When my family gathers together for the holidays, I always look forward to late nights where we laugh and play games together. In college, I tend to feel less homesick when my friends and I gather together for a game night. Although playing games like Cards Against Humanity can be fun, I enjoy playing games with my college friends that I can also play together with my family. So I wanted to share some games that are family-friendly but also really fun that you can play at your next college game night with only a deck of cards.
1. Spoons
SPOONS is a fun classic that I believe everyone should learn how to play. It requires only a deck of cards and as many spoons as there are players minus one. Like Go-Fish, the goal is to have four cards of a kind in your hand. After getting that then the player grabs a spoon, with the other players then having to be quick enough and battle it out to grab one of the remaining spoons. Like Horse, the person without a spoon gets a letter to spell out "SPOONS" so it can get pretty intense with people diving across the table for spoons.
2. Kemps
KEMPS is very similar to SPOONS in that the objective is to get four of a kind. However, rather than grabbing a spoon you play in pairs and must secretly, non-verbally signal your partner that you have achieved the objective. The partner must then see the signal and yell "KEMPS" before players from another team notice in order to win the round. This game can be really fun with players becoming more paranoid about what other teams are doing as time goes on.
3. BS
BS, Cheat, or also known as I Doubt It is a great a way to test your poker face if you don't know how to play poker. The goal of the game is to try and play all of your cards. The game is played in numeric order, with each round a player having to play the card that corresponds to that round. If you don't have the corresponding card, you can lie and lay down a random card. If a player catches you lying or even thinks you're lying, then they call "BS" and the liar if they are caught or the doubter if they are wrong must pick up the whole deck. My advice: Just don't get caught.
4. Speed
Speed is a game of speed and agility. The goal of the game is to play all of your cards by laying them down in ascending or descending rank on one of the cards in the middle. The trick is to lay your cards down before your opponent can.
5. Shanghai Rummy
Shanghai Rummy is similar to the popular card game Phase 10, but what is nice is that this does not require a special set of cards. Each round there is a different objective like getting two sets of 3 or a run of 4 and a set of 3. The game is based on points so the winners and losers vary each round. This game is perfect for when you have a long afternoon or a late evening with lots of friends or family.
These games like Shanghai would be perfect to stay up all night playing to ring in the new year. So have fun playing with your friends and family! Don't get too competitive though!
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