Retro Board Games Your Kids Will Love As Much As You Do

I remember playing a looot of board games as a kid. (Retro board games now.) Especially when it was too cold or rainy to go out and play, or when I was stuck at home with my parents on Saturday night. In hindsight, it’s quite possible my parents let me win and that’s where all the fond memories trace back to, but I also remember completely loving these retro board games. I loved the spinning wheel and the cars full of blue and pink babies in The Game of Life. I loved SET and the frantic search to create sets of three different colors, shapes, and numbers (even though I totally had them running around my brain for hours afterwards). I even loved Monopoly, despite the fact that I usually lost to my older sister.

Now that I’m a parent, I decided it was time to dig up some of my old favorites. Turns out, there are a lot of retro board games that your kids will love to play with you, and you’ll love to play with them — at least if your fam is anything like mine. In a world filled with video games, it’s actually been kind of fun to go old school and introduce my kids to classic board games (even Sorry, which my daughter totally demolished me at the other day!). Check out this list of retro board games and see what might be the perfect fit for your fam.

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Retro Board Games to Play with Your Kids

Chutes and Ladders

There was always something so satisfying about catching shortcuts and climbing up ladders to win the game. Even falling down slides was kinda fun.

Photo: Amazon
Sorry

Sorry is a classic race around the board to get your pieces home, and the best part happens to be sabotaging the other players along the way. Sorry not sorry?

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Candy Land

This delicious classic is an easy intro to board games, and it's super fun to gobble up pretend treats along the way.

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Hungry Hungry Hippos

This classic, marble-chomping hippo game is a bit like foosball, and totally frantic as players try to win all the marbles.

Photo: Amazon
Clue

This is a great option for kids ages 8 and older who want to get a little more involved in a board game. Make guesses, rule out suspects, and play with teeny tiny weapons, too.

Photo: Amazon
Operation

This game used to crack me up as a kid. Nothing like a little gentle electrocution and amateur surgery to tickle the funny bone!

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Trouble

There was always something addictively fun about the pop-o-matic dice roller. The game itself is pretty simple, but lots of fun with kids mastering numbers.

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Set

This fast-paced matching game will fire up your brain and your competitive side -- plus, it's a great one to take on the road.

Photo: Amazon
The Game of Life

The Game of Life always made it seem so fun to grow up and have a career and start a family of blue and pink plastic pegs! And the spinner was cool, too.

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Parcheesi

Parcheesi is another typical "race home" game. Ample opportunity to block other players, and each player gets her own little dice cup and dice (almost the best part!).

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Monopoly

Monopoly is a total crowd pleaser, right? I always wanted to be the banker and buy all the pink properties (and my daughter does, too!).

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Scrabble

I could play Scrabble for hours (and to be honest, a two person game can go on for a while!). A great game to play with kids as their vocabularies and spelling skills are starting to expand.

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Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit is a great board game for the whole family, especially this edition, which comes with a stack of questions geared specifically toward the kids, and a stack for adults.

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Uno

Uno has long been one of my favorite games, and it's great to play with kids who are just gaining confidence with numbers and reading.

Photo: Amazon
Risk

If your kids are interested in geography (and power!) the game of global domination (aka Risk) is a great choice.

Photo: Amazon