G’day mates! With Australia Day coming up in January, we are looking at some of the best board games to play on Australia Day.
For those not clued in, you might ask, what is Australia Day? It’s a national holiday marking the 1788 landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove. We’ve chosen board games to celebrate the extraordinary landscape, deadly animals, and hilarious slang lingo down under.
Find the best Australia Day board games below to make your holiday weekend even more fun.
🏆 Our Top Picks for Best Australia Day Board Games
In a hurry? Take a quick peek before you go.
AuZtralia
Players: 1–4
Playing time: 30-120mins
Set in the 1930s in an alternate reality, the northern hemisphere has been poisoned. The masses are starving while seeking to explore and settle in new lands in Australia, but little do they know that the Old Ones will awaken and become active players in the world.
AuZtralia is a cooperative board game in which players need to build ports, construct railways, and mine and farm for food. Time is of the essence because soon, you’ll need to fight the Old Ones.
AuZtralia is all about strategy and preparation and is a great way to spend your Australia Day!
Wingspan (with Oceania Expansion)
Players: 1-5
Playing time: 40-70mins
Wingspan is a competitive engine-building board game all about birds.
Wingspan has players take on the role of a researcher, watcher, ornithologist, or collector, seeking to discover and attract more birds to your sanctuary. You’ll work to create a chain of powerful combinations and grow your habitat.
In the Oceania expansion, you’ll see colorful and awe-inspiring birds of Oceania. This expansion includes new player mats and food types so you can explore the new environment.
Australia’s Deadliest Animals Bingo
The stakes are even higher with these deadly animals.
Australia’s Deadliest Animals Bingo is a family-friendly game packed with weird, wonderful, terrifying creatures. From Tasmanian devils to the flamboyant cuttlefish, there are venomous, spiny, and toothy animals to watch out for.
The game comes with beautifully illustrated animal tokens and brightly colored counters making it a brilliant game for kids to play and learn. Plus, it’s also always fun to shout out ‘BINGO!’.
Boomerang: Australia
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 30-45mins
Boomerang has players touring Australia, trying to see and do as much as possible. In the game, however, your cards could come back to you. In this card drafting game, players select one card from their hand to play, passing the rest of their cards to the next player.
You’ll need to strategize whether you’ll take the card you really want or deprive the next player of an exciting card. When you play this fun game, you’ll learn about the sites, animals, and cities to see in Australia.
Aussie Animal Match
Aussie Animal Match is a fantastic memory game for animal lovers. The animals have lost their mums and dads; you’ll have to figure out where they’re hiding and reunite them with their parents.
The rules are very simple in this family-friendly card game, making it a great educational tool for young kids. Once the memory game is complete, you can browse through the color booklet with extra information about the animals.
Aussie Animal Match is a great gift for kids to play at home or in the classroom.
Power Grid: Australia & Indian Subcontinent Expansion
Players: 2–6
Playing time: 120mins
If you’re already a fan of the Power Grid series of games, definitely give the Australia & Indian Subcontinent expansion a go.
The board game starts with Australia having disconnected power networks, with only the big cities maintaining their power. Players will have to start with one of these cities and work to create a single connected power network. A fun added element is mining. Australia mines enormous masses of material which gives an added challenge for experienced players.
In the Indian Subcontinent, players build networks with limited resources, limited budgets, and the added danger of colossal power outages.
Australia
Players: 2-5
Playing time: 60-90mins
Set in 1920s Australia, players control their own group of Rangers, working on nature and industry projects. Each region contains a face-down industrial counter and a face-up nature counter. On the border is where you’ll place your Ranger’s ships or camps. Players earn points for completing industrial or nature projects.
Australia is a brilliant option if you’re looking for a game with an area majority mechanism as it combines strategy and exploration.
Survivor: The Australian Outback
Players: 4-8
Playing time: 60mins
Ever watched CBS Survivor adventure show? Now, it’s a board game set in the Australian Outback.
Like the TV show, you’ll have to outwit, outplay, and outlast to be named the ultimate survivor. In this campaign-style game, players try to collect survival items to win immunity. But, you’ll need to strike the right balance with your strategy because all is remembered when it’s tribal council time. One by one, players will be voted out; the last one standing wins the game!
Will the tribal council spare you?
Aussie Slang Card Game
If you’re traveling down under or missing Aussie lingo back home, this Aussie Slang card game is a fun visual flashcard deck to increase vocabulary and pronunciation skills.
Learning the lingo doesn’t have to be complicated. You can play these cards and pick up the language and lingo in no time. Each set functions like a standard deck of cards, four suits, 52 playing cards, and two jokers. On these cards are the best and most useful Aussie slang phrases.
The beauty of this card game is that you can play all the usual Poker, Black Jack, Crazy Eights, etc., and learn Aussie phrases like “Not Within Cooee,” meaning “A Long Way Away”.
1848: Australia
Players: 3-6
Playing time: 200-240mins
1848: Australia is a semi-historical railroad game.
If you’re a fan of economic board games, you’ll love 1848: Australia, as it’s all about stocks, markets, and network building.
Two different series of actions are repeated until the game ends. In the stock rounds, players buy and sell shares in various railroading companies; these are tracked on the stock market mat.
Then, there’s the operating round. During this round, players take on the role of company directors to build, track and place stations on the map, then purchase trains for income.
Wrap-Up
Whether you’re an Aussie or not, these Australian-themed board games will allow you to join in on the fun! Let us know which board game you’ll be playing on the 26th!
We hope you enjoyed our list of the best Australia Day board games to play with friends and family! Have you tried any of these games? Drop a comment below. We’d love to hear from you!
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Ready Player Christine. Since my first D&D game, which took a turn for the weird and wacky (probably my influence), the world of board and tabletop games came alive. Now today, I get to write about these fantastical, fictional, and downright fun worlds.