Best Games for 8 Year Olds: Tested by Our Family of 9

Eight is one of my favorite ages for board games. At eight kids really begin to have the world of gaming open up for them, and it’s not just because the vast majority of board games list themselves for ages 8+!

Kids start to feel like big kids when they turn 8, experiencing so much physical, mental, and emotional growth! Developmentally, they are growing to have more abstract thinking, language and reading skills are improving rapidly, and can experience more complex emotions while controlling them.

Playing board games that allow them to exercise these new found developmental skills is a great way to help them continue to grow and mature. I rounded up a few of the best board games for 8 year olds right here. These are fun for both kids and adults!

Quick Picks: Best Board Games for 7 Year Olds

Best Overall: Ticket to Ride
Best Cooperative Game: Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters
Best for Family Night: Duck and Cover
Best Quick Game: Flip 7
Best Two Player Game: Toy Battle

Best Strategy Board Games for 8-Year-Olds:

These fun, competitive strategy games provide exciting challenges for both kids and adults. They’re excellent not only for challenging 8 year olds, but also getting them excited for how fun board games can be!

Ticket to Ride

We’ve gotta start with the best family board game to kick start your board game obsession! Ticket to Ride is probably the best game to start with if you are new to modern board games and are looking for a game that not only your 8 year old will love, but that will work for your whole family. The rules are simple to learn, the strategy is sophisticated and it’s a game you will never outgrow. If you find that it’s a hit with your family, there’s a huge line up of expansions with new maps and countries to explore.

Check out this post for more games like Ticket to Ride.

Toy Battle

The perfect “war” game for families. Send your troops out to control areas on one of the 8 included maps. Our kids play this non-stop! It’s competitive and clever, games play quickly, and everyone always want to play another round.

Splendor

Splendor is a top pick for this age. Players collect gem tokens to buy development cards, building toward the points needed to win. No reading required, and the chunky gem tokens are satisfying to handle, which keeps younger hands engaged.

Setup takes minutes, so there’s almost no barrier to jumping in. Games run about 30 minutes, short enough to hold a seven year old’s attention start to finish. And here’s the thing: Splendor isn’t a kids’ game. It’s a real strategy game with surprising depth packed into a tight, simple package. Kids just happen to be able to play it, and play it well, completely on their own.

Check out this post for more games like Splendor.

Wandering Towers

A perfect family game for kids! Fun components mixed with a little memory challenge and movement puzzle. Whimsical and fun, Wandering Towers is a sleeper hit that is the type of game you’ll be thinking about long after it ends.

Borealis

For players who love a puzzle. This cute expedition game has you going deep into the Arctic to study animal life. You’ll compete with other players to gather information about animals and place them into different combinations on your board to fulfill scoring objectives. Kids will practice multi-step strategies and learn to adapt them along the way.

Kingdomino

I love a game where you’re building something. Regardless of the outcome, win or lose, you can look back on what you built with a sense of pride and accomplishment. This is great for kids who may still be struggling with losing games. Kingdomino is a quick family game where you’ll build your little kingdom by drafting landscape domino tiles and placing them in arrangements to maximize their scoring potential. Its also a fantastic math game for beginning multiplication.

Got 5

This is a pure logical deduction game. No flashy gimmicks, no crazy theme. Each player has a selection of five numbers in front of them they are trying to deduce. Everyone can see all other players’ numbers, just not their own. You’ll rely on shared information and clever questions to zero in on your five numbers first to win. It’s a fantastic, straight forward logic game that is fun play after play.

Las Vegas

One of our long time favorite push your luck games. Roll dice and choose which ones to place at the casinos. If you can control the casino at the end of the round, you’ll win the rewards. Las Vegas has a fantastic layer of timing where players are looking to snag casinos at the right time with as few dice as possible. The new edition brings in Big Dice, larger casino rewards, and a streamlined play for the best Las Vegas experience yet.

Love push your luck games? Here’s a list of more favorites!

Survive the Island

A hilariously fun and strategic game about surviving a sinking island. Avoid the sharks, whales, and your opponents! All players are working to save their pieces from the island and get them to safety. Along the way you’ll need to decide when it’s a good idea to work with an opponent, and when it’s better to dump them into the ocean and take their chances with the sharks! Fun and cheeky without ever feeling mean or nasty.

Market Fresh

Market Fresh is a highly addicting tile placement puzzle that sees you stacking crates of produce strategically to maximize points. The 3D crates are one of the cutest components I’ve seen in a game recently and add to much to the overall play experience. This is a great family weight game that’s light enough for 8 year olds to play but still hides a deceptively tricky puzzle that will challenge experienced adults.

Summer Camp

If you love a game with deck building and want a great introductory game for your kids, this is the game to start with. The cute theme draws kids in while the game expertly teaches layered strategy that will get their minds working.

Best Cooperative Board Games for 8 Year Olds

Work together to win these games! Cooperative games provide a unique challenge and collaborative strategizing. These are an excellent choice if your child might feel less stressed if everyone is working together.

Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters

Our favorite cooperative game for kids! Work together to battle ghosts and escape a haunted house with all the jewels before the rooms become haunted. The exciting theme draws you in while the cooperative game play makes it one of the BEST choices for families with kids, especially when looking for a game that will provide strategic challenges for your kids ages 8+ while still being accessible enough for younger players.

Mists Over Carcassonne

Classic Carcassonne is a fantastic pick for age 8 but my preferred place to start is with the Cooperative version Mists Over Carcassonne. This is a fresh take on the classic tile-laying game with a spooky twist. (but it’s not a scary game at all!) Players work together to take care of Carcassonne and keep the ghosts at bay. The game has six levels that guide players through the stages of learning the game and progress to a greater challenge so you skip any overwhelm from rules learning. This is my personal favorite version of Carcassonne!

Marvel United

A perfect cooperative family game! Think critically, work together, save the day! If you have any Marvel obsessed kids in your family, this is a great game to serve their interests and get them excited about board games.

5 Minute Dungeon

5 Minute Dungeon lives up to its name, and that’s exactly why it works at this age. Eight year olds can commit to one round without losing steam, and the timer keeps everyone locked in and working together instead of second-guessing every move. It’s loud, it’s fast, and it’s one of the easiest games to talk a kid into “just one more round” of.

Castle Panic

An exciting and challenging tower defense game! Players will work together to defend the castle from monsters who are attacking from all sides. Coordinate plans together, trade cards to set up defense moves, and survive the game with at least one tower standing. This is a game that’s exciting every time you play it and winning is never guaranteed!

If you love working together, we have even more cooperative board game recommendations for families and kids.

Best Quick and Portable Games for 8 Year Olds

When you’re short on time and want a fast game that doesn’t skimp on the fun! Great for quick game nights and travel.

Duck and Cover

This simple, bingo style card game is one of our favorite family games ever. If you’re looking for a multi-generational pick, one your seven year old can play right alongside their great grandma, this is the one to get. Everyone plays at the same time, there’s no reading required, and you can play a one round game or a full three round game depending on your time!

It plays up to 7 players, quick to teach and always a hit at a full family table. You can even buy two sets of the game to play with more players! (that’s what we do!)

Piles

Piles is a real time, all at once card game where everyone races to match up clothing sets hidden in their own piles. There’s no reading required and no waiting for a turn, so it moves fast, and kids love the chaos of everyone playing at once. It leans on memory and speed more than reading, which makes it an easy win for this age even though the box says 8+.

Games wrap up in about 10 minutes, and it plays anywhere from 2 to 8 people, so it works just as well for the whole family as it does for a sibling pair or a friend group.

Flip 7

Flip 7 is another great option for the whole family. A simple push your luck challenge in a black jack style game. Players take turns deciding if they want to flip out a new card or stop. That’s it. With each new card you flip you’re trying to reveal a number you have not flipped before. It’s a race to 200 points with lots of big laughs along the way. For families who like a little extra sabotage in their games, Flip 7 with a Vengeance has special cards for just that purpose!

Cover Your Assets (Grandpa Beck’s Games)

You can always count on Grandpa Beck’s Games for a fun and quick family card game and Cover Your Assets is the main game we recommend everyone start with. You’re trying to make your fortune by stacking matching pairs of high valued assets in front of you, but the catch is that other players can challenge and steal your top stack. The result is a game full of table talk, light betrayal, and the kind of laughs that keep everyone leaning in for one more round.

See our full post on all the games from Grandpa Beck’s Games here!

A Gentle Rain

This has been a go-to solo game for our kids for years! It’s perfect for quiet, relaxing afternoons. (and you’ll love playing too!) Games take just minutes, perfect for giving your 8 year old an activity they can confidently enjoy on their own.

Check out this post for more calm and cozy games like A Gentle Rain.

Qwixx

A must have! Perfect for on the go fun, Qwixx is a great reminder that a game with simple rules does not mean it has shallow gameplay. This is a clever, brain burning puzzle filled with trade offs to think through on every turn. I keep a copy in my glovebox to play at restaurants with my kids!

Spots

The cutest dice game! Perform tricks, roll dice, and complete dogs to win! This is one of the games I love to recommend that’s great for kids and grand parents to play together!

FAQ on Games for 8 Year Olds

Will my 8 year old outgrow these games?

Due to age? No. One of the best parts about entering this stage of gaming (and this applies largely for age 7 as well) is that so many of the games that are great for kids are also great for adults. These aren’t “kid” games, they’re games that happen to be great for kids. You may decide that you wish to play a different game after a few years due to changing preferences, but you won’t outgrow them based on age.

Do these games work for younger kids?

Yes! Many or most of these games will work well for kids who are 7 or even 6. Some like Duck and Cover work well for the whole family!

I have a 9 and 10 year old, are these games for them?

Absolutely! An important thing about board games: once you hit about 8-10 years old, the metrics that determine whether a board game is good fit for you isn’t that far removed from how you might choose a game for a 30 year old adult. It now comes down largely to your preferences for play time, (long or short game,) mechanic, and theme.