With different kids come different personalities, and with that, different board games! They are one of the last remnants of non-digital entertainment that can put a smile on the face of every family member! My kids are especially fond of fantasy board games and can’t get enough. So, what board games are great for 10 to 13-year-olds?
Board games for kids aged ten to thirteen include: Forbidden Island, Catan, Small World, Tikal, Codenames: Pictures, Labyrinth, Tsuro: The Game Of The Path, Ticket To Ride, Connect 4, Battleship, Clue: Harry Potter Edition, Wildcraft! An Herbal Adventure, Monopoly: Fortnite and 30 Seconds: Junior
Board games may seem fundamentally the same, but their value differs in their educational value. You may want to teach your kids a particular skill, so it’s helpful to know which board game can be the most beneficial!
Pandemic
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Pandemic is an exciting board game that kids are bound to enjoy because it puts them in the position no the hero or heroine. The game requires that players work together cooperatively to stop the spread of a disease before it takes over the globe. It highlights that teamwork is the only way to prevent a global pandemic is to cooperate.
The game board displays several of the world’s largest population centers. A player can play up to four actions every turn to travel between cities, treat infected populations, find a cure, or construct a research station. A deck of cards provides these skills, but “Epidemic!” cards speed up and amplify the disease’s activity.
The “natural” spread of the illnesses is controlled by a second, independent deck of cards. Players must organize their approach to mesh with the abilities of their experts to combat the diseases, each playing a specific function within the team. Pandemic is for two to four players, but you can buy expansions that increase it.
Forbidden Island
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Forbidden Island is a great cooperative board game for kids who enjoy the thrill of adventure and variety! Players must work together to obtain treasures from the old mystical empire of the Archeans. To achieve this life-or-death assignment, all players must work together. In this board game, you must gather treasures before the island crumbles.
Players must use problem-solving and strategic skills to think quickly. A single game lasts about 30 minutes and can be played by two to four people. Before play begins, players take turns moving their pawns about the ‘island,’ which is constructed by placing the many beautifully screen-printed tiles.
As the game goes, more island tiles sink, making them inaccessible, and the game’s pace quickens. While attempting to acquire riches and goods, players utilize methods to keep the island from sinking. Increasing water levels make it more difficult, and compromises must be made.
Catan
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Catan is great for teaching the principles of competition and resource management! It
is a multi-award-winning game that has been in print for over two decades, with many expansions to further explore the Catan world. Catan is a game that appeals to people of all ages and has a high replay value, meaning you get value from the game!
Three to four players will spend time in Catan constructing colonies and cities to become the map’s dominant power. The resources produced by the island are determined by rolling dice each turn. Catan’s world can be enjoyed by up to three to four players simultaneously.
Players construct by spending the resources (sheep, wheat, wood, brick, and ore) represented by these resource cards; each land type produces a specific resource, except for the barren desert: hills produce brick, forests produce wood, mountains produce ore, fields produce wheat, and pastures produce sheep.
Santorini
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Santorini is a strategy game that is yet simple enough for 10-year-olds to play. The primary goal of this game is to build and use the powers of a god, which means that the first person to construct a three-story structure wins. There are 40 themed god and hero powers that can change the game’s flow at any moment.
Players can play one-on-one or two-on-two if they work together. There are Greek God cards that may radically shift the game’s path and keep players guessing. In addition, the game features some stunning set pieces that make you feel as if you’re constructing ancient Greece itself. Two to four players can play it.
You can move your Builder Pawn up one level, down one level, or any number of levels in between. After that, create a building level next to the builder you just relocated. Instead of placing a dome on top of the third level, place a dome to take that space out of play. When a builder reaches the third level, the game is over.
Small World
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For kids who love medieval fantasy and adventure, the beautiful world of Small World is bound to impress! A fantastic time will be had while attempting to conquer the globe, with a wide cast of characters including wizards, orcs, Amazons, giants, dwarves, and humans, to mention a few. It’s perfect for two to five players.
Players strive to build their empires, often at the expense of weaker neighbors, by selecting the correct combination of 14 different fantasy races and 20 unique special talents. They must, however, know when to abandon their over-extended civilization and ride a new one to triumph! It’s suited to two to five players.
Each region your races occupy earns you one point after your round. On the board, you can have one current race and one in decline at the same time. The number of occupations you have depends on your race’s particular talents and the regions they control. At the end of the last round, the player with the most coins wins.
Tikal
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Kids love exploring the unknown, and Tikal is just the board game to satisfy the need!
Want to feel like Indiana Jones, scouring Tikal’s Central American rainforest for hidden temples and old treasures? Tikal is a treasure-hunting adventure game with plenty of adventure and, of course, plenty of riches!
Players launch their explorers into the forest, gradually revealing more of the environment. Along the trip, you’ll come across temples that need to be explored more as well as riches. Players try to rack up points by occupying temples and securing wealth. Tikal is suitable for two to four players.
