Mantis

My 8-year-old picked up the two rules in about a minute, and my husband and I still found the matching sets surprisingly tense by round three. The gin rummy depth sneaks up on you, so it works for game night with the adults after the kids go to bed.

The steal-or-score mechanic is so simple my six-year-old picked it up in one round, yet I still get genuinely competitive games with my friends over gin rummy-style sets. It’s rare a game clicks for both age groups this cleanly.

Bought this for a family game night and we ended up playing four rounds in a row. The steal-or-score mechanic makes it way more strategic than a typical matching game, and even the kids caught on after one hand.