If there is something I have loved about this summer, it has undoubtedly been spending time with my friends. Especially those days at the country house where, beyond eating, having a drink, and talking until late, the moment came to bring out a board game to see who gets competitive first. Among all the ones we have tried, there is one that has become our favorite: Hitster.
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I discovered it playing with my friends, but I have also shared it with my family, and seeing my aunts and my mother debate about the year a song came out is a spectacle. You don’t need to be the greatest music expert in the world; as long as you have listened to songs, have some memory, and are willing to defend a date with confidence you don’t really have, that’s enough.
Also, Hitster: Battle Between Generations, just won the award for best game at the 2026 Best Toy Awards.
Hitster: the game that turns any song into a battle
It’s as simple as listening to a song and placing it in chronological order. The rules are simple; the hard part is guessing when that song everyone knows came out.
This edition, Battle Between Generations, allows you to choose between three musical eras: Vinyl Classics, before 1984; Cassette and CD Hits, from 1985 to 2004; and Streaming Songs, from 2005 to 2025. In total, it includes 420 songs and is designed for games of two to ten players, lasting about 30 minutes.
When you play with people of different ages, your mother might know a song you didn’t even know existed, and you might be able to recognize a 2010 track in two seconds.
How do you play Hitster?
Each player or team starts with a card that serves as a starting point to create their own musical timeline. Then the DJ comes into action, scanning the QR code on a card with the free Hitster app to start playing the song.
Then you just have to decide whether that song came out before, after, or between the ones you already have placed on your timeline. You place the card face down where you think it belongs and then reveal the year.
If you guessed right, the card stays with you. If you were wrong, it is discarded. The first to correctly place 10 songs on their timeline wins the game, but there are also Hitster tokens that add even more excitement to the game. You can use them to skip a song you don’t know, try to steal a card from another player if you think they placed it wrong, or exchange several tokens for a new card.
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Why do I think it’s such a good plan?
What I like most about Hitster isn’t even winning, but everything that happens around each card. Because a song starts playing and, before anyone has even thought about the year, we’re all shouting:
“This is from the 90s!”, “No, no, this is much older!”, “But they played this song when I was a kid!”.
Suddenly, a game that was going to last half an hour turns into a conversation about concerts, summers, clubs, trips, songs that remind us of someone, and that time when we all listened to exactly the same thing.
That Hitster has now received the recognition as best game at the 2026 Best Toy Awards seems like a great choice to me because it fits a trend these awards are highlighting: playing is not exclusively for children. Adults maintain their connection with toys through board games, collecting, building, creativity, or nostalgia.
And I think that’s the charm of Hitster: you sing, remember, compete, and laugh. It uses music as an excuse to bring us together and share moments, no matter our generation.
[Remember that if you are an Amazon Prime user, all purchases have free shipping. Amazon offers a free, no-commitment 30-day trial period.]
*All purchase prices included in this article are updated as of September 18, 2026.
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