Charades is a bit played-out, don't you think?
Fellow party people, it is time to confront some basic realities. First, we were never taught how to do very adult things like registering a car or applying for a passport. Second, adulthood means having to occasionally have to host respectable dinner parties, with no Doritos in sight. We can’t really help you with the first two—beyond noting that the DMV figures prominently in both—but the second shouldn’t be the death knell for fun.
Rather than making awkward small talk and mentally counting your partner’s drinks to see who will be taking an Uber home, you can play games, and not in the Tyrion Lannister sense of the word. No, this isn’t your classic Monopoly setup. These board games are fresh, modern and sure to inject some spice into your next gathering. We’ve even helpfully paired them with a drink and a dish, so you can entertain accordingly for a truly fulfilling adult(ish) evening.
Pairs Best With: Ice Cream + Cannabis
One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a game built upon looking into the eyes of your beloved friends, taking a deep breath and then lying. At the start of play, everyone is assigned secret roles, which either put them on Team Villager or Team Werewolf. Actions of play are narrated by an easy-to-manage app and, at the end of the game, everyone has a conversation about who ought to get lynched for being a lupine. Here’s where the sweet deception comes in: If you are a werewolf, you have to convince everyone that you’re an unsuspecting villager. If you are an innocent, you must convince everyone you have no blood on your hands.
This game is basically a murder mystery that gets solved in 15 minutes, which means you can play a bunch of rounds to exact revenge on the people who have crossed you. You might also consider smoking a joint so you don’t have to think too hard about how good of a liar your girlfriend is.
*Pairs Best With: Burger + Negroni *
It’s summer in Europe. The year is 1997, and entrepreneurial spirit is at a high. There’s some pesky mad cows in England and unexploded munitions from the two World Wars sprinkled across the French countryside. This game centers on turning these two problems into an elegant solution. The goal of this game is to march cows through Northern France, clearing unexploded bombs and making some cash on the side. You start with 5,000 Francs, spending money to buy more cows and earning money when your cows meet their fate. Whoever ends the game with the most money wins—just like in life. Pair this too-real game with a burger to remember dearly departed cows and a few negronis to forget.
Pairs Best With: Macrobiotic bowl + Kombucha shandy
There’s something unsettling yet satisfying about playing a game that mimics the likely demise of our modern society. Pandemic forces players to band together in order to defeat rapidly spreading epidemics across the globe by building strategic research stations and harnessing each player’s unique character skills to fight a World War Z-like disease. This game gets exponentially more difficult as play progresses, so you’re going to want to keep your wits about you. Opt for a refreshing kombucha shandy and a macrobiotic bowl for the best chance of survival—on and off the board.
Pairs Best With: Chicken Kebabs + Beer
Settlers of Catan is an old-school German board game where players build settlements, trade resources and compete to win 10 victory points on the uncharted island of Catan. At first a game played by those who know, Catan has developed a cult following in Silicon Valley. “It’s like our kind of golf game,” said Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, to the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Catan is on track to become the biggest game brand in the world and for good reason. It’s like Monopoly with actual strategy. You have to be clever to keep up. Stay on theme and eat like a Viking, but swap horse meat and mead for chicken kebabs and beer.
Pairs Best With: Hot dogs + Sarsaparilla
If you’ve ever entertained secret and frankly boring fantasies about constructing the transcontinental railroad, then this is the game for you. Fear not, though; Ticket to Ride is an actually enthralling experience that’s playable with just two people. The basics are easily digestible: you build train chains across America for points, but the strategy and gamesmanship make this a game worth playing and replaying. You’ll know the thrill of cutting someone off across Utah and the frustration of seeing your Seattle-to-Miami dreams dashed against the cruel rocks of someone building right through your southern path.
Pairs Best With: Whiskey—and nothing else
Superfight, like cousins Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity, is a card game involving plenty of shouting and humor. Unlike those games, it’s neither juvenile nor a thin excuse to tell racist and/or sexist jokes your worst friends don’t have the guts to say without flashcards. Also, it’s not Apples to Apples.
Superfight is a game centering around drawing fictional characters and placing them in theoretical battle against each other. One player draws a card, another draws another, and each makes his case passionately. The result is then voted on by a jury of your peers—we make no promises about these people—which means that you can finally have a satisfying experience with Batman v. Superman. This should be Zack Snyder’s favorite game and frankly, it probably is. The whiskey is to prime your aggression; we suggest no food pairings because you’ll need to stay hungry.
Pairs Best With: Cake + Champagne
Released on Bastille Day in 1998, Guillotine is a card game that takes place during the French Revolution where you win “by getting a head.” (The creators of the game are proficient in puns.) In this most dangerous game, you are an executioner competing for the best collection of nobles’ heads. Each noble is worth points depending on their historical notoriety and play is kept interested thanks to action cards that allow you to steal cards or switch up the order of nobles walking to their deaths. As for your dinner guests, let them eat cake. Serve with champagne for the perfect match to this simple but lively game.