9 Alternative party and card games that make great Christmas stocking stuffers

Christmas is the time of getting together with friends and family and playing some good old party and card games.

However, it can sometimes be a bit boring playing the same old ones. Here's some quick to learn and easy to play party games that make great stocking stuffers too!

The Crew: Quest For Planet Nine

In the co-operative trick-taking game The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, players embark as astronauts on an eventful space adventure.

Extending over 50 re-playable missions, The Crew can only be beaten by completing each player's goals. To do so, communication is essential.

Communicating in space isn't as easy as you'd think however - it's a vacuum. You're not aloud to talk about what's in your hand to other players. Instead, you'll have to make good use of your communication tokens.

As you work your way through the missions together, the game's difficulty increases. You can play missions in a row, or pause in between. You can even replay them if you wish.

It's like the playing card game trumps...but much better...with less talking...more fun...and in space.

• 2 - 5 players
• Ages 10+
• 20 minutes playing time

Exit: The Escape Room Game

Perfect for a one off piece of fun and available in an exciting array of difficulties and scenarios, the Exit series of games are an escape room in a box. Work together as a team or go solo and try to solve puzzles, complete tasks and escape the game before the time runs out!

Each game is one use only as you'll need to tear and fold certain game components, but at this price point it makes for a fun and inexpensive night in for you and some friends.

You could even get a couple and see which team solves theirs first!

• 1 - 4 players
• Ages 14+
• 60 - 120 minutes play time
• Variety of scenarios available

Blame Space

Blame Space is a fast-paced card game of luck, skill and sheer bloody-mindedness. Of course, it's set in space too! 

In Blame Space, your mission has failed, The captain is dead, systems are sabotaged, and a virus has been brought on board by god-knows-who...

The ship’s computer is determined to find and punish the traitor who caused this mess. Is it you? You'll need to make sure the blame has been passed onto someone else to be able to escape the ship alive!

If space isn't your setting, there's the Game of Blame too.

• 2 - 6Players 
• Ages 12+
• 45 - 90 Minutes play time

Smart 10

Smart10 is an innovative quiz game in which every question has ten possible answers and every player gets to answer every question.

If a player picks a correct answer, they gets an answer marker which is worth points. If  they pick a wrong answer, no points for you! If a player doesn't score their answer markers on time, they can end up losing their markers too.

If you're not 100% certain on an answer, you could always pass it onto another player and hope they make a wrong guess. Similarly you could try to pick the easy answers first, with the aim of giving your opponents only hard ones to choose from.

Do you push your luck and try to answer as many questions as possible to maximise your points? Or do you play it safe and keep hold of the points for the answers you know for sure?

• 2 - 8 players
• Ages 10+
• 20 - 120 minutes play time

Search History NSFW Edition

Search History uses real searches in it’s hilarious gameplay. Read one of three prompts and compete to anonymously create the most believable search query.

Take turns guessing the most commonly searched phrase and score points if your answer is picked by others.

Played Cards against Humanity a bit too much, or tired of having to use the answers given to you when doing so? In Search History you can submit anything you desire as an answer, the only limit is your imagination!

Just be careful not to be too revealing about the things you search online!

• 3-16 players
• Ages 16+
• 20 - 60 minutes play time

Dungeon Raiders

You know the story, you're a team of adventurers, working together to survive a perilous dungeon. In Dungeon Raiders it's the same, however, only one of you will get out with the most treasure and be declared the champion!

Each time you play the the dungeon will be different, with a new array of deadly traps and monsters standing in-between you and the loot.  

To pile up the most treasure you'll need to successfully push your luck and face off against the boss monster!

• 3 - 5 players
• Ages 8+
• 20 - 30 minutes play time

Word Slam

World slam is a communication game where two teams compete against each other simultaneously.

Each round, one player from each team tries to help their teammates guess a hidden word using only the explanatory cards at their disposal. Speaking, acting and miming is completely forbidden!

Each card has only one word on it, be it a noun, verb, adjective or preposition. The team that guesses correctly first wins the point!

There's a family edition, suitable for all ages, as well as a midnight edition for adults.

• 3 - 99 players
• Ages 10+
• 45 minutes playing time

You’ve Got Crabs!

In You’ve Got Crabs teams pair up to collect sets of crab cards. When you've caught a full set, you’ll need to communicate this to your partner via a pre-agreed secret signal.

If your partner performs the secret signal you'll need to shout 'YOU'VE GOT CRABS!'. If you do, you get points, if another team notices and shouts it before you, you lose points.

It's a very simple yet hilarious team game with ample opportunity for deception. It's quirky box comes with draws to neatly hold all the parts too.

Having crabs has never been so enjoyable! 

• 4 - 10 Players (Team Based)
• Ages 7+
• 20 minutes play time

What Do You Meme?

Are you a meme lord, or do you just like putting captions to funny photos? What Do You Meme is a simple, easy to pick up party game where the aim is to caption well known memes.

Pick a meme, add a caption, whoever's is the funniest wins. 

If you've already played too much Cards Against Humanity, this provides a fun, visual alternative. 

• 3 - 20 Players 
• Ages 18+
• 30 - 90 Minutes to Play

Play something different this Christmas

We hope we’ve shown you some new, fun, quick to play and easy to learn party games that you can use to entertain yourselves, your friends and family this Christmas and beyond.

Whatever you do, don’t get stuck playing the same old games, there’s a whole world to explore out there! They're all great sizes for a Christmas stocking stuffer too.