The best board games for 8 year olds don’t actually have to say 8+. Many suitable games may be labelled for older children or even younger children, yet they are still brilliant board games that will be loved by the children.
When thinking about what type of board game to buy an 8 year old then you need consider whether they like a competitive or cooperative game. Some 8 year olds and older will dislike losing still, so a cooperative game can make family game night a lot more enjoyable for everyone.
Without any further ado here are the best board games for 8 year olds!
Table of Contents
Cooperative Games: Best Board Game For 8,10 Year Olds
Best Overall Cooperative Game
Zombie Kidz Evolution
In this game zombie’s attack a school with four entryways. Players need to block the entryways and eliminate the zombies from the school. The best thing about this game is that players gain stickers as they progress through different skills. Opening new envelopes to create more challenges to face as the players skills improve. It’s a great game for both younger players and siblings.
Best Cooperative Game For Communication
Castle Panic
My youngest’s favourite game is Castle Panic. We’ve had it since 6 years old and even now at 8 years old he loves to play it! Now he doesn’t need any help from adults and can easily play alone with his friends. The aim of the game is to stop the monsters from invading the castle and having at least one castle wall left at the end of the game. Players must trade cards to hit and slay monsters before the monsters breach the castle walls. It involves a lot of strategy talk and is perfect for kids who enjoy the survival aspect. You can also add in the ‘Master Slayer’ who is the person who scores the most victory points for killing monsters. However, we don’t play this part as it’s preferable to be all cooperative for a more friendly family game!
Best Cooperative Game To Play With Older Siblings
Forbidden Island by Gamewright
Forbidden Island is a both a cooperative and strategy game, which is perfect to play with older kids and their younger siblings. It’s quick to understand with the premise of collecting 4 ancient artefacts before the city floods. Children need to work together to pass cards and help each other over obstacles before they can collect the artefacts and fly off in the helicopter to win the game. This has been a favourite of my kids for a while. The range of games also includes Forbidden Desert and Forbidden Sky, with the latter being the most difficult to win! Each of these games can be started at a different difficulty level depending on the stage your kids are at, or id it’’s being played by adults.
Card Games
Best Overall Card Game
Sushi Go
Card games are great fun for kids, although some do have a lot of rules! Sushi Go! is definitely a fun one, particularly if you love eating sushi anyway. The idea is to build up the most points with different sushi combinations, from Nigiri and Sushi rolls to pudding for dessert. You pass the cards around the players and after each round points are counted up. It allows for lots of interesting strategies and clever plays.
Best Skilled Card Game
Organ Attack
This is a rather random choice for a kids card game and definitely not well known. However, if you have kids who love learning about biology or just being silly and trying to attack each other cards, it will so much fun for all! Players have several organs in front of them and then use the cards to try and give other players diseases and afflictions. These kill of the others organs until only one player has an organ intact. It can be a very silly and humorous and excellent for the competitive child! However, it may not be so good for people sensitive to discussing medical conditions, as you can play cards such as ‘cancer’ on other players. There is also an expansion pack included to make the game more challenging.
Skill Games: Best Board Games For 8 Year Olds
Best Skill Game
El Dorado
The first player to make it to the city of gold ‘El Dorado’ wins the game. To get there you need to cross jungle, lakes and villages using your deck of cards. This game requires some skill level to gain the best cards to be the first to reach El Dorado. You can choose various cards to help you cross the different environments, but frustratingly the right cards don’t always come up in your hand when you want them! So it definitely requires some strategic thinking to win.
Best Budget Option Game
Hocus Pocus
Hocus Pocus is a cooperative board game and actually not the easiest to win! It’s perfect for 8 year olds and the rest of the family too, but it will certainly need some good communication between the players to beat the Sanderson witches. The board game is based on the Disney film Hocus Pocus and players need to ruin the witches potion 3 times before the sun rises. Using the cards to match colours or Ingredient type players will work together to stun the witches one by one. The recommended age is 8+, but it can actually be played by young kids too.
Strategy Game: Best Board Games For 8, 10 Year Olds
Best Overall Strategy Game
Ticket To Ride
This has been a favourite for our kids for years. Younger children can play in a team if they prefer, but the whole family will enjoy strategic planning of train routes. Using problem-solving skills to reach their destinations and win the longest routes, players have to fight over the best cards to complete the routes before they run out of trains. This game will appear to older players as much as younger ones, or anybody who likes train travel!
Expansion packs are available to add to the excitement to the original Ticket To Ride Games. These include a UK and Pennsylvania board game expansion. For younger kids it may be useful to consider Ticket to Ride First Journey before they begin the standard game.
Best Mystery Strategy Game
Cluedo
Everyone knows Cluedo, is one of the classic family games. However, it is also a perfect strategy game. It requires a lot of thinking to work out who is the culprit, which room and what weapon was used. With consideration of what cards other people must be holding then it can involve a lot of critical thinking to make an accusation. It’s definitely one of the kids favourite games, plus everyone is excited to find out who the culprit is, even if they’re not the one to catch them!
