Remember afternoons sprawled on the living room carpet, demanding Park Place rent from your brother during Monopoly, watching your sister careen through the roads of the Game of Life, trying to wipe them both off the face of the world in Risk?

Wasn’t it awful?

Not the time with your family, of course. We all cherish that (eventually).

But the games themselves. Roll the dice. Spin the spinner. Draw a card. Move your pawn and yawn.

But board games aren’t the tedious vehicles they used to be. They’re going through a sort of cardboard Golden Age of clever mechanics, deep strategy and inventive themes. Board games even have their own day: International Tabletop Day, which for 2018 falls on Saturday.

So how will you celebrate? There’s a game out there for everyone, and the hobby has grown only bigger since we first did this list a couple of years ago, so it’s time for an update. Here are 16 games that are great for families.

To make the list, the games had to require some strategy or brain power but still be simple enough to understand so kids won’t be reaching for the iPad halfway through the directions. Most of these games can be played in less time than it takes to watch a movie, and unlike, say, Monopoly, you’ll actually finish the games. Most important: Every one of them has a pretty good chance of leading to a memorable afternoon.

1. CARCASSONNE

A classic that couldn’t be simpler to learn. Every turn, you draw a tile and put it down to expand the medieval kingdom on your table, and you place your pawns (gamers call them “meeples”) in the kingdom to score points. Smaller kids can play, and you can help them as they go. Among adults, play gets a little more aggressive. When it’s all over, take a moment to survey your kingdom.

2. BROOM SERVICE

A zany little game in which characters are witches, druids and little gnome-like creatures called “gatherers” who try to collect and deliver potions. But it has enough tough decisions to keep adults from mastering it. On every turn, you get to decide whether you want to take a safe, moderately rewarding action, or go for broke and maybe get nothing! Or everything! But probably nothing! Kids who get easily frustrated when bad things happen might not enjoy this one as much as some of the others on the list. For adults, this game is worth it just to hear yourself telling everyone else at the table: “I am the cowardly fruit gatherer.” They will nod knowingly. They have always known that, you see.

3. ZOOLORETTO

Players run their own zoos, competing to get the right animal tiles to fill their pens. I like to think this is how the Minnesota Zoo and Como Zoo do it, too: They show up at a warehouse and quietly stare each other down over who gets the last giraffe. Anyway, the game has monkeys, flamingoes, zebras and other animals that are perennials on kids’ year-end best-of lists, and it’s easy to teach. Warning: Put a male and female animal in the same pen and you get a baby animal, which nets you points and the occasional awkward question.

4. SHADOWS OVER CAMELOT

This is a cooperative game, which we love at our house. Everyone is allied trying to beat the game itself. In this one, up to seven players are members of Arthur’s Round Table and must work together to complete various quests before Camelot is overrun by Saxons and Picts and the like. But here’s the twist: One of the knights might secretly be a traitor on evil’s payroll. So the game can devolve hilariously into suspicion and crazy accusations. I’ll never forget my 6-year-old’s chuckle when he flipped over his traitor card at the end of one game. Haunting.

5. SURVIVE: ESCAPE FROM ATLANTIS

Players compete to guide their island-stranded people to safety through an ocean teeming with sharks, whales and sea monsters, which the other players take turns controlling. So, if you’re the parent, expect to be eaten. A lot. If your children are like mine, they will sympathetically make chomping and “nom-nom-nom” sounds as their creatures dine on you. There’s also now a space-themed version of this, which I haven’t tried.

6. ONE NIGHT ULTIMATE WEREWOLF

You know you’ve been meaning to teach your family to lie to you more effectively. Now it’s time to buckle down and get that done. This game of deduction and bluffing has players trying to determine who among them are werewolves, while the werewolves try to stay safely hidden. It usually results in pandemonium, mutual suspicion, and lots of good-natured yelling. It plays in about 10 minutes, so you can get in a lot of games in a short time and no one really remembers or cares who wins or loses — it’s all about making hilarious accusations and catching your family members in not-at-all-well-considered lies.

7. STONE AGE

Each player controls a tribe of prehistoric tokens, and on each turn sends tribe members out to do certain tasks, like hunting, mining, farming, procreating, etc. It’s strategic but always a little silly, especially when you realize you’ve run out of food and you are going to have to feed your tribe that gold you so painstakingly mined. This one isn’t for little kids, but smart 9-year-olds with a decent attention span will have no trouble. It has all sorts of bits of wood, clay and gold to play with, and you can talk like a caveperson throughout.

