Party games to play with friends (the ones people ask for again)
An honest list of party games that work with real groups of friends, from no-prep classics to phone games for big groups, and which one to play when.
Most lists of party games are written by someone who has never had to get eight tired adults to agree on anything. We make party games, so we’ve seen the other side: lots of good ideas dying in the first two minutes of a game night.
So instead of fifty games you’ll never play, here are the ones that hold up, sorted by the kind of night you’re having.
First, a rule that saves most parties
Pick a game that starts in under a minute. The moment someone says “okay, let me just explain the rules”, half the room picks up their phone. Every game below can be explained in a sentence or two, and most teach themselves after the first round.
Second rule: let the quiet person pick the next game. They usually pick well, and it pulls them in.
When everyone is already on their phone
Fighting the phones rarely works. Use them instead.
Faker is one of our most popular games, and it’s easy to see why. Everyone gets the same secret word except one player, who has to bluff through the clue round. Each clue is a single word, so rounds are quick, and the vote at the end is where the shouting starts. It works for 3 to 12 players.
Doodle Gallery is the one to pick if your group swears nobody can draw. That’s the point. Everyone draws the same prompt on their own phone, the gallery opens anonymously and people vote for their favourite. The worst drawing in the room wins more often than you’d think.
If you’ve got music people in the group, Song Battles settles the “who has the best taste” argument with a knockout bracket. Two players get a theme, say “road trip anthem”, each picks a song, and the rest vote without knowing whose is whose. No voting for your mate out of loyalty.
When the group is big
Twelve people or more changes everything. Turn-based games crawl, because everyone is waiting for everyone else.
Go for games where all players answer at once. Closest Wins asks trivia questions with a number for an answer (how tall, how far, how many) and the closest guess scores most. Nobody needs to know the exact answer, which is why it works with mixed groups. Price Check is the same idea with real products and their prices, and it reliably exposes the friend who has no idea what anything costs. Both take up to 20 players.
For friends who love an argument
Some groups enjoy the debate more than the game. Feed that.
Tier List has everyone rank the same category from S to F in secret, and the group’s combined list becomes the “right” answer. You score by agreeing with the group. Sounds tame, until someone puts a food everyone hates in S tier and spends five minutes defending it.
Wavelength is gentler but sneakily divisive. One player sees a secret spot on a scale, say Cold to Hot, and gives a one-line clue. Everyone else sets their own dial to find it. You learn very quickly that “a cup of tea” means something different to everyone.
Old-school games that need nothing
No phones, no cards, nothing to set up. Keep a couple of these up your sleeve for when the Wi-Fi gives up.
- Charades. Act out a film, book or song without speaking. Split into two teams and keep a one-minute limit per turn, or it drags.
- Mafia (or Werewolf). A few players are secretly the killers and the rest have to find them. You need a narrator and it’s best with 8 or more. Brilliant, but give it a proper half hour.
- Two truths and a lie. Everyone says three things about themselves and the others guess the lie. Better with people who don’t know each other well yet.
- Who am I? Stick a famous name on someone’s forehead with a sticky note. They ask yes-or-no questions until they get it.
When people don’t really know each other
A friend’s birthday where you know three people. The first night of a group trip. You want games where nobody can be “bad” at it.
How Well Do You Know Me? sounds like it needs close friends, but it works surprisingly well with new ones. One person answers a question about themselves from the hot seat and everyone else guesses what they picked. You learn more about people in ten minutes than in an hour of small talk. Closest Wins is the other safe pick: no one is embarrassed by a bad guess at a number.
For a longer night in
Got a whole evening and a smaller group? Try something with more depth. Vanished is a detective game for 3 to 6 players: a treasure has gone missing, and you question each other and rule out cards until you can name who took it, where and how. Truth Be Told is cooperative. Each player is a witness who saw a different part of the same event, and the group has to piece the story together. Neither is a five-minute game, and that’s fine.
How we’d run the night
If you want a plan: start with something everyone plays at the same time, like Closest Wins or Price Check, while people are still arriving. Switch to Faker once everyone has sat down. Then hand the choice to someone who hasn’t picked yet. When the energy dips, Doodle Gallery brings it back, because watching your friends’ drawings appear one by one is funny every single time.
All the phone games above run on Guezzer. One person opens a room in the browser, the others join on their own phones with the code or a link. No accounts and nothing to install (there’s an Android app if you’d rather). It’s free to play. Then again, so is charades.
