This is part of our series on board games by age. Check out our comprehensive guide to picking games for kids for more information.
Few things are as delightful as sitting down for a board game with your 12-year-old. We’ve compiled a list of some of the best games for this special activity. Classic games like Monopoly have stood the test of time and are well-loved by players of all ages. Twelve can be a tricky age, caught between childhood and adolescence, as children start experiencing changes and grapple with their evolving identities. Friends, independence, and self-discovery are crucial at this stage. Amidst the uncertainty of these years, the simple joy of a game night with loved ones, where they can play games they enjoy and feel a sense of agency, becomes incredibly important. Family board games are a great way to bring together people of different ages, including teens, and create lasting memories during game nights.
8 Best Board Games for 12 Year Olds
Takenoko
By: Bombyx & Matagot
Players: 2-4
Time: 45 minutes
Who can resist the cute Panda of Takenoko? Underneath lies a perfect board game for 12-year-olds
Takenoko is a gorgeous family game that works for all ages, but especially for pre-teens. The story goes that the Chinese Emperor offered a giant panda to the Japanese Emperor as a symbol of peace, and the Japanese Emperor tasked his most trusted court members with ensuring that the bamboo garden that the panda resides in is maintained beautifully. That leaves the players trying to cultivate and irrigate plots of land and trying to grow different bamboo. The panda has changing tastes and needs, and it’s up to the player to grow the most bamboo and balance feeding the panda too.
A lot of the appeal of Takenoko resides in how gorgeous and tactile the game itself is. Each section is in the shape of a hexagon, each color is vivid against its neighbor, and the growth of the bamboo is denoted by increased stacks of plastic bamboo sections, which see it brings the game physically higher than its flat game counterparts. It’s also extremely satisfying – like cultivating a garden might be in real life – and is quite a cozy game to play, whilst also warranting a level of strategy and competition. Takenoko offers various types of gameplay that cater to different age groups.
With a cute and attractive premise, it doesn’t take much persuading to get people to try this game, and once you’ve played once, you’ll want to play again and again to perfect your strategy even further. Or, even just to see the adorable panda making its way around the board! Takenoko is a strategy game that requires strategic thinking and planning.
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Mysterium
By: Libellud
Players: 2-7
Time: 42 minutes
Communication is key in Mysterium, but it’s not as easy as you might think!
Mysterium kind of feels like the game that plays after Clue is long gone, with the same mystery element of uncovering the unknown, but this time the investigation is much more supernatural. One player takes the role of the ghost, but one who is both a little forgetful and who is unable to communicate directly. The rest of the players are mediums, trying to pick up on the clues being provided to discover what happened to the ghost and who the killer was, and ultimately free them from Mysterium Manor as a result.
Being asymmetrical in this way – where not all players have the same roles or rules – lets the roles fall to those who it suits best. Rubbish at giving clues? Play as a medium then, where you work alongside the other medium players to get the right answer. Prefer to oversee the whole thing? Play as the ghost. Mysterium also helps develop problem-solving skills by encouraging players to actively look for solutions and engage in critical thinking.
The twist that makes this game so brilliant though, is that each of the clues that are handed out are made up of entirely abstract imagery. If you’ve ever played Dixit, you’ll be familiar with the obscure, whimsical artwork that represents the clues. To begin with, it can feel like there is no link – why did the ghost hand me a picture of a flying unicycle? – but as the game progresses, you start to get an idea of what type of thinker they are. Are they literal (such as, there are stripes in both images) or are they thinking with feelings (for instance both of these feel like something out of Great Expectations)? It’s an interesting way to try to think differently, as the reason you think the clue links to the item could be entirely different for someone interpreting the clue differently – which leads to hilarity, and a great way to learn and respect how others think!
If you like the mystery theme, you should also read our list of the best mystery board games, where you’ll also find Mysterium.
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Sea Salt and Paper
By: Bombyx
Players: 2-4
Time: 30-45 minutes
In a tiny box lies a huge game
Sea Salt and Paper is a tiny box card game with gorgeous illustrations and simple but strategic gameplay to match. Perfect for keeping anywhere, be it bags, the car, or even a decent coat pocket, it’s one that you can pull out and get playing in mere moments.
The first thing you’ll notice with this game is how beautiful it looks, and that in itself is a way to entice a new player into playing it. Each card features origami models themed around the sea in some way. That might mean you’re looking at an origami boat, or even an octopus, combined with gorgeous color backgrounds to make them even more vivid. There’s something about playing Sea Salt and Paper that makes you want to head into a papercraft tutorial – and that’s not a bad thing!
The game itself is straightforward. Take a card from the top of the two discard piles or draw two from the top of the deck but can only keep one. You’ll then look to play them, perhaps to draw another card, or steal a card from an opponent, or perhaps you’ll try to keep multiple copies of cards for points, or the like.
