As the temperature drops, snow starts to fall and ice covers the roads, leaving the house becomes difficult and outdoor activities become limited. Staying inside with family for a day of leisure and entertainment is a simple solution. Jenga, The Game of Life, Monopoly, Scrabble and Apples to Apples are five board games that will keep the family engaged and content for a day in.

Although it is not a board game, Jenga is guaranteed to keep the family occupied for hours on end. Jenga is a game of skill, each player taking turns attempting to remove a single block from an unsteady tower of blocks until someone messes up and knocks the tower over. “Jenga has been my all-time favorite game since I was young. My brother and I are extremely competitive, so the game will get very intense and heated,” senior Keyan Roshan said.

The Game of Life takes their players through a lifetime from college to retirement with jobs, marriage, houses and possible children or pets on the way. The player with the most money at the point of retirement wins the game. “Whenever my friends and I are chilling at my house and we get bored, we will always turn to The Game of Life because of how fun it is to play in a separate reality,” junior Sachin Krishna-Rogers said.

In the game of Monopoly, players roll two six-sided dice to move around the game board, buying and trading properties, and developing them with houses and hotels. Players collect rent from their opponents, the goal being to drive them into bankruptcy. This game can take hours and is a perfect way to kill time while getting the whole family involved. “For awhile I was interested in buying and selling property, so I got my family to play Monopoly with me and we all fell in love with the game, making it a weekly game night,” junior Reza Abediyeh said.

Scrabble is a crossword game where every letter counts. Players take turns forming words on the board. After playing a turn, you count the value of all the letters in every new word that was formed. There are also bonus points for placing letters on premium squares. “My mom loves this game and has our family play it every Thursday night. I have gotten pretty good and it’s cool because I’ve learned new words,” senior Kyler Hamlin said.

Finally, Apples to Apples is played when the judge receives a green apple card from the top of the stack, reads the word aloud, and places it face-up on the table. Players, excluding the judge, choose the red apple card from their hand that is best described by the word on the green apple card. “My family religiously plays Apples to Apples, and it gets very loud and hectic because we are all so competitive,” senior Riya Kholi said.
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