25 games

Games for 4 players

Four is the first table that divides evenly, and that cuts both ways: you can finally play two against two, and a vote can finally deadlock two against two.

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Scrabble stops here. Four racks is its ceiling, and with four players drawing from the same hundred tiles the premium squares go early — it is the one game on this list that gets no bigger, so play it before a fifth person arrives.

The co-ops get their margin back. Just One at four gives the guesser three clues instead of two, so a matching pair costs a clue rather than the whole card. So Clover! becomes four separate clovers, each rebuilt by everybody except the person who wrote it.

Four is also the smallest table where a vote can tie honestly. In One Night Werewolf a tie hangs everyone tied, so two against two is not a stalemate — it is both suspects going up together, which is fine as long as one of them is the wolf.

Best at exactly four

Clover2–6 players · 15–20 min Paper Novel2–5 players · 15–25 min Property Deal2–5 players · 10–15 min Skull3–6 players · 10–15 min Only One3–7 players · 10–15 min Word Tiles2–4 players · 20–35 min Bad Drawings3–8 players · 10–20 min Picture Stories3–8 players · 15–20 min Wits & Bets3–10 players · 10–15 min Color Clues3–10 players · 10–15 min One Night Werewolf3–10 players · 5–10 min Boggle2–12 players · 5–10 min

Questions about Games for 4 players

Can we play two against two?

Yes, and four is the floor for it. Wavelength, Decrypto, Taboo, Charades and Bowl of Nouns all run teams from four up; below that they switch to co-op or solo-ladder modes instead of fielding teams of one.

Which is the best four-player game here?

So Clover! if you want the table quiet and working, Monopoly Deal if you want it loud. Deal at four is three people who can take your streets, and it ends the instant somebody completes a third colour set.

Does anything actually change at four?

Team games switch on, Just One stops being fragile, and Skull puts three other piles on the table — which is roughly the point where you stop being able to guess where the skulls are.

What if a fifth person turns up?

Everything on this list except Scrabble takes five, and most of it takes far more. Scrabble is capped at four, so that is the one to finish before the door goes again.

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