Best Classic Board Game – Best Board Games For 8 Year Olds
Best Classic Board Game
Monopoly
Monopoly is a popular game that has been known to cause family arguments. However, we do love it as a game to enjoy as a family, particularly if there is a set time limit. Then it doesn’t go on forever! Players need to gain sets of properties and build houses on the properties so they can charge other players rent when they land on them. It’s a good choice as a first family board game. An easy to play classic board game that most people will know how to play without checking the rule book every 5 minutes.
Best Classic Game From Around The World
Mancala
Although Mancala is a classic board game that is reputed to be one of the oldest games in the world, not many UK people know it. Originally played with seeds or stones in little pits in the ground nowadays it is a wooden board with glass beads. It’s a fairly simple game that involves picking up the glass beads and moving them along the holes in the board. The winner is the one with the highest score of most beads in their collection at the end of the game. The simple rules are easy to learn and then it is all about skill and strategy to win against the other player.
Best Game For Different Ages To Play Together
Dragonwood
The game of dragonwood is a card game, which players need to collect adventurer cards to attack their foes. It’s one of our top picks for families to play together as it requires some strategy and is a lot of fun. It does require a little luck along with skill, as you need to roll the dice to try and get enough points to attack the dragons and other foes.
Labyrinth
You can now buy the game Labyrinth in various versions, from the traditional game to those featuring Frozen or Harry Potter characters. The main aim of the game is to move the tiles to create a path to get to the items in your stack of cards. It requires a lot of critical thinking to work out what tile to move, especially when other players move them the wrong way for you! It’s definitely one of the best games for families with different ages of kids to play together.
Best Travel Themed Games
Trekking The World
If you are a travel loving family like this then you may enjoy playing Trekking The World. In this board game you have sets of cards to play and collect, along a similar skill base as Monopoly and Ticket To RIde. However, here you need to collect landmarks and collect extra bonus points to win the game. Travelling across the world you collect your adventure cards and use shortcuts to have the most landmarks, postcards and souvenirs. It takes a little time to read through the rules, but once you have it laid out and get playing then you will soon get the hang of it.
Mapominoes
A perfect game for taking on holiday and helping kids learn a bit more about different European countries and their proximity to each other. The idea is to play it on a table and part of the challenge is to keep the cards from falling off! Play each country card next to another it’s next to in real life to try and get rid of all your cards first. Kids will soon learn which countries are next to each other and remember the different flags for each country too.
Compact Game For Travel
Best Quick Compact game
Sleeping Queens
Sleeping Queens is a great card game for 8 year olds, as well as the little kids. It can easily be taken out of the little box a put into a ziplock bag for travel. Or if you have enough room in a suitcase it can stay in the box. A small space is needed to lay the cards out, but it’s incredibly easy and quick to play. Plus it’s a fun game with lovely illustrations of cartoon kings and queens. Game play can be as short as 15-20 minutes which is perfect for this age group. Recently Sleeping Queens 2 has been released, so if you enjoyed Sleeping Queens then you may enjoy the 2nd edition too!
Best Classic Travel Game
Uno
Most people know Uno as a great way to keep kids and adults occupied whilst travelling. Uno itself has not changed over the years and is a classic card game. As you only have a stack of cards and discard pile, with the rest held in players hands you need very little space to play. If you feel it’s. A bit too simple then why not try the new Uno Flip, which has a dark side and light side, which you can flip the stack of cards over when the flip card is played. It’s easy to get the hang of, but gives a fun dimension to the game play.
Best Educational Games: Best Board Games 8 Year Olds Love
Best Educational Card Game
Zeus On The Loose
This is a perfect quick game for learning maths and also a bit of Greek history. The object of the game is to add or subtract to the number 100, whilst using the Greek gods special powers to try and grab Zeus to send him back to Mount Olympus. The play tends to be quick and involves players swapping who has the little Zeus model every so often until a player finally gets to 100. Fantastic for math skills and an ideal game if you want to help with quick addition and subtraction skills.
Best Board Games For 8 Year Olds – Education
Horrible Histories
The game board for Horrible Histories is a simple path to the centre. However the main difference in this game is that players need to answer questions about history to move forward extra spaces. These aren’t all simple questions either, thinking more gruesome and weird history questions! Players travel through 4 different time periods answering questions to move them further on. But watch out for the deck of chance cards, which might be useful and move players forward or unfortunate and move backwards or miss a turn! An excellent game for history lovers.
Best Tile Laying Games: Best Board Games For 8 Year Olds
Kingdomino
This is a good game for a wide age range of kids. Our youngest has been playing since he was 5 years old, however it is better for older family members who can use more skills and strategy. The aim is to make the best kingdom by laying tiles in a 5 x 5 grid, with matching habitats touching each other and as many crowns as possible for extra points. You must compete with other players for the tiles you would like, which can make it difficult to build the best kingdom! There is also now Queendomino if you would like a slightly different game to play!
Carcassonne – Best Board Games For 8 Year Olds
This is a great game for the entire family. You pick tiles from the top of the tile stacks, placing them by corresponding Landscapes, Roads etc. The tiles must connect in a way that makes roads and cities all connect to for a French landscape. Points are gained by placing needles on roads, cities and fields to try and gain the most tiles of each. It definitely takes a little deductive reasoning to work out which way would be the best to gain points.