Fun Games You Need To Play This Year

The Play Creator Awards shortlist is full of super fun games to get your hands on in 2022

The Mojo Nation Play Creators Awards is an annual honours event for the toy and game industry. It recognises achievement across numerous categories, including Game Designer of the Year (Party Games). This shortlist contains the teams behind the year’s most exciting games. Which is great if you wanna check out the best party games that have been released this year.

And to help you, we’ve picked out our favourites to give you the inside scoop on which games offer the most bang for your buck. You might even be familiar with one of the teams/games from this list… 😏

Deface Race – TOMY

If you’re looking for party games for kids, teenagers and adults,  Deface Race is what you need. It’s all about unleashing your inner graffiti artist to turn images of people, buildings, food, animals and inanimate objects into other things. For example, you might be asked to turn a llama into a rockstar. You win points if people can identify what you’ve drawn. 

The cards are wipe clean, and there’s a huge amount of possible combinations. So there’s no limit on how many times you can play. You’re only limited by your imagination (and artistic ability). Enjoy!

Uproar! – McMiller

Uproar! is ideal if you’re looking for fun games to play with absolutely anyone. Whether you’re 8 or 88, you’ll get a good laugh out of this game that’s all about encouraging you to make a fool of yourself. You’ve gotta flip two cards, both of which contain loads of words with associated sounds like parrot 🦜 and drum solo 🥁. Like Dobble, every combination contains a pair; you’ve gotta be the first to find it and sound it out to win.

You might want to brush up on your guitar solo or baby goat sounds before you give this one a go. Or not. Because either way, you’ll be laughing at yourself and your opponents – and that’s what makes this such a fun game!

Six Second Scribbles – Gamely

This frantic party game gives you 60 seconds to draw up to 10 things from your card, leaving you on average six seconds to draw each one (hence the name of the game). You only win points, though, if your friends and family are able to identify what you drew. Like Deface Race, it puts a time limit on your creativity. But remember, you’re not painting the Sistine Chapel here!

Again,  Six Second Scribbles can be played by almost anyone. But we reckon it’ll suit if you’re looking for party games for teenagers. And surely there’s room for a rude version… 🍆

Match 5 – Synapses Games

We love word games. So naturally we love  Match 5, an “idea association game” where you’ve got to find links between the symbols on the 10 dice. For example, you might be looking for a link between carnivore and water, so you could use shark 🦈 or alligator 🐊. Once you get in the groove, you’ll love the way it activates that reward pathway in your brain! Maybe that’s why they’re called Synapses Games…

If your gaming group likes to break a mental sweat 🧠, this is definitely one you want to add to your collection. It’s addictively challenging and, with thousands of possible combinations, it’s got grazy replayability.

Death By Coconuts – Bubblegum Stuff

Ah, Bubblegum Stuff… They’re good guys. Real talented. And you may or may not know that they recently got this game fully funded on Kickstarter 🙌. So, how could we possibly leave it off this list?! Death By Coconuts is a 50s tropicana-themed  death stats betting race of risk and reward where you’ve gotta beat your opponents to the finish. How? By betting on the most deadly causes of death. ☠️

Simply draw three cards – each of which contains a cause of death, location and timeframe – and place up to three chips on which one you think resulted in the highest number of fatalities. Get it right and move forward the same number of spaces as chips you bet with. Get it wrong and you move backwards instead.

You’ve gotta navigate shortcuts, hazards and action cards that can hinder as well as help you. It’s the only party game where your knowledge of death might just save your life!

We’re immensely proud that Death By Coconuts was fully funded last week. That sense of pride is amplified by the fact that the team behind it have been nominated for a Play Creators Award alongside some incredibly illustrious names. Further to the guys on this list, there’s Big Potato, Identity Games and Format Games.

Best of luck to all the nominations. It’s not about the winning for us 🤥, we’re just happy to be on the list!

So anyway, if you’re looking for fun games to add to your collection this year, you won’t go far wrong with any of the 5 from this list.

You are welcome!