The Sequence Board Game – A Cheap, Fun, and Fast Family Game

Years ago my friend, a Mormon family man, showed me the Sequence board game he plays with his family on game night. I was a newlywed with our first child on the way and I asked, “What’s family game night?” He looked at me and said, “You’re going to learn all about family game night in a few years!” After a few seconds, it dawned on me, once I became a parent I could also have family game nights!

The first game we bought for a family fun night was the Sequence board game (affiliate link)! We even bought it for my partner’s Asian family and played it in Macau! Everyone loved the simplicity of it and the fast but fun play!

Sequence board game rules

The game is straightforward to play and everyone can grasp it after a few minutes. There’s a board that’s laid out in a 10 x 10 pattern with playing cards suits and face cards. All the standard poker playing cards (affiliate link) you’re used to. You get two playing card decks as part of the board game.

The ultimate goal of the Sequence board game is to play the cards in a way that you create a sequence of 5 connected chips, tokens, or checkers. They can be in a straight line or diagonally. The trick is that the two-eyed Jacks are wild and one-eyed Jacks can let you remove your opponent’s tokens.

The fun of the game and kids are quick to pick up on this, is that you can play both offensively and defensively. You can thwart your opponents from getting 5 in a row by playing a card and placing a chip to block them.

While this is a fast-playing board game (60 minutes or so), it can get a lot longer if you’re playing with experienced gamers.

It’s cheap

We bought ours at Target but you can get it via the Amazon affiliate link I posted above. It costs less than a single meal today you’d buy at a takeout place, about $13 from Amazon. You can play it with two (2) people and scale all the way up to twelve (12) people. It’s perfect for a family of four or six. I think the most we played was with seven players.

I know that the game boards and the product quality of the game might have changed over the years. From the looks of what’s being sold today, the playing board looks like a laminated sheet of plastic. My version of Sequence still has a solid board that’s lasted for years.

Still, it’s a fun game that you can pack up on road trips and play just about anywhere. If you lose the tokens you can use poker chips or coins to play.

Importance of game night

It doesn’t matter if you buy, borrow, or inherit a copy of Sequence, what matters is the time you spend with your family and friends. Setting aside a weekly, biweekly, or monthly game night is a great way to bring your loved ones together and have some fun.