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Strengthen Your Relationships: 10 Card Games That Go Deeper
Card games that strengthen relationships with fun, laughter, deeper conversations, and new insights are a great way to help us see the complexities of our connections and what makes them so special. As an introvert who isn’t much of a fan of video calls, the push and pull of isolation and a desire for connection—even with those in your household—can feel like an impossible balance. Perhaps it’s the pressure of feeling like we need to entertain or have something meaningful to share when maybe things aren’t moving the way you’d like them to right now, but lightening the load with a card game and sharing a laugh can feel like pure magic to lead us into deeper conversation.
Here, we’ve gathered a few picks of some card games to help strengthen our relationships by sparking conversation—light or deep—with those we spend time with the most, including ourselves, our partners, families, friends, roommates, and coworkers.
Card Games to Connect with the Self
The most important relationship in your life is the one you have with yourself for in the sage words of the glorious RuPaul, “If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” When we’re able to invest time in self-exploration, we’re able to bring new dimensions to our relationships.
1 | Finding Connection Through Everyday Adventures
With the pandemic, we’ve certainly settled into a different way of being. There may be times when this feels positive and other times when perhaps it feels a little more mundane. It’s in those times—or when you’ve started to run low on reality TV to binge (hands up?)—that it can feel a little more clear that we can’t always count on others to create excitement in our lives. In fact, it’s healthy to want to be excited by your own adventures, experiences that are just for you, for your own growth and self-exploration, and that you can choose to share with others in the future or simply keep that joy and connection for your own. These adventures don’t have to be big, though. They might just be introducing yourself to a new cafe, taking a little adventure through your memories, or following a new trail on a weekend walk.
Need some prompts to get you started? The Everyday Adventures card deck offers 60 prompt cards with ideas to spark a little excitement in the usual to spark imagination, revive the spirit, and show yourself a little care and connection through new bite-sized adventures. Pull a card and make a date with yourself!
2 | Get to Know Yourself a Little Better
It may seem an odd concept, but sometimes, we need a re-introduction to ourselves. Whether you feel like you’ve settled in a place of anxiousness (I feel you) or have discovered a more balanced and fulfilling lifestyle for yourself, it can feel like we go into autopilot and feed some habits or tend to some environments that simply don’t align with who we are. It’s all so normal and familiar to recognize we might need a realignment, but knowing what you need may be even harder. We’re all complex, imperfect individuals with strengths and flaws, and there’s beauty in that balance. Taking time to explore and develop deeper self-knowledge can help us to discover the supports and environments that bring out the best of us and how to better communicate and interact with those around us as well, allowing for deeper, more meaningful connections.
Get started with the Know Yourself prompt cards deck that presents a range of exercises and questions on one side of each card and analysis prompts on the reverse to gain better insight and clarity into your responses. You might be surprised to see what you can learn about yourself at any age.
Card Games to Connect with an Intimate Partner
Coupling takes work. We can often take for granted the time we spend with a partner, falling into a comfortable rhythm that might not allow us to connect even more deeply. This past summer, my partner and I spent many more hours together in the car (mostly thanks to Covid, distanced visiting, and no overnight stays). On our drives, we ended up falling into conversations about topics that we may not have when spending time at home and it felt like we were connecting and understanding each other in a whole new way.
It sometimes amazes me that after 14 years together and many, many meaningful conversations, the right questions can still lead me to respect and understand my partner in a whole new way, falling in love all over again. The following games offer that little prompt to push you and a partner into new conversational territory, cultivating deeper care and understanding for your strengths, quirks, and everything in between.
3 | Upping the Pillow Talk
Pillow Talk Conversation Cards
For those in a sexual relationship, you likely know the perks of playing out your desires but how often do you chat about it with your partner? Holding calm, quiet space without judgment to discuss sex can help to normalize your fantasies, offer reassurance, reduce shame, and cultivate closeness for a deeper connection and ultimately, better sex.
Pillow Talk conversation cards offer 60 questions to get you started but you’re encouraged to go with the flow of the conversation and keep chatting until you’ve run out and feel you need another card. These cards can also be used for journaling prompts to explore some topics solo and better reflect and share your responses with your partner(s) when the timing feels right. For an alternative (can't keep those pillow talk cards in stock), check out the Emotional Conversations Deck.
4 | Change Up Your Dating Qs
Dating is challenging and dating during Covid is a whole other level of difficulty. When you’re quarantining, the emphasis is placed on conversation and the usual get-to-know-them questions can start to feel stale. For those who have started spending a little more time together or those who are casually dating, foster more playful and insightful encounters with a card game. The Dating Cards deck offers prompts for questions you may not commonly ask someone you just met and can help you decipher if there’s a spark or it’s a dud. For those who may feel a little more timid in sharing too much detail, particularly if you’re popping this out for your first video call, the cards are ranked by easy, medium, and hard, so you can choose whether you’d like to stick to some soft lobs or dive right in.
Examples of questions range from "Describe your first kiss" to "Without thinking too much, complete the sentence: 'The problem with most of the people I've been on a date with is...'” or "What are the main points you would like to be covered in a speech at your funeral?" (For the record, I hope my obit is full of as much character as Margaret Marilyn DeAdder’s.)
Card Games to Connect as a Family
Forming strong family relationships that foster open communication and understanding are key to helping children feel secure and loved, which in turn gives them the confidence to explore, take on challenges, express their feelings, and simply be comfortable in their own skin. Strong, healthy family relationships also help children see how to constructively confront conflict and what to look for in future meaningful relationships.
