36 games

Games for large groups

Past eight people the problem is never the rules, it is the waiting — so a big group wants games where everybody moves at once, or where half the room is a team.

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CHANNEL SURFPLUMCH 7 · Price DropA toaster. Closest without going over.Nina · $34Otis · $49 · closestYou · $52 · overPlay

The all-at-once ones scale without noticing. Fake Answers, Quip Battle, Bluff It, Herd Think, Word Grid and Crack the Code deal the same thing to twelve phones and let everybody answer, so more people makes the voting funnier rather than the waiting longer.

Herd Think actively wants the crowd. You are writing what most of the room will write, and twelve people have opinions four do not — the biggest matching group scores, and the one person who went their own way is handed the Pink Cow.

Then the team games, which turn a queue into an audience. Forbidden Words and Spectrum put one person on stage at a time, and Intercept splits twelve into two sides of six.

Twelve that seat twelve

Channel Surf3–30 players · 8–15 min Word Grid2–12 players · up to 100 with Teams · 5–10 min Somewhere1–12 players · up to 100 with Teams · 8–10 min Fake Answers3–12 players · 5–10 min Quip Battle3–12 players · up to 100 with Teams · 10–15 min Quiz Night1–12 players · 3–19 min Bluff It3–12 players · 10–15 min Spectrum2–12 players · up to 100 with Teams · 10–15 min Crack the Code2–12 players · 10–15 min Wits & Bets3–12 players · up to 100 with Teams · 10–15 min Intercept4–12 players · 15–25 min Herd Think3–12 players · up to 100 with Teams · 10–15 min

Playing in under a minute

  1. 1One person opens tableparty.io on a phone or a laptop and picks a game.
  2. 2Everyone else types the four-letter room code on their own phone. Nothing to install.
  3. 3Play. Anything secret stays on your own screen, so it works across a table or a video call.

Questions about Games for large groups

What is the real maximum?

Twelve for everything on this list. Art Fraud, Wits & Bets, Color Clues, Quest of Shadows, Secret Dictator and Werewolf stop at ten, and Bad Drawings and Picture Stories at eight.

Won’t twelve people take forever to get through a round?

Not in the simultaneous ones — everybody types at once and the round ends when the last person is in. Imposter is the exception here: one word each around twelve players is twelve words before anyone votes.

Which is best for a group that will not stop talking?

Forbidden Words. One person talks round the word while their whole team shouts guesses, which is the only shape of game that improves the noisier the room gets.

How do we split twelve into teams?

Six a side for Intercept, Spectrum and Forbidden Words. Intercept is the one to watch at that size: everything your Encryptor says is heard by the other six and stays on the board all game.

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