Best Card Games 2022
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Liven up your next party or game night with one of these great card games. When thinking about card games, you probably picture playing poker in Vegas, Rummy 500 with your grandparents or maybe even a game of Goldfish when you were younger. But a new generation of card games has arisen, offering both fun takes on classic games and a plethora of original concepts. Whether you're looking to entertain two players or the whole family, card games make some of the best party game options. These card games offer more imaginative themes, fun possibilities and interactive components. Whether you're looking for a new twist on an old favorite or something completely new, these are the best card games 2022 has to offer, and they are sure to provide hours of fun.
A deck of ordinary playing cards can turn any family night into a game night or serve as a fun drinking game for chill kickbacks. However, after your 10th ro, players invite forest critters to their communities, build new structures and compete for various combinations in a visually stunning environment. In Time Stories, players investigate mysteries in asylums, zombie-infested towns, ancient Egyptian cities and more.
Looking for more provocative funny games for a chill night with friends? You can go the classic route with or check out , a game in which questions are asked and participants must choose one person in the room who relates to that question. And if you want something playful, hilariously rude and uncomfortably adorable, there's always a quirky game with its own ridiculous rules and objectives.
While many people think of game developers as working on , there are also card game developers discovering innovative ways of playing card games every year, so it was important for this list that we test a wide . In trying out contenders, I played most of these games dozens of times, with various arrangements of people. They are the most interesting, re-playable and fun card games for 2022.
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David Priest/CNET
If you've played Rook, euchre or other trick-taking, partner card games, Tichu will be easy to pick up. The cards are fairly traditional (2 through Ace), with the addition of four unique cards: the mahjong, the dog, the phoenix and the dragon. Besides these cards, what makes Tichu unique is its blend of card-playing (in addition to single cards, players can play full houses, straights and other combinations) and strategy (before rounds, players must trade cards with partners and opponents).
Tichu has simple mechanics, but a few smart subversions of traditional trick-taking rules turn this great card game into one of the most enjoyable classic-style card games around.
Spruce
Exploding Kittens is a beloved game among families with children of all ages. Even in college my friends and I gathered together for a fun game night of exploding kittens. The game is simple: draw your cards, take your aim and avoid the occasional exploding kitten. Players continuously draw various action cards throughout the game and strategize the best way to betray their friends and family.
The best way to find out what this fast-paced card game is all about is to play it yourself, and don't forget to beware of those exploding kittens lurking in every deck!
Rio Grande Games
Deck building is a relatively recent development in card games: essentially, players draft or "buy" cards in a deck-building game to shuffle into their draw decks. Slowly, then, the hands they play with each turn transform to allow new strategies over the course of a game. And the granddaddy of these sorts of games: Dominion.
Dominion has been around for years, but its developer has kept it fresh with over a dozen expansions to the base game. The core gameplay is simple: each turn you can play an action and buy a card, be it an action card, a money card or a victory point card. The problem is, victory point cards (which for the most part do nothing aside from giving you game-winning points) dilute your deck.
The game ends up as a supremely satisfying exercise in slowly building your deck into an efficient tool, so that you might snap up victory point cards all at once, near the end of the game. Of course, if your timing is off by even a single turn, it could lose you the game.
Dominion is a modern classic game, and very much worth your time.
Asmodee
Time Stories is a wonder of a game. With a simple deck of cards, it catapults you across dimensions and spacetime, guides you through beautifully rendered settings and brings you face-to-face with Lovecraftian monsters -- and that's just in the first campaign.
In Time Stories, players investigate mysteries in settings ranging from ancient Egypt to zombie-infested suburbs. The stories change with your decisions, and your ability to solve the given mystery depends on your cooperation with teammates, your problem-solving skills and your ability to adapt to new elements introduced on the fly by the game.
Time Stories isn't perfect: You can find plenty of chat boards online with fans debating which stories are best, and which could have been better balanced. But even small unbalances ultimately stem from the game's massive ambition, and it's hard not to feel swept up by that ambition every time you sit down to play this fun card game.
Rio Grande Games
If tableau building sounds a little similar to card deck building, that's because it is: In games like Race for the Galaxy, players slowly assemble their "tableau" -- that is, their slate of face-up cards -- in front of them over the duration of the game, using their actions and resources to gain the most power.
Thematically, Race for the Galaxy is very sci-fi. Players purchase various planets and other developments to add to their tableau, which then help them collect resources and perform more valuable actions.
While deck building can feel a little abstract or overwhelming to new players (a whole deck's makeup can be hard to hold in your head, after all), tableau building keeps all the cards on the table -- literally. At any time, you can see what you and your opponents are trying to build, which can make the game feel a little more interactive.
Race for the Galaxy is a fun, quick game that anyone can learn in 10 minutes, but most people won't master for dozens of play-throughs.
David Priest/CNET
Card games can be a blast, but they can also be challenging for visual learners, since so much of the action happens between the cards. Luckily, there are some great game options that mix cards with a central board, and Everdell is one of the best mixed-mechanic games around.
Everdell blends tableau-building mechanics with more traditional meeple placement on a central board. It's a strategically rich game, but also beautifully endearing as you recruit various woodland critters to live in your settlement using berries, and build structures using wood, stone and resin.
And for the more aesthetically minded, Everdell is one of the more beautifully designed games.
Renegade Games
Life may currently look a little different from most years thanks to the pandemic, so maybe you're looking for more two-player games for your smaller family/friend gatherings. If so, The Fox in the Forest is perfect for you: It's a simple trick-taking game like Rook (or Tichu, from above), with a few special cards mixed into the traditional format.
What makes The Fox in the Forest interesting is the unique card powers and the scoring system. Rather than trying to take all the tricks to win the game, you're trying to take certain numbers of tricks for certain point values -- and if you narrowly miss those ranges, you often miss out on a big bonus.
In many ways, The Fox in the Forest is a fairly traditional, simple game. But it's a well-balanced game that's perfect to pick up and play for 20 or 30 minutes.
Asmodee
If you want a little more heft to your two-player card games, try 7 Wonders: Duel, a devious little card-drafting game. Both players attempt to build civilizations across three eras, drafting various cards that help players pursue military or scientific dominance, grow their resources and build various Wonders.
The competitive game moves more quickly than bigger strategy games like Everdell, and the card-drafting mechanism introduces surprising opportunities to block or trap your opponent. If you're looking for a well-balanced fun game for many play sessions, this is one of the best out there.
David Priest/CNET
Twilight Struggle balances the strategic complexity of a "big" game with the simple mechanics of a traditional conquest game like Risk. One player takes the role of the United States, and the other plays as the USSR as you struggle for presence, domination or complete control of various battleground regions around the world. Both sides race to put a man on the moon, degrade the DEFCON status through military operations, while carefully avoiding the devastation of nuclear war (an instant loss) and spread their influence across the globe in a tug of war for global power.
Twilight Struggle won't be for rikvip club everyone -- it's a time investment and your brain may feel like mush after playing it the first time. But few games on this list feel as satisfying to play, win or lose.
Amazon
Which one of your friends do you think will survive a zombie apocalypse? Or who has the most scandalous Google search history? In you and your friends will be asked all these questions and more and will each vote who everyone believes fits the card best. I love to play card games that ask questions that forces your group really have to think and expose each other. The Voting Game is perfect for any little kickback or gathering and guarantees to make for a hilarious time.
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