While we work to practice open communication on the daily, a family-oriented game that focuses on connection can help to build out that space with dedicated time to forming deeper connections through play.
5 | Cultivate Laughter and Gentle Connection
Life is busy and sometimes we come together as a family perhaps a little tired, inputting a little less energy into our connections. Dedicating some time to a game designed to kickstart meaningful conversations meant to foster a reconnection, a space to say the things you may not be sharing but want to, or to simply share a warm laugh can help us to establish stronger, more supportive family ties and remember why family time really counts.
The Family Game is the perfect pick. Offering 100 cards to spark connection, this game covers five categories: gentle teasing, gratitude, self, memories, and regret. Roll the dice to see what category to pick and answer the question on the card drawn. You can either thank the person for sharing their response or use their answer to plunge into a deeper shared conversation on the topic. Generally speaking, you’ll know where your children are at and can adapt the game to meet your needs, but this game is recommended for kids ages 12 and up.
6 | Establish and Develop Mindfulness to Strengthen Relationships
Photo credit @AMomsTake on Twitter
Gameplay is a gentle way for children and parents to connect while developing a child’s soft skills. Similarly, practicing mindfulness as a family can help to strengthen communication and positive relationships. Mindfulness can be especially beneficial for anxiousness in children, a common occurrence now as they often find their lives changing drastically throughout the pandemic.
Mindful Games activity cards offer fun prompts for children to foster attention, balance, and compassion early on for increased mental health, more fulfilling relationships, and a more mindful life. Featuring 55 illustrated cards outlining a new game or activity, Mindful Games introduces children to new ways to self-regulate emotions, communicate, empathize, and help build a child’s base foundations for connecting with the self and others on a deeper level. The activities included are accessible for younger children but offer a good introduction to mindfulness for older members of the family as well.
Card Games to Connect with Friends or Roommates
Friendships and roommate relationships take just as much work as any other relationship. Communication is key and offering an open space to share your thoughts and feelings is important in developing a greater understanding of each other and a stronger, healthier relationship. Whether your friendships are new, light, and fragile or deep, strong, and everlasting, when the deeper conversations are sparked, your friendships can feel like pure magic.
7 | Laughing, Crying, and Sharing Together
Photo credits @Queeriosity on Instagram (this article's featured image also copyright Queeriosity)
During a time like this, getting deep with all of your friends or roommates might feel rather overwhelming but sparking a connection that strikes that balance between fun and sentimental might have that perfect sparkle. Finding that perfect game that represents you all may feel a little more like magic but Queeriosity has you covered. Queeriosity is a multiplayer social card game to encourage friends to have a little fun while sharing experiences, quizzing each other, and getting to know how your friends perceive you (are you ready for that?) with a focus on queerness.
As a Black and trans-owned business, the game taps into the queer experience—from the fun and wholesome to the wild parts—to encourage openness, understanding, laughter, and a deeper connection with other queer folx. The game includes 110 cards covering six different categories and I’d note that while this is a drinking game, sobriety is totally welcomed. In fact, this may be the perfect way to encourage you to get your daily water intake and get your skin glowing. The hope is simply that you walk away feeling like you maybe know yourself and the other players a little bit better and feel your community growing.
8 | Dive in Deeper
Sometimes we may take the easy way out of connecting with friends or roommates and opt to only tell part of a story. The vulnerability may feel scary, we worry about being judged, or we feel like we may not measure up to another’s impression of us. Whatever the reason, we refrain from diving deeper but what if we played a game where we were rewarded for telling it all. The Meeting Friends card deck is just that, designed to give us a better understanding of our friends and to form deeper connections through sincere, kind self-disclosure.
The deck features 52 cards that take us on a perfect journey across a meal or a drink, from catching up, to reconfirming why we matter to one another. We don’t always manage to hit the right sort of topics of conversation and get to say the truly important things. With this deck, you can!
Card Games to Connect with Coworkers
In this time of Zoom calls galore for meetings and status updates, having a little social meet-up online can work wonders to better connect with coworkers. It can be utterly easy to lose patience with a colleague if your entire relationship is built on an email thread and deadline updates. Eventually, we all start to lose a little compassion for our colleagues, but a creative card game can help you better connect with coworkers on a more meaningful level.
9 | Encourage Connection Through Vulnerability
To start, the emphasis on positivity and productivity in the workplace can lead to resentment and strained work relationships. We see the success of our coworkers and celebrate their accomplishments, but can feel alone in our failures. The Loser Game aims to flip that perspective. In this game, the objective is simple: the more you open up about your failures, the more likely you are to win. By sharing our shortcomings with our workmates, including our boss, we’re better able to see how we’re all more or less in the same boat, cultivating connection and creating a more supportive environment to succeed together.
10 | Cultivate Community
If getting open and honest about your shortcomings feels a little too vulnerable, though, consider Team Work Card Deck through shared experiences and traits. Teamwork contains 100 questions that playfully and sensitively introduce us to our colleagues by setting up the best kinds of conversation about everything from our childhoods to our values. Come together the next week to share your experiences of connection around your unique but shared experiences with the simple goal of cultivating a stronger sense of community within your workplace, even when you’re all working from home.
Looking for More Suggestions?
Whether you’re connecting with yourself, those in your household, or those a little further away, we hope these card games to strengthen relationships help to prompt that vulnerability and understanding for the deeper connections you crave. As always, we have plenty more options in-store, so check out our guided decks for more suggestions of prompt cards or our fun and games section for more card games to connect.
Have you tried one of these games and love it? Any tips for making them your own? Share your insights in the comments below so we can keep the knowledge flowing to our community.