Whether you want a screen-free way to keep the kids happy on holiday or something that will have your friends howling with laughter over drinks, the best card games can provide hours of entertainment.
Unlike board games, which require a bit of setup and space to play, card games are small enough to sling in your bag, simple enough to start playing quickly, and usually free from too many fiddly extra pieces or complicated rules.
Crucially, the best card games are the ones you want to play again straight away – whether it’s because they’re hilariously funny or ridiculously addictive. That was the main criteria we used when it came to whittling down the mammoth amount of card games available, to bring you our top ten below.
From word games to music quizzes, and from kid-friendly to adult options, keep scrolling to discover the games you’ll soon be playing on repeat.
How we tested
We spent a month working our way through countless card games. To narrow them down, we looked for games that were entertaining enough to re-play, easy to learn, and portable enough to travel with. Games that made us laugh got extra points – although, we’ve included some straight-faced options, too. Bonus points were given to games that went down well with a range of ages, from reading-age kids to reading-glasses-age adults.
The best card games for 2024 are:
Uno Show ‘em no Mercy
If your favourite bit about Uno is making your neighbour pick up four, you’re going to love this version of the game. It’s the Uno you know and love but with more cards and even more brutal punishments – including being able to stack pick-up cards such as a +10.
Our testers actually preferred this game to regular Uno, and most liked the extra-brutal addition of the ‘mercy rule’ – where you’re booted out of the game if you collect more than 25 cards.
If you like playing in pairs, it’s also worth looking at new Uno Teams (£11.99, Amazon.co.uk). We found this worked well for our youngest tester, who often wants to partner with a grown-up and wasn’t so keen on the new rule.
Buy now £6.99, Amazon.co.uk
Exploding Kittens
We love the Russian roulette element of this card game, which sees players take it in turns to lay cards – illustrated by The Oatmeal cartoonist and the game’s co-creator Matthew Inman – until someone draws an exploding kitten and blows up. There are ways to avoid the fiery fate: you can preview the next few cards, force opponents to pick up and hopefully get the exploding kitten, or use a defuse card to save yourself.
The game’s creators have released several spin-offs over the past few years – we also really enjoyed Exploding Kittens: Good vs Evil (£21.99, Amazon.co.uk), which includes new cards and characters, and Exploding Kittens: Zombie Kittens (£19.99, Amazon.co.uk), which works well as an expansion pack and gives you a chance to stay in the game once you’ve blown up. However, we kept coming back to the original game because it’s brilliant just as it is.
Buy now £19.99, Amazon.co.uk
Cards Against Humanity
Cards Against Humanity is billed as a game for horrible people, and it’s definitely not one to play with kids or anyone who’s easily offended. Players each draw 10 white cards, and the person who most recently had a poo becomes the card czar, who reads out one black card.
These cards have a question or fill-in-the-blank statement on them, and the idea is to compete to choose the funniest response from the cards in your hand. Questions are regularly updated, and there are several expansion packs available if you’re going to play it loads – we liked More Cards Against Humanity (£29, Cardsagainsthumanity.com), too.
Buy now £29.00, Amazon.co.uk
Disney Lorcana Gateway
If you’ve never played a trading card game, this is a good introduction. The game eases you into deck-building, using cards illustrated with a range of familiar Disney characters in less-familiar guises. As newbies to this type of game, we enjoyed learning how to play – helped massively by our Pokémon-card-playing younger testers.
Each character has different strengths – play them against each other to avoid being banished into the discard pile, and collect lore to move up the board. There are some decks you don’t open the first time you play the game, and you can only unlock them on subsequent plays, as you continue to strengthen your deck – a great reason to play again.
Buy now £17.99, Amazon.co.uk
Dobble Super Mario
Dobble is one of those games that doesn’t get old – for the basic version of the game, you lay a card, lay a second card, and the first person to shout out a symbol that’s on both wins the card. What’s nice about the game is there are variations on how to play it, and plenty of themed spin-offs from the original.
Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and co all make an appearance in the Super Mario version, and you can play even if you’re not familiar with the characters – it actually makes it funnier if you have no idea what they’re called.
For some good old-fashioned shouty family fun, you can’t go far wrong with classic Dobble (£13.99, Amazon.co.uk) – it’s just perhaps not one to play in a quiet pub.
Buy now £16.99, Amazon.co.uk
Social Ladder
We’d never heard of The Sidemen, the brains behind Social Ladder, but our YouTube-watching young testers had. The internet personalities have turned some of the game shows from their channel into a new range of physical card games, and this one is a good shout for a party.
Players rank their friends from ‘most to least’ or ‘best to worst’ on various topics, so it can be awkward and illuminating in equal measure and certainly generates some (sometimes heated) discussion. Want to find out if you’re viewed as the vainest person in your friendship group? This game will soon have you in the know.
Buy now £11.99, Amazon.co.uk
Hitster
Know your music? This game will test your knowledge of hits released in the past 100 years, so it’s a good one for extended families. Although it’s recommended for ages 16+ because younger children might not know a lot of the songs, it still works if they team up with older players.
To play, scan the QR code on a music card, using your phone, and listen to a music clip via Spotify. Guess when the song was released by putting it in the right order in your chronological timeline and win the card if you’re right – first to 10 cards in their timeline wins the game. We found that even with fairly rubbish mainstream music knowledge, it was still fun trying to guess the year from the style of song.
Buy now £22.99, Amazon.co.uk
P for Pizza
This quick-to-pick-up game quickly became a favourite for toting about on our travels. Players lay triangular cards and shout out a word that links the letter on one card to the category on another, to win cards and be the first to build a giant pizza slice.
If you can quickly name a bald celebrity whose name begins with D, or a breakfast food that begins with M, you’re going to be great at this. We love that it works for all ages, including young children – as long as they can read – and our testers who considered themselves the least-wordy turned out to be the best at this.
Buy now £14.99, Amazon.co.uk
Oh My Pigeons!
If it’s a silly party game you’re after, this one is likely to fit the bill. The aim of the game is to fill your bench with pigeons, using action cards to collect them, steal them from your opponents, or send them flying by flicking the die at them.
Be warned: the latter is likely to mean you’ll be finding small plastic pigeons all over your floor for weeks, although, it did get a lot of laughs from our testers. It took us more time to work out who should start – the person who’s most recently seen a pigeon – than it did to actually play a round.
Buy now £18.99, Amazon.co.uk
Big Fish Little Fish
If you’re a fan of Dobble, you’ll like Big Fish Little Fish. It’s pretty similar – the idea is to shout out when you see a matching object, to win the card. The difference with this game is there are extra cards with symbols on, which dictate what you need to look for each time.
During one turn, you might need to look for the smallest object in the world that’s shown on the card, for example, then, during the next turn, you might be looking for the least common colour. The quickest reactions win, and we found our younger testers were infinitely better at this than we were.
Buy now £11.99, Amazon.co.uk
The verdict: Card games
Uno Show ‘em no Mercy got our vote for the best all-rounder – it builds on original Uno, which is already a great game, and the extra punishments add to the fun. Exploding Kittens is another great shout for families – nothing beats dishing out an exploding kitten card to your brother, apparently. Meanwhile, Cards Against Humanity takes the top spot for hilariously offensive adult fun, in the best possible way.
Fancy some more family fun? Check out our guide to the best karaoke machines