8. DIXIT

If you want to be surprised/delighted/horrified by the depths of kids’ imagination, try this one. In each round, a player uses a word or phrase to describe the picture she’s looking at, and the other players come up with a picture from their own hand of cards that might match the description. The pictures are just weird enough to inspire dizzy, offbeat descriptions, and creative kids will be in heaven.

9. TICKET TO RIDE

This one’s a top seller that you can find at Target, and though it’s not necessarily for kids, it’s simple enough for young ones to learn and play. Players compete to build train routes across the U.S., and when one player builds a route, it could block the path a rival player needs. So there’s a possibility of heartbreak at every turn, which is what makes it tense and fun. You do learn a little geography along the way, but try not to notice that on the game board, they must not have been able to fit the words “Minneapolis/St. Paul,” so they went with the common abbreviation “Duluth.” If the game’s a hit on your tabletop, other maps are available, from Europe to Asia.

10. FORBIDDEN ISLAND

Imagine you had to collect four precious artifacts from an eerie island and escape before the whole thing sinks beneath the waves. Who would you want on your team? If you answered “My spouse and children, of course,” I’ve just the game for you. In this cooperative game, you’ll be discussing the best moves and working together to solve the big puzzle. Best of all, you can usually find this game for less than $20.

11. TAKENOKO

Good games don’t get much cuter and gentler than this one. There’s a panda in a Japanese garden, and players take turns expanding the garden, tending the bamboo, or letting the panda eat. Kids love to play with the panda figurine that’s included, the game is lovely to look at, and it’s over in less than an hour. Adults will spend their time working hard to produce bamboo, and the kids will again make chomping sounds as they devour all your hard work. Just like life.

12. CAMEL UP

There’s not a lot of strategy here, but it’s fun and easy to get the hang of. Camels are in a race around a pyramid, and players take on the roles of wealthy gamblers who wager on … camel races? Sure. Anyway, you bet on which camel will win each leg of the race, as well as which camel will be the grand champion (and which camel is a metaphor for the Twins playing the Yankees). It has a big chunky pyramid in the middle of the board that kids will enjoy turning upside down to reveal the dice. You won’t believe how invested you will get in the outcome of this race until you are yelling: “Go, orange, go!” Orange will then proceed to very deliberately not go.

13. SCOTLAND YARD

A classic. One player is Mr. X, the master criminal on the loose in London who is stays cleverly hidden despite wearing a cap that clearly says “Mr. X” on it. The other players are detectives, working together to corner and capture Mr. X. But these detectives are on a tight budget and have a limited number of tickets for subway, bus and taxi rides. That makes it a lot more difficult to catch this X character. This game just calls out for nonstop taunting. Players who are working on British accents will be in heaven, too, as there’s nothing like taunting delivered in a bad British accent.

14. SMALL WORLD

If you have older children, they may be ready for this slightly more involved game. Players pick a civilization of orcs or sorcerers or trolls or a dozen other “Lord of the Rings”-type beings, and try to control as much of a cramped world as they can. The race of civilization they picked gets a special power, which changes every time you play. It’s a funnier, faster and more interesting form of Risk — the sort of game I would have been obsessed with had it been around when I was 12. Take note, however, that the game’s art, though cartoony, depicts female characters as though only 12-year-old boys will be playing.

15. CLANK!

This belongs to a style of games called “deckbuilders,” in which players start with a few cards and collect more, building their own deck to reflect their strategy for the game. This one has a fun board, as well. Players are Indiana Jones-esque hunters of treasures and antiquities who go into the dungeons and caverns in search of loot. Of course there’s a dragon down there. The game has great tension as you decide how far you can push your luck before you start racing back to the surface with your booty. There’s a version in space, as well, though I haven’t played that.

16. CASTLE PANIC

Another cooperative game, in which you and your teammates defend the castle from a growing horde of monsters. Here are snippets of dialogue from a typical game. “We’ll have to deal with those orcs in the forest later.” “Those orcs are getting closer, but we better kill that pack of trolls first.” “Um, the orcs are smashing the castle walls.” “I thought YOU were going to deal with the orcs! I ALWAYS have to deal with the orcs.” “I say we welcome the orcs.” “Good thing we finally dispatched those orcs. Now, let’s celebrate by … Wait, who set the castle on fire? Was it the orcs?”

WHERE TO BUY GAMES

You can find a few of these in some of the discount retailers and more at Barnes & Noble, but you might want to check out some local stores that specialize in board games. Here are a few in the east metro: