50 Party Games for Every Occasion and Group Size

The best party games for most groups are Wink Murder while people are still mingling, Celebrity (also called Fishbowl) when you want one game the whole room plays together, and Codenames once people are sitting down. All three can be taught in under a minute and need nothing you cannot find in a kitchen drawer, except Codenames, which needs the box. If you only remember one thing from this page, remember that combination.

The rest of this list is sorted by the situation you are in, because a great game in the wrong room dies fast. Three questions narrow it down:

• How many people? Under six, play table games. Six to twelve, almost anything works. Past twelve, pick games with no turns or split into teams.
• How much prep? Zero means charades and its cousins. Ten minutes means slips of paper or a printed list. A box or an app means someone has to bring it.
• How much energy? A loud, standing, drinking room wants fast physical games. A dinner table wants conversation games. Misjudge this and you get eight polite people staring at a rule sheet.

Every game below has its player count, rough length, and one honest line about when it does not work.

The best party games at a glance

Fun party games with no prep at all

These are the games to play at a party when nothing is planned. Every one of them can start in the next thirty seconds. For more games built purely on talking, see our guide to conversation games.

1. Charades

One person acts out a movie, book or song title without speaking while their team guesses against a one-minute timer. Hold up fingers for the number of words, tug your ear for “sounds like.” Teams take turns and write prompts for each other.

Players: 4–20 in two teams. Time: 20–40 minutes. Skip it when: the group is shy or mostly strangers. Being the first person to mime in front of people you met an hour ago is a hard ask.

2. Wink Murder

One person is secretly the murderer and kills by winking at people. A victim waits a few seconds, then dies as dramatically as they like. Anyone can accuse; a wrong accusation puts the accuser out.

Players: 8–40. Time: as long as you like, in the background. Skip it when: there are fewer than eight people. With five, the murderer is caught on the second wink.

3. Two Truths and a Lie

Each person says three things about themselves, one of them false, and the group votes on the lie. The best lies are dull and the best truths are strange. You can find the rules and how to write a lie nobody spots if people get stuck.

Players: 4–10 per circle. Time: about two minutes per person. Skip it when: you have 20 people in one circle. It becomes an hour of waiting, so split into smaller circles.

4. Would You Rather

Someone offers two choices, everyone picks one and defends it. The game lives in the arguing, so give each question a minute before moving on. For ready-made prompts, use the rules and 60 Would You Rather questions instead of inventing them on the spot.

Players: 2–15. Time: 10–30 minutes. Skip it when: it is the only thing planned for the evening. It fills gaps well and runs out of energy after half an hour.

5. 20 Questions

One person thinks of a person, place or thing. Everyone else gets twenty yes-or-no questions to guess it. Start broad (“Is it alive?”) and narrow down. The the 20 Questions rules and good things to pick help when the group argues about what counts as a yes-or-no question.

Players: 2–10. Time: 5 minutes a round. Skip it when: the group is loud and scattered. It needs everyone listening to the same questions.

6. Contact

One player, the defender, thinks of a word and reveals its first letter. Others give clues to words starting with that letter. If another player understands a clue, both shout “contact,” count to three and say the word together. If the defender cannot block it first, they reveal the next letter.

Players: 4–12. Time: 15–30 minutes. Skip it when: half the table does not enjoy word games. The fast players end up playing among themselves.

7. Celebrity (Fishbowl)

Everyone writes three names on slips of paper into a bowl. Two teams play three rounds with the same slips: describe freely, then one word only, then mime only. By round three, the group has built its own shorthand, and that is where the laughing starts.

Players: 6–20. Time: 45–60 minutes. Skip it when: you have less than 45 minutes. The payoff is in round three, so stopping after round one wastes it.

8. Who Am I?

Stick a note with a famous name on each guest’s forehead. They ask yes-or-no questions of anyone they talk to until they work out who they are. It gives strangers a reason to talk, and a guest arriving late gets a note at the door.

Players: 6–50. Time: the first hour of a party. Skip it when: everyone is seated at one table. It works because people move around.

Best party games for big groups

Most games are designed for six. Past twelve, pick games where nobody waits for a turn, or split the room into teams. Our list of party games for large groups covers exactly where each one breaks down.

9. Mafia (Werewolf)

A moderator secretly assigns roles: a few mafia members, a detective, a doctor, and townspeople. At night, the mafia picks a victim with eyes open while everyone else sleeps. By day, the town argues and votes someone out. It is the most famous of the social deduction games, and it needs only a moderator who likes drama.

Players: 7–20. Time: 30–60 minutes. Skip it when: people hate being eliminated early. The first ones out spend most of the game watching.

10. Assassin

Each guest gets a slip with a target’s name and a task: get them to take an object from you, or to say a specific word. Succeed, and you inherit your victim’s target. The last one standing wins.

