14 Popular Board Games for Teenagers

It’s hard to capture a teenager’s attention nowadays. With tons of technology and social media, they seem more disconnected than ever. And what better way than to bring them back into the real world than with some good, old-fashioned board game fun?

Board games can be a great way to bond and to spend time together without the influence of everyday life. Or it could just be a really good way to keep your teens busy for a few hours! Either way, our list has some of the most entertaining board games for teenagers on the market.

We guarantee that there’s something on this list for even the pickiest tweens and teens, and soon they’ll be joining in on family game night every week!

Unstable Unicorns

2 – 8 players
30 – 60 minute playing time
Age: 14+

Who doesn’t love unicorns? We do, but this game puts a spin on the cute and magical creatures you know and love. In a game of strategy and hilarity, you’ll have to put your Unicorns to good use and make sure that their abilities are working for you instead of against you.

Every player starts with a Baby Unicorn in their Stable, and their goal is simple: build your unicorn army and make sure that no other players get to the required number of unicorns in their Stable before you do!

In the deck of 135 cards, there are tons of different unicorns and action cards. Cards like Magical Unicorns, Baby Unicorns, and Baby Unicorns all have special powers that can change the fate of your Stable – or, hopefully, your opponent’s.

Other cards like Magic, Upgrade, and Downgrade cards also influence the game and completely change the stakes.

With 5 Unicorn cards in your hand at a time, you can give yourself the upper hand by changing your Unicorns into Pandas and save them from any cards that target unicorns.

Or you can sabotage your opponent by giving them a card that breaks their Stable down so that they can’t collect any more Unicorns, and you’ll have more time to collect them for yourself.

Exploding Kittens

2 – 5 players
15 minute playing time
Age: 7+

Exploding Kittens introduces exciting but straightforward gameplay and is reminiscent of Russian Roulette.

To play the game, players take turns drawing cards from the shuffled deck. The deck is filled with cards that force your opponents to draw several cards, reshuffle the deck, or even have a peek at the next card so that you can avoid the dreaded Exploding Kitten card.

When a player draws this card, they lose the game. So to make sure you’re not the one with the furry grenade, you’ll have to use your existing cards to your advantage.

But watch out! The more cards the group draws, the bigger their chances of picking up the Exploding Kitten.

The gameplay is easy for players to pick up on, and the quick-fire rounds ensure that you can play the game for ages without getting bored.

Bears vs Babies

2 – 5 players
15 – 20 minute playing time
Age: 7+

In this unusual game, an army of cute and charming Bears must win the war against their arch-enemies: the horrible, ugly, and sinister army of Babies.

Although the game’s premise is to use your Bears to beat the nasty Babies, each player must build a Bear or a Creature out of unique body parts that fall into one of three categories. With your Land, Sea, or Sky Creatures, you are tasked with building the ultimate warrior.

Players build monsters by attaching a head, arms, and legs to a torso. Each body part comes with its attack power listed on the card, and you can also add clothes and other essential items that can give your Creatures new powers.

Once your Creature is built, your monster is pitted against Babies from the same category— Land Creatures against Land Babies, Sea Creatures against Sea Babies, and Sky Monsters against Sky Babies.

The power values of the Babies are compared to the Attack Power of your Creature. Whichever has the higher number will win the round. But if the Babies overpower your monster, you lose your soldier and will have to rebuild.

At the end of the game, the monsters with the highest number of wins against the Babies will win.

Kids Against Maturity

4 – 10 players
30 – 90 minute playing time
Age: 8+

If you’ve ever played Cards Against Humanity, this game will have you hooked. In a more family-friendly version of the game and made by different developers, Kids Against Maturity is just as funny and will have the whole family rolling on the floor with laughter.

The rules of the game are simple. Make people laugh, take the point, and get as many chuckles as you can to win the game.

At the beginning of each round, a player will be given the title of Question Master. The Question Master will then read a blue Question card which will start the round.

All the other players will have to shuffle through the 10 Answer cards in their hands and find the funniest card that corresponds with the question. Or maybe it doesn’t correspond at all, but it sure is hilarious!

The Question Master will read out all of the Answer cards, and the players will vote for the one card that had them in stitches. The winning card will give the player whose card it was a point, and the player with the most winning cards at the end of the game will win the whole thing and be crowned the king comedian of the group.

The game can be played for as many rounds as you like, although it is usually played for long enough that everyone in the group has had a chance to be the Question Master.

Monopoly: Cheaters Edition

2 – 6 players
60 – 180 minute playing time
Age: 8+

So, almost everyone knows the rules of Monopoly and how to play the game. It has long been a staple part of family game night, making it a classic among board game lovers.