It’s the first of a trilogy of games with many exciting game components that take you deep into the forest to discover the Mayan world. Each player is in charge of their expedition to find hidden treasures in this game. It is a fun, easy-to-learn game that’s perfect for kids in elementary school.
Codenames: Pictures
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Discover clues and become the ultimate spymaster, from Indiana Jones to 007! The famous Codenames board game now comes in a pictorial edition, making it a bit easier to play and ideal for kids aged ten and up. It can be played with two to eight players and only has fifteen minutes per game.
Agents in two towns are opposing spymasters. They send coded signals to their field operators, directing them to secret meetings, and need to be astute. A decoding error might result in a tense meeting with an enemy agent – or, worse, the assassin! Both teams must contact their agents to the finish line in a race, but only one team may win.
Codenames is a great game for kids’ parties or groups since it has a short gameplay duration and many participants. What kid doesn’t want to live the life of a secret agent operative?
Labyrinth
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For kids who love solving puzzles and who like testing their problem-solving skills, Labyrinth won’t disappoint! It’s an educational game for youngsters to exercise their route-building abilities while navigating the Labyrinth. It’s loaded with riddles and mazes, and players must navigate through moving pathways to locate the treasures.
Many love that the board changes with each game since the tiles move and are not fixed. It has so much replay value because even though the objective is to work your pawn around the game board to the assigned treasure, the trick is that players can change the board and the path of the maze each turn.
Labyrinth comes in many variations because it has been around for many years. You can play it with two to four players and the playing time lasts roughly twenty minutes per game.
Tsuro: The Game Of The Path
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This board game is great for kids who are particularly fond of dragons! Players each control a dragon and fly across the game board, creating paths as they go. Two to eight players can play it, and the duration of an average game is roughly fifteen to twenty minutes.
The game’s goal is straightforward. Players must put down a tile and follow the path that has been laid out for them. All the better if you manage to force your opponents to fly off the board or collide with another dragon. The winner is the final player standing who hasn’t crashed or flown away; it’s easy and ideal family entertainment.
Ticket To Ride
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For kids interested in trains, travel, and exploration, Ticket to Ride is an excellent choice. It’s an exciting route-building game that allows players to explore the world of train travel. Players pick cards, acquire train cars, and strive to build the most efficient routes possible in Ticket to Ride, giving it excellent replay value.
It takes less than 15 minutes to understand Ticket to Ride. Players acquire train car cards, which they then use to claim railway networks across North America. The more points they acquire, the longer the routes are.
Players who complete Destination Tickets — objective cards that connect distant cities – get extra points, as does the player who constructs the longest continuous route. It requires enough strategy that mistakes can cost you points, but it gets complemented with a bit of flavor of chance.
Connect 4 Board Game
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Connect 4 is a unique board game played with checkers with different “game modes” to choose from. You can choose to play the original game where you drop your checkers inside the board and win by being the first player to get four-in-a-row.
It can be played with up to four players.
In the pop-out game mode, you win by getting four-in-a-row when by popping the checkers out instead of putting them inside the board. The final game mode is Pop 10, where you need to pop checkers out of the board, and if your checker is part of a four-in-a-row, you keep it. The first player to get ten checkers altogether is the winner!
Once you’re done playing, and you want to make sure you don’t lose any checkers, you can tilt the board on its side and securely slot in all the checkers for next time!
Battleship
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Battleship is one of the best mind exercises for kids and nicely coated with fun competition. The game is played with two players who oppose one another. When the game starts, both players are ships with varying sizes to be placed on their board. The X-axis at the top has numbers, and the Y-axis at the top has letters.
Kids tend to become engrossed in the game as they attempt to deduce the whereabouts of their opponent’s fleet based on the outcome of each successful guess! It can be a fantastic exercise for prediction, reasoning, and making intelligent decisions.
The first player to destroy the other player’s ships is the conqueror of the seas!
Clue: Harry Potter Edition
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The thrilling fantasy of Hogwarts comes to life in this board game as you become a student and solve its mysteries. In this variation of the classic Mystery game, uncover the secrets of Hogwarts. New gameplay elements, as well as a moving Hogwarts game board, are included. At Hogwarts, dark magic has been practiced.
A fellow student has mysteriously gone from the renowned School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and it is your job to solve the mystery. Try to figure out who did it, what spell or object they used, and where the student was assaulted as Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, or Neville. Was it Draco Malfoy in with a Sleeping Draught?
Be very careful when you traverse Hogwarts, Secret tunnels, hidden stairs, and even the Dark Mark are revealed by moving the wheels on the board.
Wildcraft! An Herbal Adventure Game For Kids
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Wildcraft is a wonderfully educational board game that can benefit kids tremendously. It teaches kids about 25 different food plants that may also be utilized for medical and first-aid purposes. They learn about the properties of these plants and how to apply them to heal bee stings, hunger, and sunburn.
Players work together to climb the mountain, picking 26 edible and medicinal Plant Cards to heal 31 Trouble Card afflictions along the way, obtaining two blue huckleberry discs per player from the fruit patch at the summit, and finally bringing everyone to Grandma’s house before dark. Wildcraft supports up to four players simultaneously.
