Spectrum and Intercept both aim a clue at people who know you. Spectrum gives you one clue and a hidden point on a spectrum; Intercept gives you four keywords that never change, and the other team hears every clue you have ever given about them.
Forbidden Words and Charades are the loud ones. Somebody is on stage against a clock while their team shouts, and in Forbidden Words 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. Spectrum becomes a co-op with one shared score and no side to steal from, and Forbidden Words becomes a fifteen-level challenge ladder. The app switches for you, and the rules sheet switches with it.
The ones that split the room
Playing in under a minute
- 1One person opens tableparty.io on a phone or a laptop and picks a game.
- 2Everyone else types the four-letter room code on their own phone. Nothing to install.
- 3Play. Anything secret stays on your own screen, so it works across a table or a video call.
Questions about Team games for groups
How are the teams picked?
By seat order, before anyone can captain a side. Spectrum 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. Intercept needs two on each side because its Encryptor never joins their own team’s decode, and Spectrum and Forbidden Words quietly switch to co-op and ladder modes below that.
Which team game is best with a big group?
Charades. It seats twelve, six a side, and the bigger the team the louder the shouting while one person acts in silence.
What if the teams end up uneven?
Fine. 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.