1.Head’s Up
A real crowd pleaser, the Head’s Up app makes party games a doddle. Once you’ve downloaded it, one person picks a category (whether that’s Superstars, Act It Out, Animals or more), and puts the phone to their head. The phone will then display words within that category, and the other players on that person’s team have to describe the word without actually saying it, within a time limit. Once the person guesses correctly, they nod the phone forward, and it moves on to the next word. The winning team is the one that guesses the most words in the time limit.
2.Two Truths and a Lie
If you want to learn some or your mates’ deepest and darkest secrets, this is the perfect game to play, especially after a few wines. (It’s the perfect party piece for your oversharing friend.)
Pretty self-explanatory, each guest has to write two truths and lie about themselves on a piece of paper, fold it up and throw it in a bowl. You, (the host) then randomly pull them out, one at a time, and read them to your group. Everyone must then identify who the person is, and what their lie is.
3. Never Have I Ever
You probably remember playing this game in your teenage bedroom. Now you can continue the hilarity (and embarrassment) well into adulthood. Which one of your friends has spent a night in jail? Or angrily thrown a drink in someone’s face? Find out things you never knew about your friends in this game where you use cards to discover your crew’s deepest, darkest secrets. Hanging out with your mom’s friends? Shake things up with the “parenting pack.”
4.Human Cluedo
Take Mystery Word one step further with Human Cluedo, which is a great game to play over the course of a weekend. Everybody involved writes their own name down and puts it into one pot, and then a household item to put into another pot. Finally, you write as many locations as there are people down (i.e. kitchen, bathroom, garden).
Everyone picks a person, item and location. Over the weekend, each person is tasked with giving their chosen person the thing in the location. If someone does it to you, you’re dead and out of the game, so can’t try and ‘do it’ to someone else. For example, if someone manages to give you the pepper grinder on the balcony. Last person standing wins.
5.Sheet Mime
There are many different ways to play The Sheet Mime game, but the basic rules are the same. Every person playing puts a couple of nouns into a hat (typically, the more in-jokey, personal and ridiculous, the better!), and takes it in turns to play four different rounds. In the first round, each player pulls out a word and has to articulate what it says without saying the word. In the next round, pull a ~different~ word out of the bowl, and act it out. In the third round, try to describe the word using only one word. And in the fourth? Each player has to act it out under a sheet. Yeah, it gets pretty silly.
6.Truth or Dare
If you’re looking for the ultimate throwback to your teenage house party years, there’s nothing better than truth or dare. No props, cards, or game paraphernalia involved, you just need a group of your mates and a sense of humour.
We all know how to play the classic game so we’ll spare you the spiel, but we have recently updated our truth or dares list with some pretty spectacular new additions. Prepare to (responsibly, of course) down a lot of shots.
7.Name the tune
Everyone knows how to play this game, and it’s always a winner. All you need is a (semi in-tune) singing voice. To play, someone picks a song and has to hum the tune. Everyone else has to guess what the song is and the first person to get it right, wins. The winner then gets to pick the next song, and so on.
To take it up a notch and turn it into a more ‘adult’ version, you can turn it into a drinking game. So, whoever guesses the song first doesn’t have to drink, but the losers do. It can become very competitive, very quickly!
8. Beer Pong
Another absolute classic. Beer Pong involves attempting to throw a ping pong ball into your opposition's cup, resulting in them drinking the contents. At either ends of a kitchen table / counter top/ ping pong table, put six cups in a triangle shape. In teams, take it in turns to throw the ball into your opposition's cups from your end, being sure to be transparent with your rules from the beginning. Is the ball allowed to bounce? Are you allowed to hit the rim? The winning team is the one who lands the ball in all of the opposition's cups before they do it to you.
9.Who Can Do It… Party Game
Suitable for: Ages 17+
Players needed: 3+ players
Everyone loves to watch their friends make a fool out of themselves, and this game goes out to the “doers” of the party. Rather than simply getting people talking, the game has over 250 action cards to see who in the group can: pretend to ride a mechanical bull, take the worst selfie or freestyle a rap. The prompts range from super goofy to super creative, and the rules are pretty straightforward: one player picks a card, reads it aloud, and then they become the judge. Everyone does what the card says and afterward, the judge decides who did it the best and that person wins the round.
10. Quickwits
Suitable for: Ages 17+
Players Needed: 3-10 players
We love card games, but sometimes they can be hard to play with a group because there are just too many rules to keep track of. Enter this easy-to-understand and fast-paced game where all players have to do is shout out the first thing that comes to mind in each given category. Here’s how it works: Three or more players take turns drawing cards and flipping them over. When two cards match, players have to shout out an example of someone or something in that particular category (like “rhymes with booze”). No repeats allowed.
