looking for ways to connect with your teen or tween and have fun, board games can be a great way to do so!

I think it’s important to remember this one thing: A great game for a teen, doesn’t really look any different than a great game for an adult does.

Just like adults, teens have their own set of interests and personalities and the games they enjoy will likely reflect them. When players get to be about 10-12+ years old, the number of games they can’t play dramatically decreases and the recommendations shift from games that meet their developmental/grade level, to those that fit their personal interests and style.

That said, there are some trends in game styles we’ve noticed that tend to be well received by this age group.

Teens love games that feature their favorite themes, have engaging mechanics, and get everyone laughing.

(See what I mean? It’s not that different from what an adult is looking for either!)

Here are some of our favorites that are perfect for the teen or tween in your life!

Best Board Games for Teens and Tweens

Games for Teens and Tweens with Popular Characters and Themes

Marvel

Marvel Legendary

Our very favorite game. (you read that right!) We’ve played hundreds of games and still can’t get enough. One of the best deck builders you’ll find and a must for marvel fans!

Marvel Remix

I adore this card game! Try to create the best hand by getting cards that combo off each other to increase their final scores. Highly replayable and incredibly addictive.

Marvel Dice Throne

A Yahtzee style battle between your favorite marvel super heroes. The games can be a lot of fun!

Marvel United

One of our favorite cooperative games! The minis make the game so immersive and so fun to mix and match your favorite characters. Great for kids and adults alike.

Star Wars

Star Wars The Clone Wars

Using the Pandemic game’s framework, Star Wars the Clone Wars is an immersive tactical strategy game where you’ll move around the planets, combo droids, complete missions, and stop villains.

Star Wars Deck Building Game

We love this two player deck building game! It does a great job of combining the Star Wars theme with interesting game play. This is a great choice for players who love a back and forth duel and finding new ways to explore strategy from game to game.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle

This game will introduce you to the deck building mechanic as you play through all 7 years of Hogwarts cooperatively. As you advance through the game your knowledge of magic grows allowing you to create a stronger deck of cards to take on Lord Voldemort. It is an entirely replayable campaign for endless games of fun.

Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle Defense Against the Dark Arts

This takes the fun of the Hogwarts Battle game and condenses it into a competitive dueling deck builder. Rather than playing through the story, you’re engaging in a duel and must build up your deck to take on your opponent. Our kids can’t get enough of this version and play it the most!

Harry Potter House Cup Competition

This is just a straight up great game! You play as students from one of the four houses and you need to move your students around the school to learn the knowledge necessary to gain magic and complete challenges. It’s a fantastic worker placement strategy game with an extra cool house point hourglass display to track your points!

Games for Teens and Tweens with Engaging Mechanics

One of the best parts about this age is that there really isn’t anything standing in their way from getting just about any game to the table. Make the most of it by selecting those with fun themes they’re excited about with engaging mechanics and strategies. We’ve found that it’s still best to keep things on the lighter side with quicker playtimes around an hour or less — especially if you’re new to board games or they’re playing with a group of friends.

Pikit

There is so much goodness happening with Pikit! Each turn you’ll roll two dice and use them to claim cards from the center. Each card gives you points but they also have special abilities that you can use to manipulate future rolls, draw extra cards, steal from opponents and block their effects. It’s a game that has really connected with our older boys in particular.

Flamecraft

What’s not to love about adorable dragons making artisan goods? Flamecraft is a lovely worker placement game for families with older players ready for that next level of strategy that’s challenging but not too overwhelming.

Ticket to Ride

This is a classic I think everyone needs and it’s always so fun with older players! You really see personalities come alive when players play it safe and avoid conflict or choose violence and make sure no one is completing their tickets.

Between Two Cities / / Between Two Castles

These games are my top picks for a large group and they’ve gone over so well with both the tween throughs to the college teen! You work to build a castle together both with the player on your left and the player on your right. But at the end of the game, there’s only one winner so you want to make sure while you’re working together, you’re not helping your neighbor claim victory.

Tiny Epic Galaxies Blast Off

Space games are often a favorite for many in this age group. Tiny Epic Galaxies Blast Off is a new, streamlined version of the original Tiny Epic Galaxies and it’s better than ever! Roll dice and use the resulting actions to fly your ships, orbit planets, and colonize new frontiers to earn points.

King of Tokyo Origins

We set this game up with a group of 18 and 19 year olds and it became a core memory. King of Tokyo works like a game of battle Yahtzee. Everyone takes on the role of a monster looking to be the King of Tokyo. You’ll roll dice and attack everyone, use special cards, and power up to be the last monster standing. (for a full comprehensive breakdown of all the games in the King of Tokyo universe, check out this post.)

Flashback Lucy

I adore this clever narrative driven game. It’s highly engaging mystery game where you’ll play through a 4 chapter story and try to discover answers to the questions the game will ask you. It’s a lot of fun and while I as an adult enjoyed it, I think it’s particularly well suited for those tween players who have aged out of the majority of their kid games but haven’t quite aged into the more mature themed mystery/detective games. Our kids ate it up in one sitting!

Laughter Inducing Games for Teens and Tweens

Teens love gettin the chance to hang out with their friends which means that party games are almost always a great choice! These games are those perfectly addictive options they’ll end up playing well into the night.

Nertz — Classic Cards

Trust me on this! You give a group of tweens or teens a couple decks of cards and you teach them Nertz, they’ll be playing for hours and hours. Not only does this set of Nertz get you 8 unique colors to play the game, but they’re all full standard decks too so you can play literally an endless number of card games from speed to canasta, to hearts!

That Escalated Quickly

That Escalated Quickly is a game that sounds like it shouldn’t work but it does and it’s a lot of fun! Players work together to put absurd answers to things in the right order. Each round a question card is read by a player, all other players are assigned a secret number and their answer to the question must reflect their number. It gets ridiculous fast but somehow works. Exactly what you’d expect from the makers of Exploding Kittens! (Another great option for this age group too!)

Blank Slate

All ages love this game! Blank Space is one of my favorite word games on the market. Each round a cue card is selected that features part of a phrase. Players write a word they think completes that phrase and are hoping to match with exactly one other player so they get more points. You want to give clever answers, but not too clever because if no one matches with you or many people do, you’ll score less points.

Green Team Wins

This is the type of game you can play while lounging around on the couch and having a laugh. Players are trying to think of the answer to a prompt that they believe the most people will answer with, not necessarily the answer they personally would select. If you get extra player sheets (available for free) you can play with any number of players.

Pictomania

If you have a kid that loves drawing games, Pictomania is one they’ve got to try! All players draw at the same time, quickly trying to finish their drawing so they can enter the guessing phase of the game. The sooner you can correctly guess what someone else has drawn, the more points you’ll receive. A great twist on a Pictionary style game!

That’s Not a Hat

When our daughter and her friends played this one, their laughter could be heard all throughout the house! It’s an incredibly simple memory game in theory that is anything but simple in practice. You try to remember the images on cards as you slide them face down to players around the table, telling them what they are. If you’re ever handed a card you think doesn’t show the image the player says it does, you can force a reveal. It’s a little bit of memory, a little bit of bluffing and a whole lot of fun.