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Most Popular Board Games Quiz

Which game is "Chairman of the Board"? Here's a list of the 20 most popular board games --- how many do you know?
Quiz by CBTemple
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Last updated: December 16, 2019
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First submittedJuly 18, 2012
Times taken53,148
Average score55.0%
Rating4.14
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Hint
Created
Answer
Checkmate
?
Chess
King me
?
Checkers
Real estate game
1935
Monopoly
Make words with tiles
1938
Scrabble
Whodunnit? Where? How?
1949
Clue
Conquer the world!
1957
Risk
Go to school, raise a family...
1860
Life
"Climb" and "slide" with kids
?
Chutes &
Ladders
Desdemona's husband
1883
Othello
WWII themed strategy game
1981
Axis & Allies
Hint
Created
Answer
Test your trivia knowledge
1979
Trivial Pursuit
Chinese game using stones
?
Go
East African "sowing" game
?
Mancala
Checkers and dice game
?
Backgammon
You sunk my ....
1967
Battleship
"Capture the flag" game
1910
Stratego
Two-player vertical game
1974
Connect 4
Like charades, but with drawing
1985
Pictionary
Word category party game
1988
Scattergories
Multi-skill team party game
1998
Cranium
+2
Level 71
Apr 12, 2012
Great quiz! I feel like I've played a version of Trivial Pursuit before 1979.
+3
Level 82
Feb 16, 2013
My parents owned the original "Genius Edition" which certainly felt like it was printed before 1979, since all the questions were about TV shows and movies that only the greatest generation has heard of. But I guess they wanted they probably just wanted the game to appeal to adults when they first made it, so, in 1979, that means asking questions about things that happened from 1940-1970 or so, giving it an older feel.

In the same way that many of the popular quizzes on this site are about the 1980s.. it makes the 20-35 year olds using the site feel nostalgic, even if some of the kids might be lost.

+9
Level 74
May 14, 2014
"Genus Edition", I think...
+2
Level 82
Jan 18, 2015
Really? Never realized... why the heck would they call it Genus Edition?
+4
Level 60
Jan 18, 2015
The reason its called the Genus edition is because it spans knowledge from a wide range of categories and subjects unlike other editions that were planned for release in the beginning of the game, such as sports and leisure, the Baby Boomer edition, etc. Genus - (Logic) A class of objects divided into several subordinate species; a class more extensive than a species; a precisely defined and exactly divided class; one of the five predicable conceptions, or sorts of terms.
+1
Level 82
Jan 19, 2015
I see. I think I've also played the Baby Boomer edition... and some edition aimed at younger people I forget what it was called... and the Star Wars version... and the Disney version...
+2
Level 63
Aug 27, 2017
Early on, at least half of the baseball answers were "Ty Cobb."
+2
Level ∞
Dec 5, 2014
I looked it up, it was created in 1979 and not released until 1982. But a lot of the questions were about older stuff.
+2
Level 65
Jun 9, 2015
Wow! Are there only adults on JetPunk? I thought more people were kids!
+1
Level 38
Jul 6, 2015
+1 I'm a kid, mate!
+1
Level 17
Jul 2, 2017
+1 Me too, y'all!
+6
Level 63
Aug 27, 2017
I have great-grand kids. By myself, I don't suppose that skews things too awkwardly.
+1
Level 59
May 8, 2018
I’m a teenager, but the only people that don’t call teenagers ‘kids’ are teenagers that don’t want to be lumped in with the really young people and children that think there’s a difference between the two. Long story short: I’m a kid.
+1
Level 29
Sep 28, 2020
I’m a kid 😂
+1
Level 14
May 3, 2012
There is a picture of Chess! Geez, wow.
+4
Level 40
Jul 11, 2012
I can't believe I left out mancala! I love that game.
+3
Level 63
Jul 11, 2012
How is it possible Axis & Allies is that popular? I owned it and loved it but I've never met anyone else who even heard of it. I thought it was just for nerds who liked games with 100 page instruction manuals...
+2
Level 47
Sep 10, 2012
Loved that game
+2
Level 82
Feb 16, 2013
yeah I was thinking the same thing. Good game.. but it takes more time to set up the board than the average game of Monopoly runs start to finish, which itself is about 30 minutes longer than the average person wants to spend playing a board game.
