Board Games for 6-8 People

Pictionary

• The goal of Pictionary is to get your team's pawn across the game board's path first. The first team rolls the dice to see how many spaces they will advance. Each space has a letter on it to show what category the artist will be drawing from. The team must choose an artist that will select a card and illustrate what is written on the card. There are five categories: Person/Place/Animal, Object, Action, Difficult -- words that are difficult to convey in a picture -- and All Play where all teams may guess what is being drawn. There is a sand timer that counts one minute. The time starts as the artist begins drawing. If the team whose turn it is does not guess correctly within the minute, the first team to blurt out the correct answer gets credit. Pictionary is designed for four or more players separated evenly into teams.

Trivial Pursuit

• Trivial Pursuit features a game board that looks like a circle split into six sections, a design similar to the pawns of the game. The object of the game is to collect six wedges of varying color to place into your pawn and make it to the center of the game board first, all the while answering trivia questions separated into six categories represented by the six colors. Geography is blue, entertainment is pink, history is yellow, arts and literature is brown, science and nature is green and sports and leisure is represented by orange. The categories may vary depending on the edition of Trivial Pursuit you are playing. Players roll a die to determine movement; land on a color-coded space and answer a trivia question based on the color. Trivial Pursuit can be played with teams or individually and can support up to six players or teams.

Monopoly

• Much like Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly comes in many editions. They are all variances on the original property trading game. Players start by choosing their pawns, which range from a dog to a cruise liner to a top hat. They are then dealt $1500 from the bank to spend as they wish. Players take turns rolling a pair of dice to move around the square-shaped game board where spaces are properties. If you land on a property space, you have the option of purchasing it or leaving it for others to purchase. However, if you land on a property space that has already been purchased, you owe rent to the owner. Property spaces are separated into groups of two or three and assigned a color. If a single player owns all of the properties in a color bracket, she may buy houses or hotels to place on the properties, raising the value of the properties. If a player lands on a space enhanced with buildings, the rent goes up from the original amount. There are also spaces for the player to pay fees or draw chance and community chest cards. These cards trigger events such as moving the player to a specific space to having the player pay a fee or receive money. Every time a player passes the starting space, or "GO!", he collects $200. Another feature of Monopoly is jail. If a player lands on the "Go to Jail" space, he must do just that. Once imprisoned, he must spend his turns attempting to roll doubles or pay the $50 bail fee. If the player is lucky enough to have a "Get out of jail free" card, the fee is waived. The game ends when everyone goes bankrupt except one player -- the winner. Monopoly may be played with up to 8 players, although other editions include more player tokens.

Apples to Apples

• Apples to Apples is a card-based party game for four to ten players. The game includes two types of cards: red and green. Each player is dealt seven red cards at random. On each red card, there is a noun printed. Players must keep their hands secret. The first judge draws a green card, which has an adjective printed on it, and displays it for the others to see. The others must scan their hands for a red card they believe the judge will relate best to the adjective on the green card. After everyone has chosen their red cards, they are reviewed by the judge and he selects the one he likes the best. The player who played the red card selected wins that hand and keeps the green card as a trophy. Everyone who played a red card draws a new one to keep their hands at seven cards; the next person clockwise becomes the next judge and play continues. At the end of the game, the player with the most green card trophies wins the game.

Life

• Life plays out like a fantasy version of real life. The game board features a path that twists and turns and travels through important life events such as college, marriage and buying a house. Players control cars with slots to fit miniature models of people in them. The game starts at college and continues through to retirement. Movement is controlled by a spinner reading one through ten. Each player chooses a career path and salary via random card drawing. Careers range from accountant to artist to police officer. At the end of the game, you may retire to either countryside acres or millionaire estates. When everyone retires, you spin the spinner one last time to determine what happened to you post-retirement. In Countryside Acres, if you spin a "1", you lose $5000, but if you spin higher than "1", you gain money -- more the higher the number. In Millionaire Estates, if you spin an odd number, you lose money, but evens result in making money. Each player accounts for this last spin and adds or subtracts from his total. The player with the highest total wins the game. Life may be played with up to six players.

Aggravation

• Aggravation is a board game where players control four like-colored marbles that must trek around the long path of the game board. The goal is to get all four of your marbles around the game board and into your home. The player to complete this task first wins the game. Players roll a die to free their marbles from their start. In order to free a marble, a player must roll a one or a six. Once this is achieved, players roll the die to determine how many spaces they can move during their turns. You may have more than one marble out of the start at a time if you wish, however, you must roll a one or a six to free each marble. You may split up the spaces you move among your free marbles as you like. The game gets its name from the act of aggravating -- that is landing your marble on the exact spot an opponent's marble is sitting upon. This sends your opponent's marble back to its start and the player must start over from rolling to free it. As you can imagine, this can be... aggravating. The game is designed to support two to six players.