Cards on the table: the best games for autumn and winter
What kind of game night are you?
Date
10 / 10/ 2026
Category
Family experiences, Fowey Hall, Moonfleet Manor, New Park Manor, The Ickworth, Woolley Grange
There’s something about this time of year that makes a family game night around the table feel especially appealing.
The walk has been walked. The wellies are drying. Hot chocolates have appeared. And, somehow, everyone is in the same room at the same time. All that’s left is choosing the right game.
Because not every evening calls for the same thing. Sometimes you’ve got 15 minutes before dinner. Sometimes there are three generations around the table. And sometimes what begins as a perfectly civilised game ends with somebody demanding a recount.
So, cards on the table. What kind of game night are you?
Quick picks for family game night
If you’re choosing between boxes, these are our picks:
- Best quick game: Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza
- Best for bigger groups: Codenames
- Best for mixed ages: Herd Mentality
- Best for strategy: Ticket to Ride or Catan
- Best easy-to-learn game: Wavelength
- Best after bedtime: Hitster
For when dinner is nearly ready: quick family games
You know the moment. Nobody wants to start anything complicated, but there’s just enough time for one more thing before everyone is called to the table.
Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza was made for it.
Players lay cards while repeating the five words in sequence, then race to slap the pile when the word and card match. Very straightforward. Right up until your brain can no longer tell the difference between a taco, a cat and a goat.
For families who insist they’re “not competitive”
Proceed with caution.
Herd Mentality asks everyone the same question, with points going to the answer most people have in common. Easy enough, until you discover that your family has unexpectedly strong opinions about biscuits, sandwich fillings or the correct place to sit on a plane.
If you prefer your rivalry with a little more strategy, try Ticket to Ride. Collect cards, claim railway routes across the map and maintain an entirely neutral expression when someone realises you’ve just taken the exact route they were planning to use.
For when nobody wants homework first
There is a time for a 12-page instruction manual. After a long day out is probably not it.
Wavelength is much easier to get going. One person gives a clue to help their team guess where a hidden target sits between two opposites, such as hot and cold, useful and useless or sensible and ridiculous. The game itself is simple. Explaining why you believe something is “70% sensible” is where things start to unravel.
Just One is equally easy to pick up. Everyone writes a one-word clue to help another player guess the answer, but identical clues are removed before they can see them. Which means the obvious answer is often the least useful one.
For the ones already thinking three moves ahead
Some people sit down to a game for a relaxing evening. Others have a strategy before the box is fully open. For them, there’s Azul. Players collect colourful tiles to create patterns and score points, and everything about it looks beautifully calm. Do not be fooled. There is plenty of quiet plotting happening beneath the surface.
And if you’ve got a little longer, Catan still earns its place on the table. Build settlements, trade resources and watch otherwise reasonable people become extraordinarily persuasive when they need one sheep.
For a full house: games for bigger family groups
Grandparents. Cousins. Teenagers. Parents. Various people wandering in and out looking for snacks. Bigger groups need something quick to understand and easy to join.
Codenames is a brilliant choice. Split into teams and try to connect words using one-word clues, while hoping everybody else sees the link that was completely obvious in your head.
Herd Mentality works well here too, particularly with mixed ages. Nobody needs much explanation, everyone gets a turn, and the questions tend to reveal far more than expected.
For after bedtime: games for grown-ups
Once the smaller players have headed upstairs, game night can change gear.
Hitster is part game, part music quiz and part reminder that time moves alarmingly quickly. Listen to songs and try to place them in chronological order, usually accompanied by somebody saying, “That cannot possibly be from 2004.” It can. And apparently 2004 was quite a while ago.
Wavelength is another excellent late-evening choice. Add a drink, increasingly niche clues and people you thought you understood quite well suddenly become complete mysteries.
Your move
The best family games aren’t necessarily the newest, cleverest or the ones with the nicest box. They’re the ones that get everybody around the table. At our hotels, you’ll find plenty of places to settle in for a round or two, whether that’s before dinner, after a day outdoors or on one of those properly wet autumn and winter afternoons when nobody feels remotely guilty about staying inside. So pick a game, nominate a scorekeeper and keep an eye on the person who claims they “don’t mind who wins”.
They usually mind very much.