+1
Level 89
Dec 4, 2018
Ever play Monopoly by the rules? It takes days.
+1
Level 82
Nov 11, 2019
Many times. I have a feeling my friends are better at playing board games than yours. :)
+1
Level 68
Apr 12, 2020
I started playing a game 2 days ago, don't know when it will end...
+2
Level 82
Aug 7, 2021
Also.. it's the unofficial "house" or family rules that typically make Monopoly games take *forever*... if you play by the actual standard rules the games go by much faster. And there are optional rules that you can choose to use that make them go faster, still. Unless you are brand new to the game, if using the standard rules, it really should not take more than a few hours maximum. And if you play it on a PC or video game console were all the banking and die rolls etc are automated you can breeze through a standard game in 15-20 minutes.
+1
Level 82
Aug 7, 2021
The standard rules that make Monopoly games go much faster if followed include: nobody ever gets any money for landing on Free Parking, if someone lands on an unsold property and doesn't buy it it must be publicly auctioned off, properties with improvements on them cannot be mortgaged, no player may lend any other player money, and you cannot take loans from the bank. All of these rules were added over the years by casual players and they all collectively make the game take forever.
+4
Level 64
Jul 11, 2012
Scattergories is the best game EVAR
+1
Level 72
Dec 4, 2018
great game, for some reason I always thought it was scattagories...
+1
Level 66
Nov 11, 2019
I spelled it scatergories and it didn't take. I own the game so I should of known how to spell it.
+1
Level 68
Nov 11, 2019
I think I spelled it scategories :-(
+1
Level 16
Jul 11, 2012
Go is from japan, not china
+2
Level 71
May 17, 2013
The game originated in China 2500 yrs or more ago, long before it became popular in Japan.
+1
Level 39
Nov 30, 2017
nah bro, Korea
+10
Level 77
Jul 11, 2012
I have a very nice backgammon set and there are no checkers included, just small discs; the clue is confusing. Also, Othello may well be Desdemona's husband but shouldn't the clue describe the game and not some other random piece of trivia?
+2
Level 46
Jan 20, 2015
It also threw me off - I have always heard them called "stones", not checkers. Checkers are usually lightweight and have ridges to make them easily stackable.
+1
Level 59
Mar 17, 2021
Agreed. I got that one wrong and I love backgammon. But I would never call the pieces checkers. My backgammon set has pieces that look almost like ivory or marble. Nothing like what I would call a checker.
+2
Level 67
Apr 1, 2022
It threw me too but for a different reason - I knew that checkers was the equivalent of what we call draughts in Britain but because of the word checkered I associated it with the squares and always thought of checkers as the squares on a board rather than the counters/pieces.
+1
Level 37
Jul 11, 2012
Does Chinese game using stones not also describe Mahjong?
+3
Level 81
Jul 11, 2012
Mahjong would be described as a "Chinese tile-matching game" or something similar. The tiles don't look like stones, although they could be made from stone, I suppose. But the bottom line with this quiz is that Mahjong is not one of the 20 most popular games.....
+1
Level 59
Mar 17, 2021
Mah jongg is what I guessed, too.
+1
Level 21
Jul 12, 2012
Any chance for accpeting "the game of life" rather than just life?
+1
Level ∞
Jul 16, 2012
Okay. That will work now.
+1
Level 22
Jul 16, 2012
good quiz!
+3
Level 7
Jul 17, 2012
You need to add draughts instead of 'checkers' - for us Brits!
+1
Level 81
Jul 18, 2012
A fair request. Done and done!
+4
Level 35
Oct 23, 2012
SCATTERGORIES IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
+1
Level 82
Feb 16, 2013
Never heard of Mancala but I've played every other game on this list.
+1
Level 43
Feb 1, 2020
Mancala is one of my favorites! You should learn how to play!
+1
Level 17
Mar 29, 2013
never heard of go in my entire life D:
+4
Level 68
Oct 11, 2013
Wow . . . the first "two player, vertical" game I though of was Jenga.
