Family card games

A pure-luck children’s game where court cards demand payment of one to four cards from the next player.

Match the top card by suit or rank, play an eight to change the suit, and race to empty your hand.

Each player holds one card and decides whether to swap it with the next player; the lowest card loses a life.

Also known as Ranter-Go-Round or Screw Your Neighbor.

Flip cards into a pile and slap doubles, sandwiches, and other patterns faster than everyone else.

Slap rules vary widely from table to table.

Ask other players for a rank you hold and collect books of four; the classic first card game for kids.

Replace face-down cards over several holes and aim for the lowest total score.

Build descending, alternating-color piles around a cross layout, with kings opening the corners.

Also called Kings Corners.

Match the top discard by suit or rank and use special cards to disrupt other players.

Special-card effects vary by country and play group.

Turn over two cards at a time and remember their positions to collect matching pairs.

Make pairs and draw from neighbors while trying not to finish with the unmatched card.

Get rid of your hand and then your face-up and face-down table cards, playing equal or higher—with special twos and tens.

Also known by a ruder name; house rules vary.

Draw and discard to arrange your cards into valid sets and runs.

Build each suit up and down from its seven; if you can’t play, you pass or pay into the pot.

Also called Fan Tan or Domino.

A climbing game from East Asia: beat the last play with a higher single, pair, or five-card poker hand and empty your hand first.

Russia’s best-known card game: defend against attacks by beating each card, or take them all and fall behind.

Uses a 36-card pack.

A 13-card rummy where you need at least one pure run without jokers before you can declare.

Uses two decks with jokers.

Shed your cards while discovering the group’s hidden rules through penalties and play.

House rules are the point of the game, so versions differ substantially.

Play solitaire-style piles simultaneously while racing to empty your personal Nertz pile.

A cooperative game for a standard deck: defeat twelve royal enemies by playing cards whose suits trigger powers.

An Israeli draw-and-discard game: reduce your hand total and call Yaniv—unless someone else is even lower.

A small “deck-wrecking” game: start with a hand full of artichokes and use vegetables to clear them out.

A cooperative tile-laying card game for kids and families: close every tunnel before the bandit escapes.

Animals jostle in a queue outside a club, each with a power to push, jump, or bounce others out of line.

Draft cards over a trip around Australia, scoring sites visited, souvenirs, animals, and a hidden throw-and-catch card.

Stack matching asset pairs into a pile and steal the top of other players’ stacks before they protect them.

A pirate push-your-luck game: keep drawing for loot, but two of the same suit busts your turn.

Any two circular cards share exactly one symbol; spot it first in several fast mini-games.

Sold as Spot It! in North America.

An UNO spinoff where you match by number—or by the sum of two cards—to a growing center row.

Collect sets and runs of adventurer cards and use them as dice rolls to defeat creatures and win enchantments.

Build up and down from the elevens in each color, playing when you can and drawing when you can’t.

Build shared piles from 1 to 15 while racing to empty your personal stockpile first.

Protect your little gub creatures from traps and hazards; whoever has the most gubs when the letters are drawn wins.

Out of print at the publisher.

Plant herbs into different pots—some need variety, some need pairs—in a calm, pretty set-collection game.

Bid secretly with number cards for mouse and vulture cards; tied bids cancel each other out.

Also sold as Raj.

Play animals around a watering hole; when three of one type gather, they chase away the next weaker animal.

Send pirate ships after merchant vessels and fight over them, with captains and an admiral as power cards.

Out of print at the publisher.

Build a shared penguin pyramid; each new card needs matching support, and leftover cards cost points.

Place numbered cards on a grid, covering lower cards, to get four (or five) of your color in a row.

Draw cards into shared columns and decide when to stop before a duplicate or a die roll ruins the haul.

Remember your face-down cards and swap them out to lower your total, with peek and swap powers.

Play cards 1 to 12 onto shared building piles, using wild cards to clear your stockpile first.

Wake up queens with kings, steal them with knights, and do a bit of math to discard number cards.

The bigger version of Sushi Go!, with a menu you customize and room for up to eight players.

Match color or number, use action cards, and be first to empty your hand.

UNO with double-sided cards: a flip card switches everyone to a harsher dark side.

Ask other players for named cards and collect complete four-card families.

Cooperatively group spirit cards by type without talking, peeking at cards and moving them around a shared grid.

Everyone writes a one-word clue for the guesser, but identical clues are erased before they are seen.

Give clues using illustrated cards that resemble the secret character, while the guesser eliminates the rest.

Cooperatively play cards 2–99 onto rising and falling piles, hinting without naming numbers.

Cooperate to play numbered cards in ascending order without discussing your hands.

Cooperate to build fireworks while everyone can see every hand except their own.

Recruit Marvel heroes into your deck and fight together against a mastermind and its villain scheme.

