25 Awesome Game Night Ideas to Play (Including 5 Tips for Hosting One)

If it’s your turn to host the next game night, then you’re going to want to make it the most memorable night possible. Make sure this is the case with our list of game night ideas carefully selected to ensure your guests have the best time.

Whether you’re looking for a board game that’s in-depth and will take your friends a while to play or something quick you can bust out in a pinch, we’ve got something for any occasion.

So take a look at 25 awesome game night ideas, and check out some of our top tips to help improve your hosting skills as well. 

See Also: Games Gift Ideas Guide | Best Game Buzzers

Card Game Night Ideas

1. WHAT DO YOU MEME?

Players: 3+ players. 

Time to Play: 30 – 120 minutes. 

Objective: Come up with the best meme captions voted by your guests at your game night. 

What Do You Meme? in a nutshell: 

In What Do You Meme?, each player will receive 7 caption cards and must match the best caption to the displayed meme. Each player reads out their designed meme, the player who gets the most laughs wins the round. Whoever wins the most rounds win overall.

Related: What Do You Meme? rules. 

2. WEREWOLF

Players: 7 – 35 players. 

Time to Play: 20 minutes+. 

Objective: Depending on your role, either eliminate the werewolves or eliminate the villagers. 

Werewolf in a nutshell: 

Divide up players as either a werewolf or one of the villager characters. The Werewolf card game gets played with a night cycle and a day cycle. The night cycle is where the designated secret werewolves eliminate villager characters, whereas the day cycle is where villagers vote to eliminate who they believe is a werewolf, Last team standing at the end of the game wins. 

Related: Werewolf game rules.

3. SECRET HITLER

Players: 5 – 10 players.

Time to Play: 30 – 120 minutes. 

Objective: Enact policies throughout the game to win the election and the game. 

Secret Hitler in a nutshell: 

Divide up the group into fascists and liberals, with 1 of the fascists randomly drawing the ‘Hitler’ card. Vote on different suggested policies; in Secret Hitler, the winning player or team is the person/people who manage to either win power or grab power. 

Related: Secret Hitler game rules.

4. SUPERFIGHT

Players: 3+ players. 

Time to Play: 10 – 30 minutes. 

Objective: Using your drawn cards, come up with the greatest possible fighter and go head to head with other players to prove your fighter is the best. 

Superfight in a nutshell: 

Shuffle the Superfight cards and hand out 6 to each player. Draw up a round-robin tournament between all participants; each player will need to convince everyone that their designed hero would win in a fight. Whoever wins the final wins the game. 

Related: Superfight rules. 

5. LLAMAS UNLEASHED

Players: 2 to 8 players. 

Time to Play: 30 – 45 minutes. 

Objective: Become the first player to manage to get 7 llamas in their field. 

Llamas Unleashed in a nutshell: 

Players draw the Llama Unleashed cards on their turn, which gives them 1 of 2 choices where they can either play that card or draw another one. The cards that they play either help themselves or hinder another player. The first player to get 7 llamas in their pen wins the game. 

Related: Llamas Unleashed rules. 

6. HIT THE DECK

Players: 2 – 6 players. 

Time to Play: 20 minutes. 

Objective: Once a player hits 100 points, the aim is to have the least number of points. 

Hit The Deck in a nutshell: 

Each player takes it in turns to play their cards in their hand; each card has a different instruction for players to follow in an attempt to get rid of their hands of cards. The next player hits the deck if their card matches the previously played cards. Hit The Deck finishes when a player runs out of cards, with the winner the player with the lowest overall score. 

Related: Hit The Deck rules

7. THE MIND CARD GAME

Players: 2 – 4 players.

Time to Play: 20 minutes per game.

Objective: Solve a number puzzle as a team without communicating verbally with the other team members. 

The Mind card game in a nutshell: 

Deal out the same number of The Mind cards as there are players playing. Players are silent throughout the game, and the team must organize 100 cards into numerical order. Once they are successfully organized, the game is over. 

Related: The Mind card game rules.

8. SUSHI GO PARTY

Players: 2 – 8 players. 

Time to Play: 10 – 20 minutes each game. 

Objective: Score points by combining Sushi cards

Sushi Go Party in a nutshell: 

Deal out the necessary Sushi Go Party cards to players; everyone plays at the same time and need to take cards that they need to create their combos and pass over cards they don’t need. Each successful combo earns points, the player with the most points at the end of the game wins. 