Players: 10–40. Time: all evening. Skip it when: guests leave early. Every early exit breaks a link in the chain, and the host ends up reassigning targets.

11. Pictionary in teams

A drawer from each team gets the same word, and both race to get their team to guess it on a whiteboard or big paper. Racing both teams at once keeps everyone involved.

Players: 6–20. Time: 30 minutes. Skip it when: the room has no wall space or big sheet of paper. Drawing on a phone for twelve people does not work.

12. Team pub quiz

Teams of four to six, a quizmaster, and five rounds of ten questions with a picture round in the middle. Team size stays the same whatever the headcount, which is why it holds up at 60 people.

Players: 12–100. Time: 60–90 minutes. Skip it when: nobody wants to write the questions. A bad quiz is worse than no quiz.

13. Scavenger hunt

Teams of four or five get a list and a time limit: find things, photograph things, get strangers to do things. Points for each item, bonus points for style.

Players: 12–60. Time: 45–90 minutes. Skip it when: you are stuck in one small apartment. It needs space or a neighborhood to roam.

14. Human Knot

Stand in a circle, grab two different hands across the circle, then untangle into one ring without letting go. It takes five to fifteen minutes and gets people laughing at close range.

Players: 8–12 per knot. Time: 10 minutes. Skip it when: people are holding drinks or don’t know each other at all. It is a lot of touching for strangers.

15. Signs

Everyone in a circle invents a small gesture. One person stands in the middle. The circle secretly passes a “turn” by doing their own sign and then someone else’s, while the person in the middle tries to catch it happening.

Players: 10–25. Time: 20 minutes. Skip it when: you have fewer than ten people. The guesser sees everything and wins instantly.

Party games for adults

Adult parties can handle games that would be awkward at a family barbecue. For the full list, including options with no drinking, see our party games for adults, and for a milestone night, the guide to birthday party games for adults.

16. Never Have I Ever

Everyone holds up five fingers. Players take turns saying something they have never done, and anyone who has done it lowers a finger (or drinks). The first person out of fingers loses. You can grab the rules and 30 clean prompts.

Players: 4–12. Time: 20–30 minutes. Skip it when: coworkers or exes are in the circle. It is built to surface things, and some things should stay buried.

17. Paranoia

Whisper a question to the person on your right whose answer is someone in the room (“Who here would survive longest on a desert island?”). They say the name out loud. The named person can flip a coin or take a drink to hear the question.

Players: 5–12. Time: 20 minutes. Skip it when: there is tension in the group. Hearing your name with no context is the whole joke, and it can land badly.

18. Kings Cup

Spread a deck face down around a cup. Each card has a rule: a 2 means pick someone to drink, a 7 means everyone points up, a king means pour some of your drink into the center cup. The fourth king drinks it.

Players: 4–10. Time: 30–45 minutes. Skip it when: some guests are not drinking. They get left out of half the rules.

19. Beer Pong

Two teams of two, ten cups in a triangle at each end of a table. Throw ping pong balls into the other team’s cups; they drink the ones you sink. First to clear the other side wins. Water in the cups works just as well.

Players: 2–4 at a time, winner stays on. Time: 10 minutes a game. Skip it when: there is no long table or room to throw. It also only occupies four people at a time.

20. Cards Against Humanity

One judge reads a black card with a blank. Everyone else plays the funniest white card from their hand, and the judge picks a winner. The judge role rotates each round.

Players: 4–20. Time: 30–60 minutes. Skip it when: the group doesn’t share a sense of humor. The cards are built to offend, and some rooms go quiet instead of laughing.

21. Monikers

The bought version of Celebrity, with a deck of well-written cards about historical figures, internet memes and absurd concepts. The same three rounds: describe, one word, mime.

Players: 4–20. Time: 45–60 minutes. Skip it when: you already have paper and pens and a group that likes writing its own clues. Fishbowl does the same thing for free.

22. Blind taste test

Pour five cheap and expensive versions of the same thing (wine, whiskey, potato chips, salsa) into unlabeled cups. Guests rank them and guess the price. Somebody always picks the cheapest one as their favorite.

Players: 4–20. Time: 30 minutes. Skip it when: nobody wants to shop the day before. It is the one game here that needs real preparation.

Party games for teens

Teens want games that are fast, a little physical, and don’t make one person stand alone in the spotlight for long. Everything here works at a sleepover or a birthday.

23. This or That

Call out two options, pizza or tacos, beach or mountains, and everyone jumps to one side of the room. Anyone alone on their side has to defend the choice for ten seconds. There is the rules and 50 This or That questions if you need prompts.

Players: 6–30. Time: 10–15 minutes. Skip it when: there is nowhere to move. Played seated, it turns into a list of opinions.

24. Sardines

Hide and seek in reverse. One person hides, everyone else searches, and anyone who finds the hider quietly squeezes into the hiding spot with them. The last person searching hides next round.

