I got to try out Five Crown and Farkle through Tryazon and good news, I loved both of these games! So spot on for a lightweight game night. If you've been looking for a game that would work for a family gathering these are really good options.
We've been playing both games a bunch, but between the two I would say Five Crowns has been the favorite. It's a rummy style card game with a specialty deck. There are five different suits that each have their own color and symbol and they go from 3 to King. No having to explain if the Aces are high or low in this particular game. And there are so many wilds because there are a fair amount of jokers in the deck but also the number of cards you deal out for a particular hand corresponds to the wild card of that round! So when you start and deal out 3 cards, the 3's are wild. The next round with 4 cards, the 4's are wild. And so on until the final round when the Kings are wild!
We had a few games nights to try out the games - both one on one with our older kids, with my parents, and then for a game afternoon with friends. These games passed a number of my benchmark tests: they were quick to learn, they were fun to play for all ability levels, and my older daughter who is very particular about games really liked them (especially Five Crowns). And yes, I am holding a cat like it's a baby in one of the pictures above.
Farkle is a great little push your luck dice game. It took a minute to readjust from a Yahtzee mindset and treat each roll separately. You have to score something each time you roll and if you don't you Farkle and go bust. I'll be honest, we played games for 2 hours straight this afternoon and the Farkle dice were SO LOUD and I thought I might lose my mind by the end. It would have been easy to fix this and just roll them by hand instead of the very loud container they came with. But literally every child loved the loud dice rolls and would just sit and loudly roll the dice for fun in-between games. So I guess just know your audience! The game is good, the dice are loud!
Now, both of these games do run over my standard 20 minute playing time but that's pretty easy to fix if you're working with a shorter amount of time. And they are both so very easy in terms of game play and strategy, they're absolutely the type you would get out and play after a Sunday dinner with aunts and uncles and a grandparent or two. I have fond memories of growing up playing rummy card games and both of these games would have been very popular at my house. If you're wanting to branch out from games like Monopoly and Risk and want something family friendly to start with, these are wonderful choices!