But for this game, you’ll have to forget everything you think you know about Monopoly because Cheaters Edition flips the whole game on its head. In this version of the game, cheating is no longer frowned upon. It’s encouraged!

You can skip out on rent, borrow money from a fellow player (or steal it straight from the bank if you’re feeling reckless), and even fake a roll of the die to put yourself ahead of other players.

Not only will your sneaky antics give you a head-start in the race for the win, but you’ll be rewarded for each cheat you can successfully pull off. But be careful!

If you’re not careful, you could get caught, and all cheaters get “chained” to the board with a pretend set of handcuffs, and you won’t be able to cheat your way to victory.

Escape Room in a Box: The Werewolf Experiment

2 – 8 players
30 – 90 minute playing time
Age: 13+

While most of us are familiar with the concept of escape rooms, they can be pricey, and sometimes you don’t want to leave the house to have fun.

In this unique game, you’re playing in a fictional escape room with a group of up to six players. You’re stuck together, and you’ll have to find a way to change your fate. You’re all slowly turning into werewolves, and you need to find the antidote before it’s too late!

With your fellow players, you’ll have to work together to crack confusing codes, solve complex puzzles, and find every clue you possibly can to find the antidote before your time is up.

Depending on how many players you have in your group and how quickly you can solve the clues that you find, this game can take between half an hour and an hour and a half to solve.

So grab your snacks and get ready. It could be a long night of thrilling fun!

Escape Room: The Game

3 – 5 players
60 minute playing time
Age: 16+

In another great option for an at-home escape room, Escape Room: The Game gives up to five players the ability to solve one of four 60-minute puzzles with three stages each. Each puzzle has a different difficulty, making for a fun and interesting experience every time you play.

Prison Break: In Prison Break, you are all playing as a prisoner who was wrongly convicted for a crime you never committed. And after ten years of lying in wait, you see the perfect opportunity for an escape.

You know that the guards will be doing their rounds soon, and they’ll reach your cell in the next hour. It’s now or never… but will you be able to pull off the escape of the century?

Virus: This scenario puts you and your fellow players in the position of lab workers. And you and your lab partners are working on new experiments that could potentially help people.

But when you stumble across a broken beaker that is oozing toxic slime, you only have 60 minutes to save one another from certain death.

Nuclear Countdown: The bomb threat is real! And now it’s up to you and your fellow players to neutralize the threat and save yourselves, and everyone around you before the bomb goes off.

Can you beat the clock and avoid a nuclear disaster?

Temple of the Aztec: The rumors about the Aztec temple have been swirling around for years. And some even say that anyone brave enough to venture in there is never seen again…

But you and your adventure-seeking group have heard whispers of the largest diamond ever to exist: The Eye of Aztec. Now that you’re stepped foot into the temple, will you make it out again?

Clue: Harry Potter Edition

3 – 5 players
30 minute playing time
Age: 9+

One of the other classic family board games is Clue. But the Harry Potter edition brings a little something extra to the table.

Dark magic has befallen the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and a fellow Hogwarts student has gone missing. It’s up to you and your friends to solve the mysterious disappearance.

Playing as one of the iconic characters – Harry, Ron, Hermoine, Luna, Neville, or Ginny – you and your team will have to figure out who attacked your classmate. You’ll also have to answer the questions about what they used to attack their victim and where they did it.

Was it Bellatrix Lestrange with a Sleeping Draught in the Great Hall? Or maybe it was Peter Pettigrew with a Portkey in the Potions Classroom?

Like the original game, you and the rest of the players will have to gather clues and make suggestions to catch the assailant. But there are a few magical differences that make this game more exciting and a little more challenging than your classic game of Clue.

With a board that is constantly changing, doors that open and close with every roll of the dice, and plenty of other secrets that are hidden within the walls of Hogwarts Castle, you’ll have to work carefully to avoid being caught by a Death Eater on your way to solving the mystery.

Disney Villainous

2 – 6 players
50 minute playing time
Age: 10+

Calling all Disney lovers! If you’re looking for a game that puts a twist on the Happily-Ever-After’s of your favorite Disney movies, this is it!

To play, each player gets given one of six characters to become their own unique Disney Villain. They also get a Villain Deck, a 3D model of their character to move around their individual Player Board, and a Fate Deck.

When it’s their turn, the active player will move their character around the board and use one of the four Action cards in their hand to put their evil plans into action.

