Stuff a Couple of These Card Games in Your Stocking
What’s the first thing you think of when I say “card game”? Do you immediately associate it with Blackjack, Poker, War or Solitaire? Card games continue to evolve, can be educational, cooperative, deductive or simply just for fun. We’ve put together a list of card-based games that range in theme, game play and complexity. Many of these are small enough to fit in a stocking! Read through these various gift ideas to see which would fit the personality of someone on your shopping list. Click through the logo to get a more in-depth overview and photos of those games.
Be sure to check out the gift ideas for younger kids and list of family games that we already shared and keep watch for additional gift guides for more ideas.
Garbage Day
Mayday Games
In Garbage Day, players take turns stacking garbage cards one at a time onto the overflowing garbage can, or stashing garbage cards in their rooms. But once a player’s room gets too full, they must clean it by stacking all the cards from that room on top of the garbage can, very carefully, one by one. If garbage cards fall off the garbage can during your turn, place them in your overflow pile. If your overflow pile gets too big, you’re eliminated from the game. If all other players have been eliminated, you win!
Virulence
Genius Games
Virulence is an addictively quick and simple card game for 2 to 5 players, that plays in 15 to 20 minutes. Players take on the role of viruses and compete to infect a host cell in order to replicate their own viral components allowing players to build their power or score points!
Get the Cheese
Stronghold Games
A game of cat and Mouse. and dog! strategically deploy your animals so that your dog chases away others’ cats, your cats catch others’ mice, and your mice. get the cheese! a fast card game for 3-5 players, playable in 15 minutes, where outsmarting your opponents (and their cats, dogs, and mice) will lead you to victory!
Ladder 29
Green Couch Games
Ladder 29 is a hot game of ladder-climbing firefighters. As experts in the time-honored business of firefighting, players attempt to extinguish their hand of cards while facing difficult challenges that hinder their abilities and choices. Players must decide when to play it safe and when to put it all on the line in this easy-to-learn game that is sure to turn up the heat around the gaming table!
Burger Up
Greenbrier Games
Use the freshest, tastiest ingredients to make the biggest, most mouthwatering, Gourmet burgers around. Satisfy your customers to earn money, upgrade your restaurant, and become the best burger restaurant in town. Burger up is a card matching puzzle game about the art of burger making. Fill orders, earn prestige and be the best burger chef around!
I Can’t Even With These Monsters
Level 99 Games
I Can’t Even starts with a single rule: The player with the highest odd score wins!
Shiba Inu House
Renegade Game Studios
In Shiba Inu House, players race to place cards properly in order to create dog houses for the Shiba Inu that match the patterns shown on their goal cards. After eight rounds, the player with the highest score wins.
Wordsy
Formal Ferret Games
Wordsy is a game of longer words! Over the seven rounds of the game, you are trying to find the single best word on the board. Unlike other word games, you don’t need all the letters in your word to be available, but you’ll want to use as many as you can. So go ahead and use those really long words; they may just pay off here!
How Wordsy can you be?
Checkpoint Charlie
Devir Games
Checkpoint Charlie is a game of observation, deduction, and mental agility. Watch all the suspects carefully and find out which of them is the chief of spies using the clues that you and the other investigators uncover. Be the first to find the chief of spies and become the best hound dog!
Pirate 21
Indie Boards and Cards
Pirate 21 is a competitive card game that has players knocking opponents out of rounds, swapping cards and princesses to defend you! Draw your cards and bring your best trash-talking pirate voice to the table.
What the Fish!
University Games
Your competitors are out to kill your fish! Can you protect yourself and swim upstream quickly enough to survive? Everyone plays at once in this fast-paced card game. Players compete and collaborate in a cutthroat fight for survival. If you can swim to the finish, you can win! For 2 to 6 players, ages 8 and up.
Go Nuts for Donuts!
Gamewright
Time to take the donuts! A tray of tempting treats awaits your bid in this freshly baked card game. Will you go for a stellar cruller or grab a glorious glazed? A double chocolate is sure to score, but in the long run Boston cream may be worth more! Choose carefully – if two or more players go for the same donut, nobody gets it! End with the highest score and victory will taste sweet!
Take the Gold
CardLords
Take the Gold is a 2-6+ player draw-and-play card game with outstanding artwork featuring cat pirates and corgi officers that can be learned in under 2 minutes. Players try to be the first to collect 4 Gold Coins by using Pirates to steal coins from other players. Officers can be called in to stop the pirates, but be prepared; The Kraken could wipe out everything you have! Games are quick paced and play in less than 10 minutes.
WordSpiel
SET Enterprises
WordSpiel is a simple yet dynamic card game that everyone enjoys. Use your words wisely and be the first to go out. Word size doesn’t matter, but ending with a tricky letter can really challenge your opponents. Each word spins off the last, so the game will never be the same twice! The goal is to get rid of all 10 of your cards by making words. Each turn, simply start your word with the last card played. Just like the name, WordSpiel, Spiel uses the S from WordS.
