Family Tabletop Games

I've always enjoyed tabletop games, mainly playing different board games. For the past few years, the tile-placement game, Carcassonne, has been our game of choice due to the mechanic of picking tiles blind out of a bag, which provides a randomness that keeps the game interesting - and, of course, the many expansions that provides a wide range of extra tiles and features.

Carcasonne has been played by three generations of my family; myself, my mum and my niece. However, there is a game that has been played by at least five generations of my family over many decades. The game is called veertigen, veertigleggen or the name favoured by my family: Jokeren.


I know that my maternal great-grandparents (Magermans and Saris) played this game a lot. My mum (Havenith) remembers playing this game with them in their flat.

My Oma (Magermans), played many different tabletop games with them growing up, including Hartenjagen (Hearts), mens erger je niet (Ludo), Scrabble, Bingo, and Pesten (Crazy Eights). However it is Jokeren that is the game that has been passed down from parent to child and grandparent to grandchild. It is a game that I hope to pass down to however many children we have and hopefully any grandchildren they bless us with. It will be a tangible way of my family connecting with the older members of our family and our ancestors.


The Rules
In Jokeren the aim of the game is to lay down all of your cards before anyone else does. It's played with 2 decks of cards including the jokers. Each player starts with 13 cards and must make a set or row that equals at least 40 points, after which the player can add to other sets and rows placed by other players.

There are many variations of the game, some whereby you have a certain amount of cards in each row or set, for example, 3 cards, another where you have to play all of the cards in your hand in one go. Some people play the variations as different rounds of the same overall game.

If a player cannot lay down, then they place a card in the discard pile and pick a new card from the top of the deck. The joker can by used as any value during the game, but becomes an expensive card to keep in your hand if the game ends. All the cards you have in your hand at the end of the round are counted up: 2-9 are the face value, the ace is 11, king, queen, and jack are 10, and the joker is 25 point!

A well known variant of the game is the tile-placing game, Rummikub.


What games have been passed down through your family?