Related: Sushi Go Party rules. 

Board Game Night Ideas

9. DRAGONWOOD

Players: 2 – 4 players.

Time to Play: 30 – 60 minutes. 

Objective: Defeat the 2 dragons by collecting points and readying yourself for the final battle throughout the game. 

Dragonwood in a nutshell: 

Dragonwood requires players to build their hands throughout the game, starting with 0. Once ready, a player can challenge 1 of the 2 Dragons, and the game ends once one of the Dragons gets defeated. The winner is the player who has accumulated the most victory points throughout the game. 

Related: Dragonwood rules. 

10. CODENAMES

Players: 4 – 8 players. 

Time to Play: 15 minutes. 

Objective: Give single-word clues to the agent so that they avoid getting assassinated. 

Codenames in a nutshell: 

Divide players into 2 equal teams, shuffle the Codenames cards, and lay them out in a 5×5 grid. 1 team is tasked with protecting their agents; the other team has to attempt to find where the agents are hiding. Team 1 wins if they can avoid their agents from being detected and team 2 win if they manage to find all the agents. 

Related: Codenames rules. 

11. NAME 5 GAME

Players: 2 – 8 players in teams. 

Time to Play: 30 – 60 minutes.

Objective: Name 5 things in a category and be the first player or team to reach the Name 5 space.

Name 5 Game in a nutshell: 

Each team selects their game pieces and puts them at the start of the Name 5 Game board. When a player lands on a color on the game board, they read out the topic displayed on the card, and a team member needs to name 5 things in that category within 30 seconds. The first team to reach the end wins the game. 

Related: Name 5 Game rules.

12. PANDEMIC

Players: 2 – 4 players. 

Time to Play: 45 minutes. 

Objective: As a team, enact medical policies to ensure that a virus doesn’t get out of control.

Pandemic in a nutshell: 

Assign each player a specific role that they need to manage throughout the game. Players draw cards that throw up different scenarios and must draw their own cards to work out each problem. In Pandemic, if the team manages to contain the pandemic, they win, but they lose if it goes out of control. 

Related: Pandemic board game rules. 

13. JUMANJI

Players: 2 – 4 players. 

Time to Play: 30 – 45 minutes. 

Objective: Land on the Jumanji Space in the middle of the game board before the Doomsday Grid gets filled up. 

Jumanji in a nutshell: 

Like the film, Jumanji requires players to roll a die to determine how many spaces they need to move on the game board. The game changes, and cards get drawn depending on the space that players land on. Once a player gets to the Jumanji Space, they can shout ‘JUMANJI’ and win the game. 

Related: Jumanji board game rules. 

14. DEAD OF WINTER

Players: 2 – 5 players. 

Time to Play: 60 – 120 minutes.

Objective: Work as a team to complete the main goal in a zombie apocalypse while secretly completing a hidden goal. 

Dead Of Winter in a nutshell: 

As a group, Dead Of Winter requires players to start by picking a main objective card at random that everyone needs to work towards. Each player will also need to draw a secret objective card which has a task involving the other players they must try to complete too. The winner is the player who manages to complete their hidden task without getting discovered. 

Related: Dead of Winter rules. 

15. CLUE 

Players: 2 – 6 players. 

Time to Play: 45 – 60 minutes. 

Objective: Try to solve the murder by discovering who did the murder, which room they did it in, and what weapon they used to do it. 

Clue in a nutshell: 

Each player needs to work out the murder mystery by entering different rooms on the Clue game board and guessing the answer to the mystery. Players denounce each guess if they have the card in their hand. The winner is the player who successfully guesses the 3 parts of the murder. 

Related: Clue game rules. 

16. TABOO

Players: 4+ players. 

Time to Play: 15 – 20 minutes.

Objective: Correctly guess the maximum number of words to score the winning point. 

Taboo in a nutshell: 

In Taboo, divide players up into 2 equal teams. Each round 1 player is a clue-giver, and the rest of their team needs to guess the phrase. There are a number of words that are taboo and cannot be said by the clue-giver. The team with the most correct guesses once all players have had a go at being the clue-giver wins. 

Related: Taboo game rules.