Games to play while you’re home for the holidays

The holidays are about being with family, but that doesn’t mean you can’t play games while you’re home with them. Mobile games are the perfect things to take with you as you travel to wherever you’re going, as they’re experiences you can always have with you and bust out at a moment’s notice.

In honor of the upcoming break, I’ve put together a list of the top four games I plan on bringing with me on my travels. All of these picks have their particular use cases, but all can be played in just about any situation, even if you are going somewhere that doesn’t have a good data or wifi connection.

Out of the Loop

Out of the Loop is a great little party game for 3-9 players with a really simple concept. Everyone playing is clued into a particular keyword based on a category (e.g. animal, household item, etc.), except for one player who is left quite literally out of the loop. Then, players are prompted to ask each other specific questions and the person who doesn’t know what the word is has to hope they aren’t found out.

This game is a great pick for holiday gaming if you want to get your whole family involved. The instructions for every step of the game are clearly written out on every screen, and the concept is so simple that everyone immediately gets how to play. As a bonus, the game just released more category packs, so even if this is an old favorite, there's some good reason to bust it out again.

Night in the Woods

Sometimes, a return to a childhood home or locale can lead you to confrontations with changes big and small in your absence or stir up old feelings and memories that you aren't sure how to navigate given who you are now. This could make playing through something like Night in the Woods a comfort, as it is a game directly about this kind of hometown return.

I can't promise that any revelations from your holiday travels will be as entertaining as the ones in this game, but it could help to have an artful companion to your own experiences in your pocket. Even if it doesn't help (or you don't need it), Night in the Woods is still just a great game.

Vampire Survivors

If Vampire Survivors fell off your radar in the time since it launched on mobile for free a couple years ago, you're in for a treat. Since then, the game has added 5 paid DLC expansions and more free content, the likes of which have essentially transformed the base game into a whole new experience.

This is a perfect pickup if you want something exciting to play even if it isn't particularly demanding to control while you veg out on the couch on Christmas morning or half-listen to a holidy movie you've seen 1,000 times before.

Lost for Swords

If you're always on the hunt for a new mobile game, I still can't get enough ofLost for Swords, even after playing it for review. It's just a brilliant little deck-builder that fits perfectly on mobile.

Just in case something likeVampire Survivors feels like it takes up a little too much dedicated attention, rest assured, Lost for Swords is turn-based, has a great knack for displaying all of the information you need at a given moment, and an undo button. This is a game you can play in basically any situation at any time, and I mostly plan to do exactly that over my holiday break.