The difference with Sea Salt and Paper is that when you close a round, either when you reach seven points or beyond (and it’s up to a player to declare the end of the round), everyone scores their hand. If the player has said Stop, everyone scores. If the player has said Last Chance, they need to be the highest scorer to get their score and a bonus color score. If they’re not, they only get the bonus score and not the points in their hand. This means you’re always watching others, trying to figure out if you or they have the highest score, wondering whether you should risk pushing for the color bonus or whether you can trap another player into doing so when you’ve got the higher hand. It’s an exceedingly socially deductive game, buried in a pleasant-looking game, that it’s hard not to just play again and again. Sea Salt and Paper can easily become one of your favorite board games to bring to game nights for a more enjoyable and diverse experience.
We also listed Sea Salt and Paper as a great alternative to Uno, so if you’re looking for something different from your usual Uno night, there are plenty of options!
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Waterfall Park
By: Repos Production
Players: 3-5
Time: 45 minutes
Trade and negotiate your way to victory in Waterfall Park
Friendly communication is the name of the game with Waterfall Park, a trading and negotiation game. It’s actually a reimagining of a popular game called China Town, but decreases the scarcity of resources, and updates the artwork into something bright, colorful, and appealing. All of which makes it a much more cheerful game than the one it is based on.
Waterfall Park sees you trying to build the greatest amusement park in the world, to build thematically a huge structure in the middle of the ocean – hence, Waterfall Park. To get there, you’ll need to group certain colors of tile together to score the most points, but both locations and tiles are split amongst the group of players. If you desperately need an ice cream tile for example, you may have to give up your bowling alley tile… but maybe the other player bargains to swap the ice cream tile for a bowling alley tile and one of your coins (which equates to points). Careful decision-making, an element of trying to convince and bargain with your fellow players gives this game huge player interaction and means it’s never the same game twice. It also recognizes its predecessor could easily descend into arguments, and fixes this by having more resources available, making it overall a pleasant game.
The last bonus is its components – lots of tile covers in bright colors that are incredibly tactile and fun to place. They feel almost like the type of games you play when you’re a small child, so it’s fun to lean into that nostalgia at any later age, especially the age you want to feel a bit more grown up without having figured it out yet. Playing board games like Waterfall Park can enhance child development, improve social skills, and reduce screen time.
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CATAN Board Game
By: CATAN Studio
Players: 3-4
Time: 60-120 minutes
CATAN is an endearing classic
CATAN is a modern classic of board games. Many people’s first foray into hobby gaming will be either with Ticket to Ride, or with CATAN – though it was formerly known as Settlers of Catan– such is its longevity, popularity, and ultimately, distribution, being one of the first hobby games that started to appear in the mass market. What makes it as popular as its sheer simplicity. Catan is, for the most part, a trading game. You’ll trade with your fellow players for resources (wheat, wood, brick, ore, and sheep) that you can then turn into the likes of settlements, cities, and roads in order to have control of the game board – resulting finally in points. That’s it – a few extra rules about how and when you do things, but it can be explained in just a few moments and played again and again.
CATAN is perfect for 12-year-olds, as the principles of negotiation and even good sportsmanship can be explored in a safe, fun environment. It’s brightly colored but not immature to look at, with a grid of hexagon shapes. As it’s so cemented in the board game world, there’s just as much chance your 12-year-old’s friends have played the game too, giving them further social opportunity. There is a huge community of CATAN players amongst game shops and adults, so there’s no reason your 12-year-old couldn’t find this amongst their peers.
The game also has a vast number of expansions covering all manner of topics, so once you identify what it is that your 12-year-old likes most about CATAN, you’ll likely find one of its many expansions can expand on that area even further. Some of them have become classics, but the newer ones offer real variety – with a recent one even adding in Soccer scenarios!
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Master Word
By: Scorpion Masque
Players: 3-6
Time: 5-15 minutes
How many guesses would it take for you to find the word Tiger?
Master Word is an underrated game. For those who have ever played the 1970s game Mastermind)) (that had a huge resurgence in the 1990s), the easiest explanation of Master Word is to say that it’s Mastermind but with words. If you don’t have that reference though, it’s still straightforward – one player is the clue giver, the others the guessers. The clue giver will get a card with a word or name on it, and the back of it, seen by the players, gives a hint to it. If your card said Mickey Mouse for example, you might have something like “Character” on the back, as seen by the players.
Players must then write three words down to try to narrow down what the word is, and the clue giver will award thumbs-up tokens for each right word – but without saying which of the guesses was correct. The twist? If players guess the right answer on their cards, rather than offering it as a solution, they instantly lose!