Players: 6–20. Time: 10 minutes a round. Skip it when: the house is small or parents want half the rooms off-limits. It needs real places to hide.

25. Spoons

Put spoons in the middle, one fewer than there are players. Pass cards around the circle quickly, trying to collect four of a kind. Whoever gets four grabs a spoon, and then everyone grabs. The player without a spoon gets a letter; spell S-P-O-O-N and you are out.

Players: 3–13. Time: 20 minutes. Skip it when: there is anything breakable on the table. The grab gets rough.

26. Ninja

Everyone stands in a circle, strikes a pose and freezes. On your turn, you make one quick move to hit someone’s hand; they can dodge in one move. Hit hands are out behind the back, and the last ninja standing wins.

Players: 3–12. Time: 5 minutes a round. Skip it when: the room is crowded with furniture. Somebody will lunge into a lamp.

27. Heads Up!

The phone app: one player holds the phone to their forehead while everyone else shouts clues for the word on screen. Tilt down for correct, up to pass. It is quick to start and every teen already knows it. If the decks get stale, we compared games like Heads Up that fix its weak spots.

Players: 3–15. Time: 60 seconds a turn. Skip it when: the group is bigger than about ten. Only one person plays at a time, and the rest become an audience.

28. Just Dance

The video game: dancers copy the on-screen moves while a phone or controller scores them. Up to six can dance at once, and everyone else rotates in.

Players: 2–6 at a time. Time: 3 minutes a song. Skip it when: there is no TV, or the group is too self-conscious to dance in front of each other. Start with a song everyone knows.

29. Truth or Dare

Spin a bottle or go around the circle. Each person picks a truth question or a dare. Set limits out loud before the first turn: what’s off-limits, and that anyone can pass once.

Players: 4–12. Time: 20–40 minutes. Skip it when: the group includes people who don’t know each other well. Dares escalate fast and someone ends up uncomfortable.

Phone party games

Everyone at a party already has a phone. These games use them, so there is nothing to set up but a link or a QR code.

30. Hidden Agenda

Being upfront: this one is ours. Everyone gets three secret missions on their own phone to pull off during the conversation, like getting someone to repeat a phrase or steering the talk to a specific topic. You score points for the missions nobody catches. If you think someone just ran one, you call out the catch, and the host approves it or throws it out.

It is free to play in the browser: the Classic pack is free, other packs are Pro, and only the host needs Pro. Friends join by scanning a QR code, with no app or account. In a game started in the browser, latecomers can join mid-round. It is also on iPhone.

Players: 2 and up; best with 4 or more. Time: a round runs through the evening. Skip it when: you want a game that stops the party and puts everyone’s attention in one place. This one runs underneath the conversation.

31. Jackbox Party Packs

One screen shows the game, and everyone uses their phone as a private controller. Quiplash (write the funniest answer to a prompt, the room votes) and Fibbage (invent a fake answer to a real trivia question) are the usual starting points.

Players: 3–8, plus an audience that votes. Time: 15–20 minutes a game. Skip it when: there is no TV or laptop to share. It also caps most games at eight players.

32. Gartic Phone

Telephone with drawings, in a browser. Everyone writes a sentence, the next person draws it, the next describes the drawing, and so on. At the end you watch each chain fall apart.

Players: 4–20. Time: 15 minutes a round. Skip it when: phones are low on battery or the wifi is weak. It needs everyone connected at once.

33. Psych! Outwit Your Friends

Everyone writes a fake answer to a real trivia question on their phone. The group then votes on which answer is real. You score for guessing right and for fooling people.

Players: 3–10. Time: 15 minutes a game. Skip it when: people keep asking whose phone it is. Everyone needs the app installed first.

34. Spyfall

Everyone’s phone shows the same secret location except the spy’s. Players take turns asking each other questions. Answer too vaguely and you look like the spy; too precisely and you hand the spy the location.

Players: 3–8. Time: 8 minutes a round. Skip it when: some players don’t know the locations well. A spy who has never been on a submarine gives themselves away for the wrong reason.

35. Kahoot quiz

The host puts questions on a big screen, and everyone answers on their phones against a countdown. Faster correct answers score more. Free to set up, and you can write your own questions about the guest of honor.

Players: 5–50. Time: 15–30 minutes. Skip it when: you have not written the questions. Generic public quizzes feel like school.

36. Among Us

A video game on phones. Crewmates do tasks around a spaceship while one or two impostors sabotage and eliminate them. Emergency meetings trigger a vote to throw someone out.

Players: 4–15. Time: 10–15 minutes a round. Skip it when: half the group has never played a video game. Everyone ends up heads-down in their phone, learning the map.

Party games around a table: board and card games

When people are sitting and willing to give a game their full attention, a bought game beats anything improvised.