The Action cards include Curses, Items, Conditions, and Allies. Each Villain also has their own set of conditions that they need to meet to win the game.

You’ll have to be careful, though, because other Villains are scheming against you. You will have to outwit their attacks and use your special abilities against them to triumph over the Heroes and forces of Good.

Once you’ve met all of your character conditions, there’s only one thing left to do: Take the title of the Ultimate Disney Villain!

Taboo

4 – 10 players
20 minute playing time
Age: 12+

We’re sure you’ve heard of the popular party game Taboo, but if you haven’t – boy, do we have a great suggestion for you!

Taboo is quick and easy to learn with a simple set of rules.

At the beginning of the game, the group of players is split into two teams: the Guessing team and the Describing team.

On their turn, players will get the chance to describe a phrase or word from the drawn card without using any of the related words or phrases also listed on the card – the Forbidden words.

Other players will time the active player and can make use of a buzzer to stop the game. The group can use the buzzer to guess the word being described or warn the active player that they’re using one of the Forbidden words or phrases. They can also be buzzed when they’re using gestures to describe their given word.

Each team will need to earn points to win the game. Each time the Guessing team successfully guesses the correct word, they gain a point.

But your team will lose a point and give it over to the other team if the Describing player uses any gestures, any of the Forbidden words, or your team passes on guessing the word from the card.

The team with the most points wins the game!

The Awkward Storyteller

4 – 11 players
30 – 60 minute playing time
Age: 16+

Get your creative juices flowing because The Awkward Storyteller will have you thinking on your feet to get the upper hand.

To play the game, players have to think up imaginative and original twists and turns to the plot of their story – which they will also have to make up on the spot.

The game starts when the active player, or the Storyteller, draws a Story card from the deck and reads the prompt aloud to the other players. The prompt will then become the first line of their unwritten masterpiece.

Other players will interact with the Storyteller by asking them difficult questions related to their story to try and trip them up. If the players successfully trip them up, they can challenge the Storyteller’s answer if it doesn’t seem to make much sense in the context of their elaborate tale.

The rest of the players will then vote on whether the answer they were given works with the rest of the story or if it’s a work of fiction that is just too far-fetched to believe.

If the Storyteller’s answer is discarded, they lose the round, and the next player will be given the title.

There is no set point system for the game, but players can have fun and create their own way of scoring the group to give the game a competitive edge.

Whichever way you decide to play, it’s oodles of fun for everyone.

Betrayal at House on the Hill

3 – 6 players
60 minute playing time
Age: 12+

The objective of this exciting and spooky adventure game is to build and explore your own haunted house while avoiding spirits and encountering chilling omens that could determine your fate.

To begin, players must construct their haunted house using pieces like the Bloody Room, Creaky Hallway, and other creepy rooms that the group may find in this ghoul-infested home.

By creating a new board for each game, players will have a new playing experience each time they set up.

As players try to escape the haunted mansion, they need to identify and defeat the traitor among them. That’s right – one of the players must work to lead the other players astray and entrap them in this horrifying home.

As soon as the remaining players defeat the betrayer, they can escape and win the game.

Mastermind

2 players
20 minute playing time
Age: 8+

The aim of the game is easy: find out the color of hidden pegs. In this not-as-simple-as-it-looks deduction game, each player must take turns making a limited number of guesses and using their brainpower and a whole lot of logic to figure out which pegs their opponent has hidden.

The Code Maker will choose four colored pegs and place them secretly behind a screen at one end of the board. These pegs are completely hidden from the Code Breaker – or the player who must guess what color the pegs are and what order they appear in. The Code Breaker must then make their series of guesses.

The Code Maker uses designated, smaller pegs to determine if the Code Breaker’s guessed pegs are the right color and in the right place, the right color but in the wrong place, or are the wrong color altogether.

After guessing in the first row, the Code Breaker builds upon information from earlier guesses, trying to match the pegs the code maker hid at the beginning of the game.

Mastermind will have those brain cogs spinning and is one of the best learn-and-play games on the market.

Loaded Questions

3 – 6 players
45 minute playing time
Age: 10+

How well do you know your friends and family? Well, Loaded Questions will help you all to spill the beans in a hilarious and gut-busting game.

All you have to do is answer one of 880 question cards. Then, the group will take turns trying to guess which answer belongs to which player.

With answers that could incite some of the most ridiculous, over-the-top answers you’ve ever heard, this game is sure to have you all in stitches from beginning to end.

References:

Seventeen: 20 Best Board Games Teens Will Want To Play For Hours

Teen Vogue: 29 Best Board Games for Teens That Double as Party Gifts

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