Boggle

Ninety seconds, sixteen dice, and the growing certainty that everyone else can see a word you can't.

Shake the grid, drop the timer, and find as many words as you can by joining adjacent letters. Anything two or more players both found gets crossed off, so the game rewards the obscure word nobody else spotted rather than the obvious one everybody did. It has been in print since 1972 and the design has not needed to change.

This refreshed edition keeps the self-contained shaker tray, so the cubes never end up under the sofa and the whole thing packs down into one unit. Rounds are ninety seconds, which means a game fits into the gap before dinner, and it works from one player upwards — solo, it's simply a race against your own previous best.

Perfect for: Word game households, waiting for the oven, and anyone who has ever argued that a proper noun should count.

1+ players | 90 seconds per round | Age 8+