Wavelength and Decrypto both aim a clue at people who know you. Wavelength gives you one clue and a hidden point on a spectrum; Decrypto gives you four keywords that never change, and the other team hears every clue you have ever given about them.
Taboo, Charades and Bowl of Nouns are the loud ones. Somebody is on stage against a clock while their team shouts, and in Taboo the opposing team is reading the same card — so the five words you most want to say are the five that end the round.
Below four players the teams stop existing. Wavelength becomes a co-op with one shared score and no side to steal from, and Taboo becomes a fifteen-level challenge ladder. The app switches for you, and the rules sheet switches with it.
The five that split the room
Questions about Team games for groups
How are the teams picked?
By seat order, before anyone can captain a side. Wavelength deals odds against evens, and in the one-phone lobby the arrows let you move a name between sides before the game starts.
How many people do we need for teams?
Four. Decrypto needs two on each side because its Encryptor never joins their own team’s decode, and Wavelength and Taboo quietly switch to co-op and ladder modes below that.
Which team game is best with a big group?
Bowl of Nouns. It seats twelve, and a table of twelve writes forty-eight nouns into the same bowl before it starts — which the room then hears three times over.
What if the teams end up uneven?
Fine in all five. Charades wraps the smaller team round so somebody goes up twice rather than handing the bigger side extra turns, and both teams always get the same number of turns.