Top 11 Best Board Games – Jaden

What do teenage boys think are the best board games and best card games around?
Well, you’re about to find out because today we’re taking a peak at what Jaden considers to be the best board games, card games, and party games.

Jaden is our 14 (soon to be 15) year old son and with our board game shelves full of over 300 games, he’s played hundreds of games. He’s also at the stage where he’s pretty particular about what he spends his time doing.

And if he’s not interested in playing a board game, he’s not afraid to let you know he’s not interested. He doesn’t capitulate easily because there are plenty of other things that he loves to do: reading, soccer, archery, theater, scouts, video games, and just hanging with friends.

So if he’s going to spend time playing a board game, it’s got to be one that he’s interested in.

Perhaps you have a teenage son that’s similar. If you’re going to get him to the table to play a face-to-face board game or join in to play with the family or siblings, then you’ve got to find a board game or card game that catches his interest and is fun to play.

With that in mind, take a look at what Jaden’s favorite board games, card games, and party games are to play. You just might find something that will work great with your teenage sons.

Top 11 Best Board Games – JADEN’s choice

Dominion

The thing Jaden loves most about Dominion is the variety. Once you get the mechanics and flow figured out, there’s a lot of variety in how the cards interact and put a twist on what you can do on your turn. Since every time you play, you randomly select 10 types of cards to have in the pool, there are ‘zillions’ of combinations (especially if you add expansions). Even with just the base game you get tons of combinations and variety in which cards are available to combo together each time you play.
See our full review of Dominion.

Thunderstone

Now take the deckbuilding structure of Dominion and throw on top of it a fantasy theme with cool heroes, monsters, weapons, and spells, and you’ve stepped the game play up a notch to Thunderstone. With all that Thunderstone adds to deckbuilding, the game takes longer to play than Dominion and may not seem as streamlined. But that doesn’t matter to teen boys that love having a purpose to their deckbuilding. Tell them they’re going to level-up their heroes to beat tougher monsters and they’ll gladly reshuffle their decks over and over to get the right combinations of cards to make it a romp. The other thing Jaden loves about Thunderstone is that the choices of the players affect each other. If someone takes out a monster, then you’ll have to battle a different one that pops up.
See our full review of Thunderstone.

Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan

Jaden likes Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan because “you don’t know where things are and you have to figure it out.” In this 2-player game when you’re playing the part of the guards, you don’t know where the ninja player is sneaking around. And when you’re the stealthy ninja player, you have to figure out where the objects you’re searching out are hidden. It’s a great cat and mouse deduction game that’s fun on either side. But given the choice, Jaden will opt for the part of the ninjas every time.
See our full review of Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan.

Fastrack

Jaden has nobly awarded himself the title of King of Fastrack. He’ll challenge anyone to this quick dexterity game. His finger-flinging seems to know no bounds. Although he can be beaten, he wins more often than not. Fastrack is a great game to leave out on the table because it’s so tempting to just sit down and play a quick game – or more likely the best 2 out of 3. And once a couple people sit down to play, others will gather around to watch and call to play the winner. Keep this one out on the table and it will get played a bunch.
See our full review of Fastrack.

Memoir ’44

Jaden loves Memoir ’44 because of its great balance of luck and strategy. Managing your hand of cards well is part of the strategic and tactical decisions needed to balance out the luck of the dice rolls. There are also a lot of different scenarios that keep the game interesting. And since the terrain is so versitle, you can always create your own scenarios to play out as well. Definitely on Jaden’s best board games list.
See our full review of Memoir ’44.

Yinsh

Yinsh is an abstract 2-player board game that’s pure strategy. There’s no luck in Yinsh. Players simply try to outsmart each other in lining up discs with their color face-up. It also has a great balancing mechanism that requires the player that scores a point to remove one of their rings from the board to designate the point. So while you may take the lead first, you’ll have less rings to manipulate discs as the game goes along. And with every move of your opponent you’ll have to adjust. Great thinking game.
See our full review of Yinsh.

7 Wonders

Unlike the last 3 games listed that are 2-player games, Jaden loves 7 Wonders because up to 7 people can play. And with more people playing, it doesn’t make the game any longer since everyone plays simultaneously. Which means there isn’t down time waiting for other players to take their turn. It’s a great civilization building card game with multiple paths to victory and constant decisions. Should you add more resources, build more of your wonder, increase your military strength, or simply take a card out of play so your neighbor doesn’t get a chance to use it? Plenty to think about while it moves along quickly.
See our full review of 7 Wonders.

Small World

Jaden says why he loves Small World in a simple statement, “It’s just fun to conquer.” The variety in Small World is great which easily puts it on his best board games list. The random mixture of races and special powers keep this board game fun over and over. Picking the right combination to conquer territories in this small world is key to doing well. But even if you don’t win, you have a ton of fun in the process. And the dedicated boards and amount of turns that are based on the number of players in the game makes it equally fun with 2, 3, 4, or 5 players.
See our full review of Small World.

Dixit

Dixit is a party game that Jaden calls, “so random.” And he must really like random because Dixit is on his best board games list as well. The unique artwork on the cards lend themselves well to teenage imagination. It’s also fun to see what other people will come up with. The original Dixit game was awarded the Spiel des Jahres winner in 2010 (Best Game of the Year) – which obviously helped it become so popular and spawn many expansion games. With Dixit Odyssey even more people can play and have fun together.
See our full review of Dixit.

Sounds Like a Plan

Another party game, or group game to make Jaden’s best game list is Sounds Like a Plan. The combinations of tasks and advice are just funny. Then add to the mix that you could be looking for the best advice, worst advice, or grandma’s advice and it can get really funny. It’s also cool when multiple people score points rather than just one person each turn. The ranked scoring is definitely a cool part of the game.
See our full review of Sounds Like a Plan.

Times Up

One more party game made Jaden’s list as well – Time’s Up. It’s a fun game of seeing how many items your team can guess. But the unique part of Time’s Up is that in each of the 3 rounds you use the same cards/items. The only difference is that in subsequent rounds you’re more limited in what you can do to get your teammates to guess the item. So by the 3rd round it gets really crazy and hilarious when you can’t use any words and it’s just down to pantomime and strange sounds.
See our full review of Times Up.

If you look at our Board Game Reviews list and sort by Jaden’s game ratings, you may note that his interests have changed a little bit over time. That’s bound to happen as kids just keep growing. But that’s just nature as all our interests continue to change as we’re exposed to new things. So after playing hundreds of games, that’s the list of board games that Jaden thinks are the best.

And if you’d like more ideas of games for teenagers, take a look at our list of 40 game ideas by category in our Board Game Gift Guide or our Teen Board Games page.

What board games and card games do your teenagers love to play?

See the what everyone else has as their Top Board Games:
Dad – Top 14 Board Games
Mom – Top 12 Board Games
Trevor – Top 8 Board Games
Brooke – Top 10 Board Games
Caleb – Top 10 Board Games