The Dad Suggests Best Family Board Games of 2021
It’s time for a new tradition on Dad Suggests - our recap of our year in family board games. You can think of it as The Dad Suggests Family Board Game Awards, if you will. 2021 will mark our first year doing this roundup, which will most certainly become an annual event - much like the Dad Suggests Picture Book Awards.
But this article will serve a dual purpose every year as well, because it’s also going to be a roundup of our 12 Game of the Month articles from 2021. And those 12 games are actually going to be the only nominees for this year’s awards.
It’s important to note that there are some months that feature board games that didn’t come out in 2021. That’s because our Game of the Month doesn’t have such restrictions, it’s merely the board game our family is loving and most excited about that month.
Having said that, the winners of the 2021 Dad Suggests Board Game Awards obviously need to be released during 2021. Any months that featured older games will simply be disqualified from consideration. And all of the remaining nominees will be considered for the 2021 Family Board Game of the Year. The main point is that if a game didn’t inspire us to make it our Game of the Month last year, it’s obviously not going to be our Game of the Year either.
We will choose one big winner for two categories of games - board games for younger kids (2-7) and board games for older kids (7-12). Practically speaking, I think that these two categories will come in very handy for parents and teachers shopping for kids, and the split the difficulty level and appropriateness very well. And, personally speaking, they generally represent our own kids right now - because we have a 5-year-old and a 9-year-old.
I hope you enjoy the first annual Dad Suggests Family Board Game Awards! Make sure to scroll all the way to the end to see this year’s big winners, and I hope this roundup helps you find a great new family game to enjoy!
Disclosure: Some of the links in the following article are affiliate links. Clicking on those links will lead you to view the games’ listings on Amazon.com.
The Nominees
*Note that Game of the Month nominees that released before 2021 will not be considered for Game of the Year
January 2021
Dragomino
This children’s version of the hugely popular, Spiel des Jahres-winning Kingdomino was a big hit in our family - and definitely would have been in consideration for our family game of the year in 2020. Every time you match together two matching land tiles, you earn a dragon egg. And if there’s a baby dragon inside, you earn a point. It’s also possible to earn more than one egg on a turn, so there’s a perfectly age-appropriate amount of strategy here.
February 2021
Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle
Hogwarts Battle is responsible for some of our most memorable family game nights we have ever and may ever have. It’s a brilliant cooperative deck-building game that follows the characters and events of the 7 books and 7 years of school at Hogwarts in a way that fans will adore.
March 2021
Detective Charlie
Both of our kids love Detective Charlie. It sits right at the border between the two age groups and really pulls the entire family together for family game night very effectively that way. This cooperative deductive reasoning whodunit is also incredibly adorable.
April 2021
Pusheen Purrfect Pick
Pusheen fans are going to love this one. It’s also really easy to understand and explain to kids - but still somehow completely engaging for adults. Adorable, simple, and fun is a pretty good trifecta that’s hard to argue with.
May 2021
Rhino Hero Junior
HABA is doing great things with their My Very First Games Series - and I really love this trend of taking popular games and making a junior version of them. We don’t have a whole lot of dexterity games made for young kids either, so Rhino Hero Junior really stands out for us.
June 2021
Super Silly Stories
We’re big fans of storytelling games, and Super Silly Stories is a blast. It’s like Apples to Apples for storytelling, and, most importantly, there are tons of hilarious cards to choose from to keep things fresh and interesting every single time.
July 2021
Outfoxed!
Not a 2021 game, but an all-time family favorite that needed to have a Game of the Month article. Outfoxed! is quite simply one of the best kids board games of all time. It’s a cooperative game of logic and deduction that kids really adore.
August 2021
Quests of Yore
Quests of Yore is the tabletop RPG from the Pixar movie Onward, and they did a spectacular job fleshing it out until a fully-fledged board game. It comes with everything you need to start your own adventure with your family, and I just can’t tell you how special the family storytelling and imagination can be here.
September 2021
Animal Upon Animal Junior
Another entry from HABA in the My Very First Games series, and another junior version of a popular game as well. As always, the wooden HABA pieces are amazing, and the art is very cute. HABA really does wonderful with gameschooling ideas as well.
October 2021
Wizards & Werewolves
Not exactly a board game - Wizards & Werewolves actually takes place outside running around like an elaborate version of capture the flag. But it truly captured the imagination of our son for so long that we simply had to make it one of our family games of the month.
November 2021
Inspector Mouse: The Great Escape
Despite the fact that this game is about a mouse inspector, it’s actually not a deduction game. It’s really a memorization game, and a devilishly difficult one at that. Remembering which criminal is trying to escape as you spin the board back and forth is quite the challenge.
December 2021
Happy City
This city building game is easy enough to quickly explain to kids, but my wife and I like to play it against each other by ourselves too. This kind of game is very appealing to me. Managing your economy and trying to purchase the right buildings to maximize your score is a blast and a very fun challenge.
The Winners
The Best Family Board Game of 2021
Younger Kids (2-7)
Rhino Hero Junior
It’s hard to imagine starting a new Family Board Game of the Year tradition and not having HABA win in the inaugural year. Especially for the younger kids category. I absolutely love what HABA does with their My Very First Games series.
Rhino Hero Junior is a spectacular choice for getting the juniorizing treatment. It’s adorable to see little hands playing a dexterity game, and naturally it’s important practice as well.
Worth mentioning is that HABA does a wonderful job with much more than just their trademark wooden pieces. They also have clearly added an emphasis to storytelling in the rule book, and with providing gameschooling ideas as well. For example, this is more than just a dexterity game, there are also opportunities to practice colors, numbers, and sizes as well!
The Best Family Board Game of 2021
Older Kids (7-12)
Quests of Yore
I’ll never forget how quickly my son became obsessed with this game. Of course it’s special that the game was born out of one of his favorite movies, but I don’t think we could have anticipated just how much it would fire up his creativity and imagination.
If you think you might want to get your kids into D&D one day, or if you simply like playing storytelling games or using your imagination with your kids, Quests of Yore has the potential to be something pretty special for you too.
Everything about this game - from the design to the writing to the quality of the materials - makes it more than worth of being our Game of the Year in the older kids category. But on a personal level it was also an easy choice because of the wonder it inspired.
What was your favorite family board game of 2021? Did you play our big winners yet? Let us know in the comments!
