A great game can provide hours of fun, but can get very pricey. Below are 5 family friendly games that are fun to play and can be a great gift idea without breaking the bank.

Cover Your Assets

Cover Your Assets is probably our most used game, a favorite with both kids and adults. It plays great in both group or small player format. I will mention that while you can play the game with 2 players, it’s more fun with 3 or more. It’s such a hit around our crew, that often we have more than 8 players. It does make the game go faster, so less stealing, but no one wants to be left out!

Although there is some strategy involved, much of the game is luck. This makes it easy for all ages to compete against each other equally.

Each player is given 4 cards. On their turn, they try to make pairs from their hand or the discard pile and place them on the table. Have a card in hand that matches an opponent’s tabled assets? You can try to steal it and add it to your assets. But watch out-your sweet pile of assets isn’t safe until you’ve had a chance to cover them-and your opponent might steal it back before you get them covered! 

The first player to collect a million dollars of assets by collecting cards is the winner. Sounds easy? It is! But expect plenty of groans and giggles in this game!

Code Names

This is one of my personal favorite group games. It’s a great party game and good for multiple ages. I’m a word geek gamer, so this makes my nerdy heart happy. 

Code Names is a word game that can be played collaboratively with 2 or 3 players, or competitively with 4 or more. We’ve played with groups of 10-and the game doesn’t lose its fun with larger groups.

The premise of the game is to guess which of the 25 code words belong to your team first using only one word clues.

Teams choose one player to give a one word answer, in hopes of giving their team clues to choosing the correct words of the right color and avoiding the opposing team’s words or revealing the assassin card. 

For example, if I say Christmas, 3- my team looks to see which 3 words on the board might match up with my clue. Easy? Maybe. Watch that you don’t accidentally give a word that is actually belongs to the opposing team.

Each correct word chosen equals one agent, and the first team to make contact with all 8 agents wins the game. 

Besides the original edition, Code Names has come out with several other editions based on the original game format. They are priced higher than the original, but once you’ve played, you might want to add to the fun. 

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’ve looked at this game about a gazillion times before I decided to add it to my game collection. I couldn’t figure out if it would appeal to multiple ages – myself included, based on the name and the cards. The simplistic cards make it seem childlike. But I discovered, simple yes, but fun, double yes! 

The game is easy to learn and is great for an icebreaker or starter game. I’m sure you can add another deck for larger crowds. The only reason it might drag on in a larger format is if some players were slow to place their cards. 

Play begins when all cards are passed out, faced down to players. The first player turns up their card, places it in the center, and says “taco”, the second player places his card face up on top of the first card and says”cat”, and so on around the table. If the word matches the card, everyone rushes to slap that card. The hand on top gets the pile in the center. 

There are a couple of surprise cards in the mix. Watch out for the gorilla, narwhal and the groundhog. Special rules apply when those cards are played. 

While there’s no actual winner, the game ends when a player with no remaining cards is the first to correctly slap a match or special card. 

Trash Pandas

Trash is treasure! This is a new game in our games cabinet. It offers both cards and dice in play – a change from the normal card game. Calculating the cards at the end can seem a bit overwhelming, but once you get the hang of it, it’s as easy as stealing trash from an open trash can! 

I’ve read reviews that younger than 8 have played successfully. I don’t currently have anyone that young in the house to verify, but if you’ve got some in the 6-7 age range, chances are they can and will enjoy the game. 

It’s a fun quick game – fits right into your purse or bag. It’s a great game for taking to the restaurant to keep all occupied while waiting for dinner to arrive. 

Roll the die to collect tokens. The more you roll, the more trash you can take. But don’t get too greedy – rolling the same token twice in the same turn makes you go bust. 

Earning tokens allow you to dig through the trash and get cards. Then pick cards from your hand to be stashed for the end of the game, which hopefully will give you points. 

When the deck runs out, the game ends. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins! 

Coup 

Do you like to challenge and bluff? This is your game! Unlike the other games listed, this game is for an older audience, although I’ve read that some younger children (10+) enjoy playing. 

The object is to eliminate the influence of all the other players and be the last survivor by bluffing. 

Players start with two coins and two influence (character cards). On your turn, you can choose to take tokens based on which cards you have, or what you’ve convinced others to think you have.

Once you have 7 tokens, you can choose to kill another player’s influence. 10 tokens in hand, you must call a coup on another player. 

If you try to call out another player and they call your bluff, you can lose all your influence.

Players are eliminated one by one. Whomever has the last influence, or character card, wins the game. 

I’ve picked some of our older favorites, plus a couple of newer choices. I hope you enjoy these as much as we do! What’s your favorite under $15?