So, I will be doing a solo game list, but I wanted to do a group game list, and in particular a big group game list. These are games that work well with a number of players and can fall into that party game category but generally I wanted games that would be good with six or more people. Group games are great for the holidays because, well, you often get together with family or friends around that time, and you might want to play a board game.

Hues and Cues

This is a pretty new game that people might not have noticed. I believe it came out in 2020 or the very end of 2019, not an ideal time for group games, This is a game that is very different than most group games that you’ve played. I think it plays really different than a lot of party games, but still has a party feel to it.

In Hues and Cues you try to get players to guess your color on a massive grid of colors. You give a one word clue, everyone guesses, and then a clue that is up to two words. The person giving the clue gets points for people being close to their color. Right on or one away. Guessers get points for being right one the color, one away, or two away. It’s fun because only one person can get it perfect but everyone else can still get points for being close.

Wits & Wagers

Using a similar concept to Hues and Cues about being close, Wits & Wagers is a trivia game where knowing the answer doesn’t matter as much. What matters is betting on the closest answer without going over. All the questions have numerical based answers so everyone writes down their answer. Then you bet on which one is correct.

This game might not work the best with complete strangers, but if you know your players you might know who to bid on. I know sports fairly well, so if a sports question comes up, then you might bet on my answer. But most of the time, the answers towards the middle tend to be right, even with people guessing. It’s a good one for playing with parents or grandparents as well.

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

This is my social deduction game for the list. Honestly, I don’t like most social deduction games, but they do work well on big groups. I do, however, like Deception: Murder in Hong Kong a lot. That’s because you start knowing information. This might sound odd, but too many social deduction games you don’t know anything.

Here, there has been a murder committed and everyone is trying to figure out the murder weapon and the clue. Well, everyone except the murder, their accomplice, and the forensic scientist. The forensic scientist is giving clues to point people in the right direction. But they can only do this off of tiles that they have which might have stuff like the age of the victim on it or different locations where the murder happened.

So, you can see how you always know something. The murder and accomplice are trying to keep people off the trail. There is a witness who knows murder is but not the weapon or clue who is trying to keep the focus on the murderer but not too much. It leads to some great moments of discussion and accusation. And it’s always interesting at the end of the game to hear the story the forensic scientist had in their head to get people to guess.

Sushi Go Party!

While it has party in the name, Sushi Go Party isn’t so much a party game. It’s a drafting and set collection game that works well with any number of players. You are drafting a card out of a hand and then playing it .You pass your hand and draft another card, but there are so many ways to score points in this game.

Sometimes you are trying to collect as many of one thing as you can. If you get a lot of dumplings that’s worth a lot of points. Or with tofu, you get the most points if you have exactly two tofu. There are deserts which score you points at the end of the game as you collect more. Or there are some where you want to be the first to a certain number of them. Plus there are specials that let you score in different ways. Wasabi gives you extra points for the next nigiri you get.

This game really works well and it doesn’t take much longer the more people you have. That’s a nice thing about drafting games is that everyone plays at the same time. And with Sushi Go Party, as compared to Sushi Go, you can change up the board between games, so the game feels different every time.

Welcome To…

This is the final game on the list. I could put in a whole lot more, but you can find some of those on your own. There are a lot of good big groups games out there. I wanted to put a roll and write on the list. I did a holiday list already for roll and write games, which you can read here. Some roll and writes just work well for large groups and Welcome To is one of them.

In this game you are building your perfect suburb. Putting up white picket fences, getting your neighborhoods all set-up. You score points for the sizes of neighborhoods you have, how many parks there are, how you advertise, how many pools there are, and more. It’s a game where everyone fills out their sheet at the same time. It works for basically an infinite number of players as long as people can see the cards.

Honorable Mention

There are a lot of games that can work well for this list. I skipped a ton of roll and writes, in fact I could have just make a list of roll and write games that an play an infinite number of players. But that’d be boring. I also didn’t do some bigger games that play up to six like Nemesis, Deep Madness or Unfathomable. They aren’t quite the games that work well for a holiday, unless your group is really into gaming.

I could have also added games like Unlock and Exit or any escape room style game. Those technically can play with an infinite number of players. I prefer them though with less than six because you need to be able to see the cards and I think four tends to be about the right number for that.

What games do you pull out with your family or friends around the holidays?

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