+2
Level 55
Jan 21, 2014
it can be more than 2
+4
Level 43
Sep 3, 2014
That's not what I thought of ;)
+4
Level 66
Oct 17, 2018
I think that's more commonly a horizontal game... and sometimes involves more than two players. ;-)
+3
Level 50
Apr 30, 2014
"Battleship" may not have been manufactured as a board game until 1967, but my dad taught it to me sometime in the 1950s, using graph paper and pencils.
+2
Level 76
Mar 20, 2018
Yeah, according to Wikipedia the pen-and-paper version dates back to at least World War I.
+1
Level 48
Jun 2, 2014
Surprised Yahtzee isn't here. Never heard of axis & allies....
+1
Level 77
Jan 18, 2015
Yahtzee isn't a board game really.
+5
Level 66
Nov 21, 2017
Yahtzee is as much a board game as Pictionary is.
+2
Level 43
Sep 3, 2014
No Mouse Trap?!?!
+3
Level 37
Sep 3, 2014
I spent a good part of last weekend playing Connect Four, even researching the mathematical solutions to Connect Four. And yet that was the only one I missed.
+1
Level 77
Jul 1, 2017
Come to think of it, I wouldn't exactly call that a board game. Maybe that's why you missed it.
+1
Level 59
Mar 17, 2021
Exactly. Connect Four is not a "board" game.
+2
Level 66
Nov 10, 2014
I wonder where Cards Against Humanity ranks in relation to some of these in popularity by now...
+1
Level 22
Oct 5, 2016
Nowhere to be seen. It's a card game.
+2
Level 66
Nov 21, 2017
Your point? Pictionary isn't a board game either.
+1
Level 57
Jan 18, 2015
Can you accept "Cluedo" for "Clue"? That's the British name.
+7
Level 80
Feb 1, 2019
Accepted by default, since you can't type Cluedo without typing Clue
+10
Level 77
Jan 18, 2015
Considering the relatively low score for Othello, perhaps a clue pertaining to the game itself, rather than Shakespeare, would be more appropriate. A person could play Othello every day of their life but if they've never read the play then the Desdemona clue would be totally meaningless. It's the only clue given here which is not related the actual game. Also, I have a very nice Backgammon set with not a checker in sight....just generic round discs. Took me a while to figure that one out. Backgammon is way too popular to have such a low score, perhaps due to the misleading checker reference. Not that it couldn't be played with checkers, but they're certainly not a requirement.
+3
Level 44
Jan 19, 2015
The clue for Othello is horrible. Doesn't have anything to do with the games. Clever enough, but it doesn't test your knowledge of the game but rather of Shakespeare. Please change it.
+2
Level 84
Jan 19, 2015
I'm surprised Cranium is on this list. I've played it but IMHO there are many other better games that I would have thought would have been more popular.
+3
Level 82
Jan 19, 2015
Last Night on Earth is a great one. And if Axis & Allies is on here it's hard to believe Settlers of Cataan is not. That game's way more accessible and I've seen copies of it at people's houses many more times than A&A.
+2
Level 66
Nov 21, 2017
Honestly, I question the veracity of the source used for this quiz. It cites no data and makes no attempt to define what is/isn't a board game. It's literally just a slideshow of the 20 games in this quiz.
+1
Level 82
Nov 11, 2019
Agreed. Source is dubious at best. The title of the quiz probably should be changed simply to "Popular Board Games" as opposed to "Most". I think that would be okay even given that some of these are technically tabletop games and not actually board games.
+1
Level 20
Feb 8, 2015
Lol, I made a quiz like this with the same answers and I am just now realizing that someone has already taken my idea!
+4
Level 71
May 13, 2015
What about 'Ludo' the granddaddy of them all?
+1
Level 37
Nov 11, 2019
Yes, thank you!
+3
Level 20
Oct 14, 2015
Where's Catan? Yatzee? Would You Rather? Sequence? Quirkle?
+1
Level 22
Oct 5, 2016
Yahtzee isn't a board game. It's a dice game.
+2
Level 66
Nov 21, 2017
Pictionary isn't a board game either.
+2
Level 29
Nov 19, 2015
Can you accept Snakes and Ladder for all the British people
+1
Level 83
Dec 3, 2015
I feel like half of these aren't really "board" games...
