Great Board Games for New Year’s Eve

It’s hard to believe that 2010 is coming to a close. But that also means it’s time for a New Year’s Eve party. If you’re not venturing out to big city celebrations, but rather kicking back at home with family and/or friends, then we’ve got some good board game suggestions for you.

The types of games you typically want to have at a New Year’s Eve party are ones that are full of energy to keep everyone and the party moving along. You won’t have anybody dozing off to sleep with these board games.

Word on the Street

Word on the Street is a board game that’s at the top of our party games list. Whenever we get a big group together we like to pull out Word on the Street for a number of reasons.

• You play in teams so it’s us against them
• Even reserved individuals get into the action
• There’s no down time
• The action heats up when you’re battling over the last few letters
• There’s usually lots of shouting

See our full review of Word on the Street

Catch Phrase

Catch Phrase is another game that comes out at most of our parties. It’s full of fast-paced action where players are quickly giving clues for their team to guess a word and then passing on to the next team before the timer stops. It’s the timer that gets players talking frantically and gets them flustered because it starts beeping faster and faster as time goes on. Since it’s a random timer, you never know when it’s going to end. And it also brings lots of shouting and laughter.

See our video review of Catch Phrase.

Reverse Charades

Reverse Charades is a new game that turns the traditional game of charades around. Instead of one person acting out something for their team to guess, Reverse Charades has the team acting out something for one person to guess. This simple change is great because anyone who doesn’t like performing in front of a group doesn’t have to worry with this party game because they can just blend right in.

Say Anything

Say Anything is a fun party game from North Star Games where players settle hotly debated questions like “What’s the most overrated band of all time?” or “Which website would be hardest to live without?” You ask a question and everyone writes their answers. Then the judge secretly selects their favorite response and everyone else places their betting tokens on what they think the judge selected. Once again, there may be lots of shouting and finger pointing as the disagreements flourish.

Curses

If you’re looking to have some silly fun during your New Year’s Eve party, then you should pick up a copy of Curses. It’s a board game where you have to perform tasks with various curses placed upon you – like talking like you have a golf ball in your mouth, or having no arms, or naming a food anytime someone laughs. And if you break one of the curses (by failing to do it), then you get a strike. After a few rounds, the curses really start to pile up until you get into some impossible situations where you’ll have to choose which curse you’re going to have to break just to keep going. Of course, that’s if you can even keep track of all the curses placed upon you.

See our video review of Curses.

We’d also love to hear what games you think are great for New Year’s Eve parties.

Have a very Happy New Year!