My Go-To Quarantine Board Games

These days I like to consider myself quite the board game expert. At my mom's house, we have hoards of games—from ones we have bought ourselves over the years to games dating back from our childhood years. Staying in-doors and remaining sane is becoming exceptionally difficult as the weeks go by. The one thing that helps me stay sane, as well as keeping my mind active, is a good ole board game! So take a seat, grab some wine, read this post and let's try and stay sane together!

Below, I provide a sweet and simple list of my eight favorite board games that I have been playing as of lately! With each game I list, I describe how to play—but I must admit, I enjoy bending the rules to 'spice it up.' These are in no particular order, but I did save the best for last! Please forgive the picture quality, I have a Samsung and do not plan on buying an i-Phone anytime soon!

1. Sequence

Sequence is a great game to play if you are quarantined with a big crew, but can also be just as fun playing 1v1. The goal is to get five chips of your color in a row. To do this, you use the corresponding cards in your hand while also playing off of your teammate(s) hands as well. You work together by not physically talking, but trying to play in the same area. Sitting every other from your team, you all take turns going around, laying a card face up and placing a chip on that card. Simple right? Well, not exactly. The Jack card with two eyes (facing you) is a wild card and can be played whenever. The one-eyed Jack (profile view) is a removal card that allows you to remove any chip from the other teams off the board! This game is utterly addicting to play. My family likes to play until we will get six or seven in a row to try and challenge ourselves a bit more. My middle brother and I aren't allowed to play this game together on the same team anymore—we win every time and it's unfair to the rest!

2. Game of Thrones Monopoly

Like Monopoly, but with a twist. Playing this game makes you want to sit on the couch and rewatch the entire Game of Thrones series. I feel as though this version is pretty self-explanatory considering that everyone has played regular Monopoly at least 100 times in their lives. All I will say about this game is that it comes with a speaker and button that allows you to play the GOT theme song as many times as you would like. Needless to say, if you are a GOT fan, you need to play this version immediately!

3. Pictopia

I don't know about anyone else, but I believe that Disney EASILY has made the best movies of all time, hands down. This game for me is too easy for my family and I. No, I don't mean this in a bragging way, I just know we have all seen every Disney movie enough times to recite them in our sleep. Therefore, our house rule is that you have to make it down to the finish and then turn around, and go back to the start to win! Pictopia is a fun family-game, it's unique in the way that it doesn't use competition as its foundation—that is why any age can play and have a good time! As long as you have seen at least one Disney movie, you will have a blast.

4. Code Names

The first time I ever played this game was at my best friend's grandparent's cabin in Wisconsin. In between our outdoor activities, we played Code Names every chance we got! In this game, you split into two teams: the blue and the red team. One member from each team is the round master. The masters get a color guide to show which words are for which team. The goal is to try and get your team members to guess the words that coordinate with your color—you do so by using a 'keyword'. So, essentially you would want to group together a few cards in one round by using one keyword. Once one team gets all of their words guessed, they win! The last version of Code Names I played was the "Adults Only" version. Be careful who you play this one with—I heard my sweet, old grandmother say things like "shaft" and "threesome." Needless to say I will never be playing this one again with her.

5. Blokus

If you love games of strategy, then this is the game for you! The rules in this game are quite simple; each player chooses a color and the corner of the board closest to you is where you will start. Taking turns, the players select any piece to put in their designated corners, from there, the goal is to try and place all of your pieces on the board. The difficult part about this game is that your pieces can only touch corner-to-corner, not side-by-side. Blokus helps keep the brain stimulated! Any age group can play this board game and have fun. It's actually one of my grandma's favorite games—she doesn't like games that have a lot of rules. Go figure!

6. Plain Ol' Puzzles

I know you have probably seen people all over social media posting their puzzles that they completed during quarantine. This may seem a little redundant, but ask yourself— who doesn't like puzzles?! Puzzles have been around for 260 years (yes I looked that up) with good reason. They are mindless fun and can be done solo or with family and friends! My advice would be to choose puzzles with pictures that mean something to you. For example, the picture on the left is four 500 piece Disney puzzles by Thomas Kinkade. The one on the right is a picture of my family that my eldest sister made from a website where you can customize a puzzle up to 200 pieces.

7. Things

To be honest, I am pretty sure my brother and I originally bought this game because the box was so enticing. I remember the first time we played Things we were surprised as to how much we loved it. I added this game to my list of favorite board games because I feel you could also virtually alter it to be played over a Zoom or Skype video call! Things is fun when you're playing with people that you personally know really well. You have to guess who wrote what response if you are the host for that round. For example, if you are playing the game with three other people and the category was "Things that are a hassle when you're a teenager." You might receive these written responses, "driving," "school" or "puberty." You as the host have to guess which person wrote each response. If you are correct you will get points and if you're wrong, the opponents would get those points. If you want to take an adult spin on this board game, the responses given could get a little more X-rated and involve taking a drink if you guess wrong—just an idea if it's happy hour!

8. Spot It

I recently rediscovered this game back in college. My college roommate, Kyrstin, had games like: What Do You Meme, Cards Against Humanity and other usual go-to big group party games. One pre-game however, she brought this one as a drinking game. Speaking for myself, I immediately judged the round, aluminum frame and childish nature of the cards. Now I can safely say, Spot It is my FAVORITE game on this list! The rules are so simple and may seem monotonous, yet Spot It never fails to provide hours of fun! The way my friends and I like to play this one is by getting a group together in a circle with a drink in hand. Distribute one card to each player, flip the middle stack with the rest of the cards and begin the game. All you have to do is match one of the shapes on your card to the one in the middle. Then you can proceed to grab that card out of the middle and into your hand. Doing this with six other people shouting their shapes all at the same time, simultaneously reaching for the middle card is quite the adrenaline rush! Once the deck in the middle is gone, everyone counts up their cards and if you have the least amount of cards in your hand, you are eliminated and have to take a drink. I promise you, Spot It will not disappoint!

I hope everyone is staying safe and remaining in good health! Thank you for taking the time to read about these games. My objective in writing this post was to inspire a new possible quarantine activity for my readers.

A safety tip: Please be cautious of where these games are coming from either in the mail or at the store; wipe down all of the boxes/packages you are receiving with Clorox wipes or sprays to disinfect before using!

Writing this light-hearted piece was incredibly fun for me. In my next blog post, I will be discussing the topic of finding a church/community in a new city! Until next time.

SRS