Build a city from just 18 cards, overlapping zones and roads to satisfy three random scoring goals.

A cooperative trick-taking campaign where specific players must win specific cards, with very limited communication.

A series of card-based escape rooms, with an app that checks codes and runs the timer.

Flip cards until two symbols match, then race to name an example of your opponent’s category before they name yours.

Spymasters give one-word clues so teammates can identify their agents in a grid of words without touching the assassin.

A storyteller gives a clue for an illustrated card; others play their best decoys and everyone guesses the original.

Make books and runs across eleven rounds as the hand size and wild rank change.

A push-your-luck number game: flip cards for points, but a duplicate busts you and seven unique cards ends the round.

Play cards that continually change the draw, play, and victory rules.

Flip cards in turn; when shapes match, the two players race to grab the wooden totem in the center.

Play matching or one-higher cards, or quit the round before you get stuck holding points.

Pronounced “llama”.

Choose to score matching colors or steal a matching stack from another player.

Follow changing table rules, catch mistakes, and avoid accumulating penalty cards.

Use action, counter, and trap cards in a chaotic race to hold exactly ten cards.

Spend limited chips to refuse cards, or take them and build low-scoring sequences.

Shout and trade sets of commodities simultaneously, cornering the market on wheat, corn, or barley.

Each card is either a vegetable or a scoring rule; draft wisely to build a salad that fits your recipes.

Find three cards where each feature—color, shape, number, shading—is all the same or all different.

Everyone shares a secret location except the spy, who must bluff through questions and guess where they are.

Chant the five words as cards flip, and slap the pile when the card matches the word.

Collect sets of cards, and when certain cards appear, throw squishy burritos at other players.

A brutal UNO variant with stacking draw cards and a rule that knocks out anyone holding 25 cards.

The rules keep changing while zombie creepers complicate the shifting goals.

Teams send coded clues about their secret keywords while the other team tries to intercept the pattern.

A trick-taking game where winning a trick also triggers a suit action that moves diamonds into your vault.

Draft animal and habitat cards into a grid, then score the food web you managed to build.

A chaotic shedding game with special cards and fiendish event cards that can wreck the whole table.

Play a card higher than others to push their cards off the table—unless they team up with matching numbers.

Explore together, then decide when to leave before a repeated hazard ends the round.

BGG lists it under its original title, Diamant.

Pitch absurd inventions that solve a prompt using the unlikely object in your hand.

Advance toward the distance target while hazards stop rivals and safety cards protect you.

Add a card to the parade and take cards that match it or are lower than its value—while avoiding majorities.

A simple Chinese rummy-style game: collect a 16-card hand made of eight pairs; players can join between hands.

Played with a Chinese Dongguan pack.

Build words from letter cards as hand sizes grow over eight rounds.

Build a unicorn stable while using upgrades, downgrades, and counters to slow rivals.

Build a healthy body of four organs while infecting your opponents and curing your own viruses.

Build silly monsters from heads and limbs, then send them against waves of babies for points.

Draft rows of cards to feed your cats, collect toys, and avoid leftover food.

Take a row of chameleon cards or add one more; only three colors score positively, so overcommitting hurts.

A fast free-for-all where adventurers play attack, shield, and mighty-power cards to be the last one standing.

Race to play numbered cards into shared piles while clearing your personal blitz stack.

Avoid explosive cards by using action cards to skip, peek, shuffle, or defuse.

Bid secretly for property cards and complete three color sets before anyone else.

Collect three complete property sets while charging rent and playing disruptive actions.

Draft one card at a time to assemble valuable sushi combinations before hands pass on.

Avoid explosions and use zombie cards that can bring eliminated players back into the round.

Build colorful tree paths while keeping the right cards in hand to earn scoring rights.

Dig for treasure, trade at the market, and decide when to risk exploring the pyramid before sandstorms hit.

Monks gift, keep, or auction cards to control the categories of a medieval library while dice change their values.

Build a retro video-game dungeon room by room to lure heroes in—and make sure they never come out.

A climbing game with Chinese-style combinations and a punishing penalty for cards left in hand.

Lay petals of different flowers to complete them, using wildlife and insect guardians to claim control.

Improve cards inside transparent sleeves and push for resources without spoiling your turn.

Turn market cards into goods in a chain of medieval buildings, guessing which resources will appear.

A deck-building word game where your cards are letters: spell words to buy better letters and wild cards.

Flip harbor cards to trade, hire, or complete expeditions—but two ships of the same color end your turn.

Collect origami sea creatures for pairs and sets, then decide whether to end the round safely or bet everything.

Shuffle two faction decks together—say, pirate ninjas—and break bases with their combined powers.

Collect gem tokens to buy development cards that give permanent discounts and attract nobles.