Family Reunion Games That Actually Get People Talking

By Jim Markus · Published July 21, 2026

The best family reunion games don’t try to please everyone at once. Bring five or six ways to entertain people, and let most of them be built for one group while everyone else enjoys watching.

I’ve designed games for a lot of different groups: families, work events, conventions, secret society events in the back of a bookstore, you name it. A family reunion is a unique situation with a unique set of people. You need something that appeals to older generations, middle-aged people, younger generations, and children all at once, and that’s something most games don’t do well. It’s a fun challenge as a game designer, and the trick is that you don’t have to solve it with every single game you bring.

You Don’t Need One Game That Works for Everyone

You don’t need to solve that problem for every game you bring. Come up with five or six ways to entertain people at the reunion, and understand that very few of them actually need to appeal to a nine-year-old and a 78-year-old at the same time.

Some of the games you bring can be made for nine-year-olds. That’s going to be fun for everyone to watch. If you’re 78, if you’re 50, if you’re 20, it’s fun to watch kids play.

At a recent family reunion, someone suggested the kids put on a play, and it took no prompting beyond that.

There were kids between about four and twelve, and a little stage that no one was using. One of the older children handed the four-year-old a sheet of paper, the four-year-old pretended to read a story, and the bigger kids acted it out. It can be as simple as that. Let the kids play. Give them a place to do it. Put them on stage.

Some people will enjoy watching, not everyone has to, the kids stay entertained, and the rest of the adults get to talk. Kind of a win all around, if you ask me.

Family Reunion Icebreaker Games

The games you bring to a reunion aren’t just for kids. To make entertainment for people of all ages, you mostly want icebreaker games, the kind built to get people talking to people they wouldn’t normally talk to.

Table-tent conversation starters

If you know there are going to be several tables, take a piece of cardboard or paper and fold it in half to make a little tent.

On each tent, write something interesting: I’ve traveled out of the country. I have a story to tell about my dog. I know everything about Lord of the Rings. I write short stories in my free time.

Put four or five chairs around each table, then tell people to find a table with a statement they relate to.

Remind everyone that the statement on the card doesn’t have to be true about everyone at the table. They might just be interested in someone who can relate to it.

Once the seats around a table fill up, that table is full, and the next person has to find another one. The goal is to get people talking to people they wouldn’t normally talk to about things they’re passionate about.

It’s one of the easiest family reunion games you can set up, and one of the most impactful.

Family reunion bingo

Family reunion bingo is the introverted counterpart to the table tents, and it appeals to every age. Take a bingo card and fill it with questions or statements that might be true about one or more people at the event: the oldest person here, the youngest person here, the person who traveled furthest to be here.

Write twenty or twenty-five statements people can relate to, then invite everyone to figure out who fits each one.

That gets them asking questions. Are you or John older? Did you or your brother come from Maryland this year? Has anybody traveled further than Paris to get here? Those are the questions that spark conversations, which is the whole point of these games.

Autumnal Games makes a game like this designed specifically for family reunions. You can get Family Reunion Bingo here. It isn’t the only option. There are many, many good icebreaker games.

The get-to-know-you survey (a gift for genealogy fans)

This one takes a little prep, and it’s wonderful if you’re into genealogy or family history research. When you send out your invitations, include an optional questionnaire.

Ask easy questions like: What’s your favorite movie? What was the first concert you ever went to? What’s your favorite song? Then leave some freeform questions: Tell me about your favorite memory from high school. Tell me about your favorite memory of growing up. Things that get people talking about their point in history. Someone who grew up in the ’50s is going to relate to something completely different than someone who grew up in the ’90s.

The benefit is twofold.

First, you end up with a written transcript you can include with family trees, which anyone doing ancestry research will appreciate. Second, you can read through the answers and look for similarities, especially ones people wouldn’t expect.

You can walk up to Uncle Bill and tell him that he and cousin Sarah both have an interest in Seurat, or that they’ve both been to Paris exactly once and both want to go back. That’s a bridge you built specifically for them.

You can do that work ahead of time and make the introductions yourself, or you can print the answers as get-to-know-you cards, turn them upside down on a table, and have people pick one, read about someone’s history and likes, and go find that person to talk about it.

If you’re going to print them, let people know when you send the survey. Make sure they know the answers will be printed.

Decorate-your-own name tags

Have name tags ready with people’s names already written, then set out markers so anyone who wants to personalize and decorate theirs can. Give it its own table. This is more popular with the kids, but it’s an easy way to get everyone interacting in a way they wouldn’t normally.

Hilarious Family Reunion Games

If you want something genuinely funny, the best hilarious family reunion games play the generations off each other. These are the ones I reach for, and they work just as well for a room full of adults as they do for a mixed crowd.