Use the timer or take your time, just be sure to put your best word forward.
Munchkin Shakespeare Deluxe
Steve Jackson Games
Take in hand thine blade! Battle every enemy thou meetest! Foully betray thine companions, and make off with their treasure!
Fans asked for a Munchkin game, Shakespeare style. So here it is! It has all the betrayal, slaying, and wordplay of any good Munchkin game – and of any good Shakespearean play.
Munchkin Shakespeare Deluxe comes with a custom six-sided die and a board and standies for tracking your level, and is illustrated by fan-favorite John Kovalic.
Pinball Showdown
Shoot Again Games
In Pinball Showdown players are the pinball steering into a wide array of playfield devices while trying to score combinations, activate Wizard Mode and become the highest scoring pinball. To do this they must maintain a critical balance between speed and control. Go too slow and it will limit what you can score and put you at risk for draining, but go too fast and you may lose control! May the best pinball win!
Just Desserts
Looney Labs
Looney Labs has created a sweet card game all about serving some very picky guests. No soup, no salad, no entree… it’s just desserts! Compete with your fellow waiters to serve guests their favorite goodies before someone else gets to them first. With a kitchen full of mouth-watering offerings, and the cafe filling up with customers, you’ll have your hands full making sure everyone gets their just desserts.
12 Days
Calliope Games
Celebrate gift giving and the spirit of Christmas with 12 Days. In 12 Days, players bid for each of the 12 days of Christmas with cards from the Gift deck. The Gift deck includes all the gifts “my true love gave to me,” from twelve drummers drumming to a partridge in a pear tree—plus one card each for Mr. and Mrs. Claus. After twelve rounds, players score points for each Holiday card they’ve collected.
Covalence
Genius Games
Covalence is a chemistry-themed cooperative card game where players work together to accurately build a number of secret organic molecules. One player has knowledge of a set of Secret Molecules. All other players must deduce what these secret molecules are, based upon clues given to them. Players must cooperatively construct their molecules before the clues run out!
Don’t forget to look for the tiny logo on titles that we’ve previously featured so you can get a better feel for what the game entails. Also keep watch of our 150+ Days of Giveaways where you can enter to win some of these card games.
I LOVE this guide! There are so many awesome games here! It’s not everyday you have a guide devoted to the old school fun of card games.
These are great ideas! I know our kids would enjoy a few of these.
These seems like such fun games, I am sure my daughter would love them. I would love to check out Garbage Day, such a cool game.
These are awesome ideas. I love games and I am super competitive. Just hard to get my husband to play! ha!
These are a great list of card games for the holidays. I love giving the gift of playtime without tech involved, even though I do believe in a balance of both tech and actual gameplay like this optins provide. You have listed some options we don’t have.
I love this!! The gift list I am sending to grandparents is full of game ideas, I am adding a couple from here to that list that I know my kids would love.
My kids love to play card games. I see quite a few titles here that we have never even played before so I need to check them out and get some stocking stuffers!
Don’t mind if I do. I want to say my nephew and nieces would love these but really I want them for me lol!
I love this gift guide! What a great stocking stuffer for the family that would bring hours of family time fun! I love game night and these games would be a new twist on our usual game nights!
This is such a great idea. I haven’t given cards to my boys in several years. I know what will be in their stocking this year!
Love it, love it, LOVE IT! Card games are so much fun! They’re a great way to promote some healthy competition and have a lot of laughs doing it!
WOW, what an awesome list of games! I think games are one of the best gifts you can gift a friend or family member, especially if they have family game night! I’m always looking to add more games to our family game night list we play almost every weekend!
oh my gosh this list is top notch. I will have to take a peek at some of these as I know my older kids have been asking for a few more games to play with so I think a few of these would be perfect!
These games sound like so much fun! I’d love to have some of these for Christmas or even give them as gifts.
Oh, our family loves to play games! I am definitely going to include a few of these into our Christmas festivities.
Cards games are perfect as stocking stuffers. I actually don’t have any cards game so any of these would be great to have.
i love these ideas …. these are also great for xmas
I’m big on board games with the family. It gives us some quality time together so I’m always looking for fun new games to try out. Thanks for introducing some new ones to us.
Hey Nicole! I love your blog and have been enjoying the giveaways this holiday season!
I regularly game with my (adult) friends, but I work with kids and love using games for education as well. 🙂
I would love to offer one suggestion that would really improve your already-phenomenal posts — when recommending games (like in this post above), you might consider linking to Board Game Geek. I use that site regularly to get an additional idea about games (of all kinds), see pictures, ratings, etc. Just an idea. 😉
Thanks & keep up the awesome work! 🙂