Fun Board Games

To play with friends and family

Games College Students Should Like

Good friends + Fun board games = Great times

College students don’t study all the time. I know because I used to be one myself. In students’ spare time, many look to board and card games to take up the slack.

There are so many great games from which to choose that picking just some of them for an article like this is a very difficult job. What you will find here are by no means the only good games to play. Check both the adult and teenager sections for more ideas, since virtually all the games there could be enjoyed by college level students as well.

Read some of the individual game reviews, or check out these zombie board games too, because there are many more games here than are just found on the age-specific pages.

Envy – What You Get When You Mix a House Party and an Escape Room in a Cocktail Shaker!

Envy is a print and play murder mystery that instantly transforms any space into an immersive escape room experience.

Bascially, it’s an instant party game! Perfect for college groups who are after more of a group party experience than a traditional board game.

Players work in teams to solve a series of puzzles before time runs out, and the killer slips away. The diversity of puzzle sheets means that there’s a challenge for players of every level, and the game is setup and run spoiler free – so even the host can play along.

The game scales to literally any group size, making it perfect for parties and group events. I can see this as a great ice-breaker to bring people together as the night’s festivities kick off.

Check out Envy on Board Game Geek here

Quelf Is Trivia, Stunts, and More

Quelf is a board game that is often mentioned in connection with college students. You simply roll the die, move your character (e.g. Super Ninja Monkey or Mrs. Pickle Feather) which lands you on a colored space, take the corresponding colored card, read the card, and do what it says.

If you fail to do what the card says, you pay a penalty in spaces as indicated on the card. When you make it to the last space, you win. Sounds easy, right? Maybe not.

Each color corresponds to a category. Green is quizzle (i.e. trivia). Red (scatterbrainz) requires all players to give answers about a given topic. Yellow cards tell you to perform (silly) stuntz. Purple cards put you up on the stage as in showbiz. Blue are rulez cards that could pertain only to you or to everyone playing.

Eventually Quelf becomes more about having fun than winning. That’s a good thing.

Are You Wise and Otherwise?

Wise and Otherwise is an excellent version of the generic “dictionary game” wherein a word is read aloud, and players compose fake definitions for it. The reader writes down the correct definition and subsequently reads each one.

Players vote for the definition they believe to be correct. If someone votes for your fictional definition, you get a point.

Those who select the true one get a point. If no one chooses the correct one, the reader gets all the points.

Wise and Otherwise twists this basic game by using folk sayings from various countries. The reader speaks the first part of the phrase from the front of a card, and players attempt to finish it correctly. The reader writes the remainder of the phrase as found on the back of the card.

It’s very unlikely that you’ve ever heard any of the phrases provided. I’m not even certain that some of them aren’t made up.

Cranium, An Almost Classic Party Game

The original Cranium was published in 1998. It takes elements of several other party games and combines them into one in which players must participate in bits of each. There is drawing, sculpting (with clay), trivia, word games, and performance…think Pictionary, Claymania, Trivial Pursuit, HuggerMugger, and Charades.

The Cranium family of fun board games for college students is only slightly more serious than Quelf, but that’s not saying much. With a large enough group of people who are willing to party, this board game will provide the fun.

Test Your Dexterity with Jenga

Jenga is another party game for the nimble-fingered and steady-handed. Or not. There is a stack of wooden blocks in neatly-organized layers.

Your job is to pull out an individual block – one hand only! – and place it atop the tower without letting any of it tumble. It’s easy at first, but eventually friction and gravity beat you.

Maybe you’ve seen this…Some Jenga fanatics have made their own sets out large pieces of lumber, probably 2-by-4’s. These stacks of wood are then several feet high and require a large play area for when it all comes tumbling down.

Maybe college students in engineering or carpentry would especially like to tackle this one…?

Have You Scene It?

Scene It? is a trivia game that requires a DVD player. The original game is all about movies. What makes it different from other trivia games is that there are video clips that you must pay close attention to in order to answer follow-up questions correctly.

There are dozens of editions of this fun board game, so you can pick the one that your group of college students would like best. Topics range from Marvel comics to Dr. Who to the Simpsons to Star Trek to Friends (TV series) to FIFA and more.

You may have noticed that these fun board games for college students could almost all be placed in a party games category as well. Makes sense to me. That said, if you haven’t looked at the party games yet, check them out too.

More Fun Games

In addition to the games described above, here is a list of some more fun strategy board games college students might be interested in. The two- or three-word tag following each game doesn’t really do it justice. You really need to click the review link to learn more or click the game to check the cost.

Click the name of the game to go to Amazon.