+1
Level 52
Dec 9, 2015
I would have thought diplomacy was on there
+1
Level 61
Jun 18, 2016
I didn't know that "Scattergories" was that old! You learn something new everyday!
+1
Level 52
Oct 31, 2016
I've only played the WWI edition of Axis and Allies. I still got it but would have though Diplomacy would have been more popular
+1
Level 66
Nov 21, 2017
But... they weren't called the Axis in WW1. Shouldn't it have been Central & Allies for a WW1 edition?
+2
Level 70
Jan 18, 2017
Wars have started with Scattergories in my house.
+3
Level 84
Feb 25, 2017
The game invented in 1883 is called Reversi. Othello is a trademark of Mattel, invented in 1971. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversi#Modern_version
+3
Level 76
Mar 20, 2018
Similarly, the game invented in "?" was Snakes and Ladders, while Chutes and Ladders is the version published by Milton Bradley in 1943.
+2
Level 6
Mar 15, 2017
What is Axis and Allies?
+1
Level 66
Sep 25, 2018
It's a board game about World War 2.
+2
Level 68
Apr 23, 2017
Does anyone remember playing monopoly as a kid, and it always ending in tears...?
+2
Level 76
Mar 20, 2018
Yes, except as an adult.
+1
Level 86
May 20, 2017
Mancala? I only know Awalé (whose name has a large number of variants throughout Africa, like Oware, Awari, and so on).
+2
Level 76
Mar 20, 2018
I'd only ever heard of Mancala, but apparently that's more properly the name of a type of game that includes many different variations, including awalé. It's sort of like how poker is not one specific game, but is a group of related games that have similar mechanics (straight poker, seven-card stud, five-card draw, etc.)
+1
Level 34
Jul 2, 2017
Please accept Snake and Ladder also.
+3
Level 71
Nov 27, 2017
That was the really easy version with one snake and one ladder.
+1
Level 55
Aug 27, 2017
I don't think that The Game of Life goes back to 1860, though Art Linkletter probably does.
+1
Level 66
Nov 21, 2017
According to Wikipedia, the game of Life really was created in 1860, though the modern version that we all know was released 100 years later.
+2
Level 86
Mar 20, 2018
Nice idea for a quiz, but the source is so spurious as to be irrelevant.
+1
Level 28
Mar 20, 2018
Did fairly well, but couldn't for the life of me remember "connect four" by name. Tried "four in a row", and a couple other stupid variations, but never quite got it. It is the correct name though.
+1
Level 49
Jul 1, 2019
Am I the only person who thought the last one was mario party?
+1
Level 71
Nov 11, 2019
Only missed stratego which ive never heard of
+1
Level 44
Nov 6, 2020
Cluedo is the correct term. Besides, what is mancala?
+1
Level 82
Feb 15, 2021
It's not the correct term. It's the British one. Not the same thing, contrary to popular opinion in Britain.
+1
Level 68
Jun 7, 2021
It was devised by a Brit in 1943, in Birmingham. (That's Birmingham, England's second city, not the much bigger and way more important Birmingham, Alabama).

His name was Pratt. Perhaps you're related?

+1
Level 82
Aug 7, 2021
If I were then I'm sure we'd be on the same page.
+1
Level 60
Jul 2, 2021
As a kid, Stratego was my favorite. I never call them checkers in backgammon but wikipedia says it's so. Operation was a game I'm sure my parents immediately regretted buying for us kids lol -- do you remember that one?
+1
Level 67
Aug 1, 2021
Haha I was just playing Connect 4 and Monopoly after ages. Stratego and Cranium are fun but my favorite has gotta be Risk not cuz I care about the game itself but I just like messing around with all the troops and doing hypothetical world wars
+1
Level 77
May 2, 2022
For the most part, a good quiz--that clue for Connect 4 is a bit misleading. I was thinking Jenga and Upwords.
+1
Level 17
Apr 18, 2023
Yeah, I think two player gravity-affected grid-based game instead of vertical would be a less misleading clue
+1
Level 45
Nov 22, 2022
I'm surprised so many people didn't get Scattergories! one of my favorites! As for Connect Four...I eventually got it, but that hint describes Jenga too, which is what I guessed first.