Operation
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Operation is a fun board game that teaches kids about the different parts of the human body. It is a game of skill in which you must extract an unfortunate patient’s funny body parts. Throughout the game, you will be given cards that require you to remove a particular item from the patient’s body. Operation can play one to six players.
To accomplish the task, you’ll need a pair of tweezers that are wired to the game board. A sudden buzzer and light-up nose signal the patient’s agony if you are careless and touch the metal sides of the hole where the item is situated. Successful extractions result in money, and the person who has the most money at the end of the game wins.
Trouble Game
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Trouble is an excellent family-inclusive game for bonding and a fun-filled evening. Each player has a set of colored pawns, and each round, the player uses the Pop-O-Matic to roll a die and choose one of his pawns to move. Pawns may only enter the track from the home base on a six-sided die.
Each pawn must complete a circuit of the board, ending on the finish line. If a player’s pawn is bumped, the bumped pawn is returned to the player’s home. Being the first to get all the pawns to the finish line is the objective of the game.
For expert players, it is recommended to bump a piece back to its start space rather than its home space when it is bumped. Pieces are only sent home: when they are pushed out of their start space.
King Of Tokyo
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This board game is packed with thrilling monster battles for kids who want to play hero and defeat giant monsters! Huge Kaiju monsters are overrunning Tokyo! Will the city survive the attack? King of Tokyo is played with dice, and for two to six players in which you try your luck at becoming the King of Tokyo!
To score points, attack, acquire energy, or heal. Players take turns rolling dice and face off against a variety of creatures, aliens, and machines. King of Tokyo is a fantastic game for players of all ages, with stunning visuals and fast-paced gameplay. The artwork and fast-paced action make it an excellent pick for ages ten and up.
Finish it off with energy-based unique cards that have a permanent or temporary impact, such as a second head that provides you an extra die, body armor, nova death ray, and more!
Dixit Creative Kids Storytelling Game
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The game’s fundamental rules are superb for creativity as they require imaginative descriptions, quirky paintings, making it ideal for kids with active imaginations. Dixit asks you to look at a card with bizarre artwork on it and then find a method to define or what the image is without exactly writing it out. It’s played with two to six players.
For the turn, one player is the storyteller, and they examine the images on the six cards in their hand. Afterward, they construct a phrase from one and speak it aloud without displaying the card to the other players. The storyteller shuffles a card with the rest of the cards they’ve been given.
All images are turned over, and players guess which one belongs to the storyteller. If neither the storyteller nor the other players locate the proper card, the storyteller receives a score of 0, and each of the other players gets a score of 2. Otherwise, the storyteller and whoever discovered the correct answer each receive a score of three.
30 Seconds: Junior
30 Seconds is a classic that is great for keeping young minds refreshed and on edge! You’ll be playing in groups. One of you attempts to define the location on a map with five themes as accurately as possible in 30 seconds. The more words you guess correctly, the further you move along the board.
Which squad will be the first to cross the finish line? For young players, this version offers principles that are appealing to them and clear to understand. It is possible to play with four to eight players simultaneously.
Scrabble
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Scrabble is a great choice for jogging kids’ memories and improving the linguistic part of their brains. Players use their seven chosen letter tiles to construct words on the gameboard in this traditional word game. Each word is awarded points depending on the letters’ similarity, with more points awarded in specific board spots.
A word is only permitted if it utilizes or adds to one previously played tile. Potential words are rejected because they would allow an opponent too much access to the better bonus spots, resulting in slightly tactical play.
Monopoly Fortnite
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It is sure to be a winner for kids who love video games, especially the popular video game Fortnite. Monopoly: Fortnite combines the most significant elements of both Monopoly and Fortnite. While traditional Monopoly is focused on making money, this game is all about surviving.
Players earn health points instead of money, and chance cards are substituted with Storm cards, which may knock you out of the game if you’re not cautious. Players compete by erecting barriers, using the action color, and carrying out actions on the board’s squares. Stay away from the Storm and heal yourself until you’re the last one standing.
Conclusion
There are many incredible board games to satisfy every fun-filled desire! Consider the kids’ interests and try and imagine them playing the board game to know if they’ll enjoy it.
Other related posts: Board Games for 3-4 Year Olds | Board Games for 5-6 Year Olds | Board Games for 7-9 year olds | Board Games for Teenagers
References:
Teen Vogue: 27 Best Board Games For Teens in 2020
New York Magazine: The Best Board Games for Kids on Amazon, According to Hyperenthusiastic Reviewers
Seventeen Magazine: 20 Best Board Games Teens Will Want To Play For Hours
Reddit: Best board game for 13 year old?
Quora: What are the best board games for 11 to 12-year-old girls?
Times of India: Board games for teens: Time for some great bonding
Better Homes and Gardens: Have a Family Night In with the 50 Best Board Games of All Time
Mumsnet: The 16 best family board games for 2021
