party games

This is a selection of party games I've heard about. Most of them are for smallish groups of 5-15 people in a living room sized area and don't require much to play besides some chairs. The general idea of this page is to give a group of bored people at someone's house something entertaining to do. If you're with a bunch of friends and you're bored, this page is for you. If you know of more games, please send them in.

  1. Triangle in the room - Make a triangle between three objects and ask who owns the triangle
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  2. Japanese writing - Place pens or pencils on a flat surface as if you're creating a Japanese word. (It can be anything you want) Ask whose name you wrote in Japanese
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  3. Mind reader - One person steps out of the room, while their partner has the rest of the people think up a yes or no question and the appropriate answer. The partner returns to the room, places their hands on the partner's temples and reads his mind to get the correct answer.
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  4. Black magic - One person leaves the room and the group picks an item. The person returns to the room and their partner points to different objects, asking each time if that one is it. They partner somehow knows when the correct object is chosen.
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  5. Smell on a stick - One person leaves the room and the group picks a spot on the stick. The person returns and smells along the stick, then stops at the point the group chose.
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  6. Signs - All but one person in the group has to come up with a sign of their own while the one person is not in the room. One person is selected to begin the game. Once they have finished, they invite the person back into the room with the goal of identifying the person who is it by saying, "Do you have it?" The people in the group have to do the sign of another person in the circle to pass the sign to that person, and play continues until the person in the middle is able to catch the person who currently has the sign.
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  7. Mafia - One person is the narrator and runs through day and night scenarios (at night everyone has to close their eyes). During the night, members of the mafia kill off someone in the circle, and detectives have a chance to identify a potential mafia member. Once everyone awakes, the group is informed who died, and then the group votes on who to kill in the hopes that they can kill off the mafia members before the mafia kills them.
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  8. Spoons - A fast-paced card game of matching and bluffing played with an ordinary pack of playing cards and several ordinary kitchen spoons. Spoons is played in multiple rounds and each player's objective is to be the first in the round to have four of a kind, or to not be the last to grab a spoon. Spoons is most popular among children and teenagers, though many adults play it as well.
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  9. Don't Smile - A person is in the middle of the circle and goes around trying to make another person in the circle smile. Anything goes
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  10. Wink'em - The group is in a circle, with people standing behind chairs with all but one of the chairs occupied. The person standing behind the empty chair winks at someone in a chair and the person in the chair tries to run to the empty chair before the person standing behind them can grab onto their shoulders.
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  11. The Dictionary Game - Members of the group make up their own definitions for obscure words in the dictionary and the other team has to pick the correct definition from the bunch.
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  12. The tower of flour - A tall cup of flour with a coin at the bottom is packed tightly and flipped over onto a newspaper. Players go around the circle using a knife to shave off portions of the flour. Whoever makes the tower flour collapse has to find the coin with their mouth.
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  13. 20 Questions - One person in the group thinks of an item and the rest of the group tries to guess the item by asking 20 yes and no questions
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  14. Psychiatrist - The players sit in a circle, with one player sitting in the middle of the circle. The player in the middle is the psychiatrist, and the players in the circle are the patients. The patients all share a common affliction. The psychiatrist must ask three yes/no questions to each patient, going around the circle indefinitely, until he or she discovers the illness that affects all of the players.
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  15. Who are you? - Before the game begins, suggest playing a very interesting and funny game. Ask each person to write down a list of 10 animals in a column on a sheet of paper.
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  16. After the manner of the Adverb - One guy goes outside and the rest of the group picks an adverb.

    The outsider comes in and picks a person/persons to act out a scenario of the outsider's choice, after the manner of the adverb.
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  17. Story Evolution - One person starts a story, then each person in the group adds to it.
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  18. Word Evolution - Write down a short word (4-5 letters works well) on a piece of paper and pass it to the next person in the group. Each person must create a new word by changing a single letter of the existing word. Play continues until a player is unable to create a new word.
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  19. Eat Poop You Cat - This is a hilarious game that's like the game of telephone using drawings instead of speaking. The crazier the ideas the better. General game play is to write down a sentence or phrase, then pass it to the next person, who draws a visual depiction of the phrase, then folds the paper over so only the drawing is visible. The next person writes a caption for the picture they see, then folds the paper to make only the caption visible, and play continues until every member of the group has had a turn.
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  20. Candles and water - Find a dark area that can get wet (outside perhaps), candles, glasses of water and at least four players.
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  21. Novel game - Assemble a list of real and fake first lines of novels. Here are a few to start you off.
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  22. Can I Go Too? - There are several variations, but the basic premise is to say you're going somewhere and taking along an object. Then the other players suggest an object that they want to take and ask if they can go too.
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Updated Mar 07, 2024