As the game doesn’t take long to play, it’s easy enough to scrub out the answers and go again, and generally it only takes a round or so for players to be fully invested in their newest clue. Although Master Word is great at almost any age, it’s perfect for 12-year-olds, both because no one directly loses – you win or lose as a team – and because it’s subtly encouraging players to think carefully about the words they’re using, and the multiple meanings of them. It’s in no way an educational game, but it is a nice added benefit. Plus, as they start to try to spend more time with their friends, it’s a game they could create with a pen and a few sheets of paper in mere moments. Master Word is a great game that is simple to learn and suitable for pretty much anyone.
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Castle Panic
By: Fireside Games
Players: 1-6
Time: 30-60 minutes
The award-winning tower defense game of the tabletop
If you like the mobile game Bloons Tower Defense, you probably like tower defense games, and you’ll therefore immediately understand Castle Panic. In fact, mobile-favoring pre-teens will confidently pick up the vibe set out by this game, through both the bright, eye-catching artwork, and then too through the familiarity of how the game works.
Essentially, in Castle Panic players are defending their castle, situated in the center of a board, from waves of different monsters. This is represented by different zones coming closer and closer to the castle. The monsters are uncovered each round at random, and it’ll rely on the cooperative use of cards in your hands to protect the castle from all angles. Throw in some surprise additional monsters, and you’ll never quite know what’s going to emerge next.
The game is cooperative, and whilst the player who earns the most victory points can be crowned the winner, everyone loses together against the monsters. It’s a great way to encourage discussion, strategy, communication, and more, all buried in a game that can be played in about 30 minutes (admittedly longer if things get tricky!). It’s a rare game that feels fast-paced despite relying on your actions, but it’s one where there’s no downtime for players, so your 12-year-old is much less likely to be distracted and much more likely to remain engaged. There are also options for adding in spells, scarier enemies, and engines across the expansions available, so the game can grow with you too. Strategy games like Castle Panic encourage social play, spatial reasoning, and the development of social skills.
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Sushi Go!
By: Gamewright
Players: 2-5
Time: 15 minutes
Sushi Go! Is a winner for all audiences
Sushi Go! is a speedy card game, with its theme set in a restaurant. The game explains you want to grab the best combination of sushi dishes for yourself, but they’re passing by so quickly that’s not the easiest thing to do.
Players have a hand of cards and each turn has cards to choose from to add to their hand. Are you trying to get sushi rolls or a full set of sashimi? You’ll need to pick the best ones for your hand so that you can score the most points for your combinations at the end. The twist is, that the cards you don’t pick are then passed on to the next player… So, if you know that actually, they’re trying to get sushi rolls and are probably near to reaching their goal, perhaps you don’t want to pick the sashimi this round but are better at taking the card to prevent them from having their winning combination. The game is as much about reading the situation as it is about building your own collection, making it more social and engaging for all players.
Sushi Go! takes around 15-20 minutes to play, giving you absolutely no reason
not to play again and again. With cute colorful artwork, it’s got shelf appeal too. Plus, it comes in a durable tin, keeping those cards in tip-top condition for many plays to come. Sushi Go! offers a modern twist on traditional board games, making it engaging and educational for kids.
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Conclusion: Play Board Games
All 12-year-olds are different and unique in their own way, and the kind of games they’ll like are no different. Our list of the best board games for 12 year olds offers you a selection of different types so that you might find the perfect game for them. Ultimately, as teenage years loom, it’s a perfect time to find and enjoy a common ground that can continue with them as they grow.
FAQ: 12 year olds and family game night
Q: Can these games be enjoyed by adults as well?
A: Absolutely! While these games are recommended for 12 year olds, they are designed to be fun and engaging for players of all ages. Many adults enjoy playing these games with their kids or even with other adults.
Q: Are these games suitable for educational purposes?
A: While these games aren’t specifically designed as educational tools, many of them have educational benefits. For example, Master Word encourages critical thinking and vocabulary skills, while Castle Panic can foster strategic planning and teamwork.
Q: How long does it take to learn these games?
A: The learning curve varies from game to game. Games like Sushi Go! are relatively simple and can be understood within a few minutes, whereas Castle Panic might take a game or two to fully grasp all of the strategic elements. However, all of them come with clear instructions to guide you through the learning process.
Q: Are expansions necessary for enjoying these games?
A: You can thoroughly enjoy the base games without any expansions. Expansions are there to introduce new elements and extend the game’s replayability, but they’re by no means required for getting a full and engaging experience.
Q: Can these games be played solo?
A: Some of the games, like Castle Panic, include solo play options that can be just as enjoyable. However, games like Master Word and Sushi Go! are designed for multiple players and require interaction with others to play effectively.