37. Guilty Party

From the makers of Hidden Agenda: a no-host murder mystery game with no script to read aloud. One phone opens the room and the rest join by QR code in the browser, with nothing to install. Everyone gets a secret role, the case plays out in conversation, and at the end everyone accuses. Nobody is eliminated, and the first case is free.

Players: 4–6. Time: about an hour. Skip it when: you have twelve guests. It is built for a small table.

38. Codenames

Two teams, a grid of 25 words, and one spymaster per team who gives one-word clues linking several of their team’s words. Hit the assassin word and your team loses on the spot.

Players: 4–8. Time: 15 minutes a game. Skip it when: a spymaster freezes up. A slow clue-giver stalls the table, so use a sand timer.

39. Wavelength

One player sees a hidden target on a spectrum (hot to cold, overrated to underrated) and gives a clue. Their team argues about where on the dial it falls. The arguing is the game.

Players: 4–12. Time: 30–45 minutes. Skip it when: people want to win clearly. Scoring is loose, and competitive players find it too soft.

40. Just One

Cooperative word guessing. Everyone secretly writes a one-word clue for the guesser, and any duplicate clues cancel out before the guesser sees them. It plays fast and works with people who say they don’t like games.

Players: 3–7. Time: 20 minutes. Skip it when: you want competition. Everyone is on the same team.

41. Telestrations

The boxed version of Gartic Phone, with dry-erase sketchbooks. Draw the word, guess the drawing, draw the guess, and pass it on. The reveal at the end is the good part.

Players: 4–8 (12 with the party edition). Time: 30 minutes. Skip it when: you already have a room with phones and wifi. Gartic Phone does the same thing without buying anything.

42. Exploding Kittens

A card game where you draw until someone draws an exploding kitten and is out, unless they hold a defuse card. Everything else in the deck is about dodging or passing the bomb.

Players: 2–5 (up to 10 with the party pack). Time: 15 minutes. Skip it when: the group wants something to talk over. Games are short and luck decides a lot.

43. The Resistance: Avalon

Loyal knights go on quests while hidden minions sabotage them. Everyone votes on who goes on each quest, and the minions try to fail missions without being spotted.

Players: 5–10. Time: 30 minutes. Skip it when: someone at the table hates lying to friends. Deception is the whole game.

44. Skull

Each player has three flowers and one skull. Place cards face down, then bid on how many you can flip without hitting a skull. Pure bluffing, and it teaches in two minutes.

Players: 3–6. Time: 15–30 minutes. Skip it when: you have more than six. The box only supports six.

Holiday party games

Each holiday has its own guide. These are quick picks:

45. White Elephant

Everyone brings a wrapped gift under a set price. Players draw numbers, and on your turn you open a new gift or steal one already opened. Cap the steals at three per gift. More Christmas games are in our guide to Christmas party games for adults, and there is a separate list of office Christmas party games for work.

Players: 6–30. Time: 30–60 minutes. Skip it when: half the guests forgot to bring a gift.

46. Pumpkin carving contest

Teams of two get a pumpkin, tools and 30 minutes. Everyone votes at the end, and nobody can vote for their own. Pair it with the rest of our Halloween party games for adults.

Players: 4–20. Time: 45 minutes. Skip it when: the party is indoors on a nice carpet.

47. Resolution guessing

Everyone writes a New Year’s resolution on a slip without their name. The host reads them out, and the group guesses who wrote each one. For more countdown games, see New Year’s Eve party games.

Players: 6–20. Time: 20 minutes. Skip it when: nobody takes resolutions seriously. The answers turn into the same five jokes.

48. Minute to Win It

One-minute challenges with household items: stack cups into a pyramid, move cookies from forehead to mouth with no hands, bounce ping pong balls into cups. Two players compete per challenge while the room cheers.

Players: 6–30. Time: 30–45 minutes. Skip it when: nobody set up the stations in advance. Each needs its own props.

49. Finish the Lyric

The host plays the start of a song and stops the music. The first team to sing the next line correctly scores. Holiday playlists make it easy to theme.

Players: 4–20 in teams. Time: 20 minutes. Skip it when: the group spans three generations with no shared music. One team wins every round.

50. Gratitude hot seat

At Friendsgiving, one person sits in the middle while everyone else tells them one specific thing they are grateful for about them. It goes around until everyone has had a turn. There are more games for the day in our Friendsgiving games guide.

Players: 5–12. Time: 20–30 minutes. Skip it when: the group includes people who met that evening. It needs history to work.

How to pick tonight

Nothing planned and people are already here: Wink Murder, then Celebrity.

More than fifteen guests: a background game plus one team game.

A quiet table of four to six: Codenames, Skull, or Guilty Party if you have an hour.

Everyone is on their phones anyway: Gartic Phone or Hidden Agenda.

Teens: Sardines first, Spoons when they run out of energy.