The price-guessing game

Approach the older generation first and ask what they remember about the prices of things. Go for a range: start with a gallon of milk, then bananas, then a tank of gas, then bigger things like a suit or a wedding dress, then a house. Write the answers down, maybe a few per item, and now you have an answer key.

The funny part is asking the youngest generation, the kids, what they think these things cost in various years. Ask a five- or ten-year-old how much a house costs now, then later, then back then. The answers are going to be wildly different.

Inflation might not sound funny, but watching a child wrap their head around prices from the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s next to today’s can be pretty hilarious.

Design someone else’s name tag

A funnier spin on the name tags: let people design each other’s. If you know someone well, you might know exactly how they’d want their name decorated, and the reveal can be very funny.

Apples to Apples and Snake Oil

Apples to Apples is a reliable funny one. But one of my favorites is Snake Oil. I didn’t design it, it’s a popular game you can find in a lot of places. You’re given a prompt, and your job is to sell whatever is on your card to everyone else. There’s one buyer each round and several people trying to sell made-up things. It’s talky, it’s improvisational, and I’ve played it a dozen times. It’s very, very funny.

Family Reunion Trivia Games

I love family reunion trivia games because I’m into genealogy. Family history so often goes unexplored, and trivia gives genealogy nerds like me time to shine by creating a fun version of all those weird little tidbits I’ve uncovered as I looked at our family history.

“What year did dad’s side of the family come to the US?” or “What was our family name before it was Americanized?” are two easy questions to include when I do this.

If you’ve been doing ancestry research, this is the game where that work pays off in front of an audience. It also pairs well with the get-to-know-you survey, because the survey answers give you a second pile of material nobody at the reunion has seen yet.

Outdoor Family Reunion Games

For outdoor family reunion games, a giant wooden block tower is hard to beat. If you’re playing outside, consider one. You can build it yourself if you’re a woodworker, or buy a ready-to-play version without spending much. They play by the same rules as Jenga, just much, much bigger. Put one out on a picnic table and people will know what to do without any prompting.

I had a custom tower made especially for a friend of mine. It’s detailed with the word “Dread” because we have played multiple games of Dread together. But that’s a story for another time.

Horseshoes, bags, and jackpot

Growing up in Michigan, I remember tossing horseshoes before I ever played bags. And of course we played “jackpot” with a football, but I’m pretty sure that game goes by a bunch of different names.

The short version is this: one person throws a football high into the air and shouts a number under $100 (or $1,000, or $10,000). The person who catches the ball gets the number as their score. The goal is to get to the top value first.

Those are fun kids games, and they’re more of a diversion than a way to get to know the family. That’s worth knowing before you build your whole afternoon around them. Put one or two out for the kids, and keep the icebreakers for the work of actually introducing people to each other.

Indoor Family Reunion Games

Most of the games I recommend for family reunions can be played indoors. If forty people are stuck inside on a rainy day, or a really hot one, they should be able to use themed table games, index card conversation prompts, or other types of game to stay entertained.

The table tents, bingo, trivia, the price-guessing game, and the get-to-know-you cards all work in a living room as well as they work on a lawn. The only thing you lose indoors is the block tower and the football, and those were the diversions anyway.

Family Reunion Games for Older Adults

Table-tents as conversation starters work really well for older adults, because you can set the conversation around the person who needs to stay seated. It’s a way to celebrate the expertise and knowledge that comes with age by inviting the rest of the family to chat.

That’s the move worth remembering. You aren’t pulling someone out of their chair to join a game. You’re putting the game at their table and letting the family come to them.

Free and Printable Family Reunion Games

Most family reunion games are free. Table tents need cardboard and a marker. The price-guessing game needs a notepad and a conversation with your oldest relatives. Decorate-your-own name tags need name tags and markers. The get-to-know-you survey costs you postage and some time.

Bingo and trivia are the two worth printing ahead of time, because both work better when everyone has the same card in hand. You can make your own from a blank bingo grid, or you can use a ready-made set. Ours is Family Reunion Bingo, and it’s one option among many.

The One Rule That Makes Any Family Reunion Game Work

The most important thing isn’t the game, it’s the environment. A good game isn’t about forcing participation. It’s about creating an environment that people want to engage in. Some people will play, some will watch, and both are fine.

I’ve played a lot of fun party games and written a lot of fun party games, and this is the thing I keep coming back to when I think about what makes a game good for a family reunion.

More from Autumnal Games

• Family Reunion Bingo, an icebreaker built for exactly this
• Fortunes: The Tarot Card Storytelling Game, for a smaller, quieter night
• Why I use artifacts in games, the story behind that block tower
• Browse all our games, or warm up with a free puzzle

Jim Markus

Jim makes games and events that invite people to embrace a shared fiction.