Quick games to play with friends when you've only got ten minutes
Fast games for short gaps, like waiting for food or the time before you head out. They all start in under a minute and most need nothing but your phones.
Not every game night is a game night. Sometimes it’s the twenty minutes before the taxi turns up, or the bit at a restaurant after you’ve ordered and before anyone’s food arrives. A long game is the wrong call there. A quick one is perfect.
Here’s what fits into a short gap.
Under five minutes
Higher or Lower. Does this artist have more monthly listeners on Spotify than that one? Does this song have more streams? You pick higher or lower and you’ve got three lives. It moves fast and suits 2 to 8 people. Everyone thinks they know music until they lose to the friend who listens to one album on repeat.
Closest Wins, but just two questions. You don’t have to play a full game of Closest Wins. Do two number questions, crown a winner, done.
The alphabet game. No phone needed. Pick a category, footballers or cheeses or whatever, and go round the table A, B, C. Hesitate too long and you’re out. Somebody always gets stuck on Q.
About ten minutes
Faker. One round takes a few minutes: one-word clues, a quick argument, a vote. Two or three rounds fill ten minutes nicely, and with a small group most people get a turn as the faker.
Wavelength. Good for two people or a small group. One clue, everyone turns their dial, reveal. You can stop after any round without feeling like you left something unfinished.
Outwit the AI. Write a clue for your secret word that your friends will get and the AI won’t. It’s a word game with a twist, for 3 to 10 players, and it’s very satisfying when the AI gets it completely wrong.
If it’s just the two of you
Plenty of quick games assume a crowd. With two people, Wavelength works well because you take turns giving the clue, and so do Higher or Lower and Closest Wins. Faker doesn’t. It needs at least three players, and it’s much better with five or more, so the faker has somewhere to hide.
No phones? Twenty questions is still the best two-player time-killer ever invented. One of you thinks of something, the other gets twenty yes-or-no questions.
In a restaurant or a bar
Loud room, everyone seated, nobody wants to get up. Phone games work well here because nobody has to shout across the table.
Price Check is a fun one while you’re waiting for the bill (yes, we see the irony). Timeline is another: put historical events in the right order without seeing the year. Every wrong guess costs a life. You’ll be amazed how many people place the fax machine after the moon landing. The first fax patent is from 1843, more than a century earlier.
In the car (as a passenger)
Please don’t do any of this if you’re the one driving. For everyone else, voice-only games are best: the alphabet game, twenty questions, would you rather. Phone games are fine for passengers, but car sickness is real, so keep them short.
Why short games beat long ones
A ten-minute game you finish is better than an hour-long one you abandon halfway because the food arrived. Short games also mean more people get to pick what’s next. And people are much more willing to try something new when they know it’ll be over before their drink is.
Getting started fast
The phone games here all run on Guezzer. One of you opens a room in the browser, the others scan the QR code or type in the room code, and you’re playing. There’s no sign-up, which matters when you’ve got ten minutes and one friend who will definitely have forgotten their password.
