Party games

1. 

   Codenames

   👥 2–8 · best 6–8 · ⏱ 15 min · 1.3/5 weight · ★ 7.4 BGG

   Two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their codenames — single-word labels like "disease", "Germany", and "carrot". Yes, carrot. It's a legitimate codename. Each spymaster wants their team to identify their agents first...without uncovering the assassin by mistake. In Codenames, two teams compete to see who can make contact with all of their agents first. Lay out 25 cards, each bearing a single word. The spymasters look at a card showing the identity of each card, then take turns clueing their teammates.

2. 

   So Clover!

   👥 3–6 · best 3–4 · ⏱ 30 min · 1.1/5 weight · ★ 7.3 BGG

   So Clover! is a cooperative word-association game. Play as a team to get the highest score. Get Keywords and secretly write their common features on your Clover board; these are your Clues. Then work together to try to figure out each player’s Keywords. At the end of the game, add up your score according to how many Keywords you found and write it in the Record of Legends. Try to beat your high score each game! -description from the publisher

3. 

   Cards Against Humanity

   👥 4–30 · best 6–8 · ⏱ 30 min · 1.2/5 weight · ★ 5.5 BGG

   A party game for horrible people. In Cards Against Humanity, play begins with a judge, known as the "Card Czar", choosing a black question or fill-in-the-blank card from the top of the deck and showing it to all players. Each player holds a hand of ten white answer cards at the beginning of each round, and passes a card (sometimes two) to the Card Czar, face-down, representing their answer to the question on the card. The card czar determines which answer card(s) are funniest in the context of the question or fill-in-the-blank card.

4. 

   Wavelength

   👥 2–12 · best 6–8 · ⏱ 30–45 min · 1.1/5 weight · ★ 7.0 BGG

   Wavelength is a social guessing game in which two teams compete to read each other's minds. Teams take turns rotating a dial to where they think a hidden bullseye is located on a spectrum. One of the players on your team — the Psychic — knows exactly where the bullseye is, and draws a card with a pair of binaries on it (such as: Job - Career, Rough - Smooth, Fantasy - Sci-Fi, Sad Song - Happy Song, etc). The Psychic must then provide a clue that is *conceptually* where the bullseye is located between those two binaries.

5. 

   One Night Ultimate Werewolf

   👥 3–10 · best 6–8 · ⏱ 10 min · 1.4/5 weight · ★ 6.9 BGG

   No moderator, no elimination, ten-minute games. One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a fast game for 3-10 players in which everyone gets a role: One of the dastardly Werewolves, the tricky Troublemaker, the helpful Seer, or one of a dozen different characters, each with a special ability. In the course of a single morning, your village will decide who is a werewolf...because all it takes is lynching one werewolf to win! Because One Night Ultimate Werewolf is so fast, fun, and engaging, you'll want to play it again and again, and no two games are ever the same.

6. 

   The Resistance: Avalon

   👥 5–10 · best 7–8 · ⏱ 30 min · 1.7/5 weight · ★ 7.3 BGG

   The Resistance: Avalon pits the forces of Good and Evil in a battle to control the future of civilization. Arthur represents the future of Britain, a promise of prosperity and honor, yet hidden among his brave warriors are Mordred's unscrupulous minions. These forces of evil are few in number but have knowledge of each other and remain hidden from all but one of Arthur's servants. Merlin alone knows the agents of evil, but he must speak of this only in riddles. If his true identity is discovered, all will be lost.

7. 

   Telestrations

   👥 4–8 · best 8 · ⏱ 30 min · 1.1/5 weight · ★ 7.1 BGG

   The award-winning party game Telestrations will get your family and friends laughing as they draw what they see, then guess what they saw for hours of hilarious miscommunication. All players simultaneously sketch, pass, and guess while revealing laugh-out-loud and unpredictable outcomes!

8. 

   Decrypto

   👥 3–8 · best 4–6 · ⏱ 15–45 min · 1.8/5 weight · ★ 7.5 BGG

   Players compete in two teams in Decrypto, with each trying to correctly interpret the coded messages presented to them by their teammates while cracking the codes they intercept from the opposing team. In more detail, each team has its own screen, and in this screen they tuck four cards in pockets numbered 1-4, letting everyone on the same team see the words on these cards while hiding the words from the opposing team. In the first round, each team does the following: one team member takes a code card that shows three of the digits 1-4 in some order, e.g., 4-2-1.

9. 

   Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

   👥 4–12 · best 6–8 · ⏱ 20 min · 1.6/5 weight · ★ 7.2 BGG

   Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is a game of deduction and deception for 4-12 players that plays in about 20 minutes. In the game, players take on the roles of investigators attempting to solve a murder case – but there's a twist. The killer is one of the investigators! Each player's role and team are randomly assigned at the start of play and include the unique roles of Forensic Scientist, Witness, Investigator, Murderer, and Accomplice. While the Investigators attempt to deduce the truth, the murderer's team must deceive and mislead.

10. 

    Secret Hitler

    👥 5–10 · best 8–10 · ⏱ 45 min · 1.7/5 weight · ★ 7.2 BGG

    Secret Hitler is a dramatic game of political intrigue and betrayal set in 1930s Germany. Each player is randomly and secretly assigned to be a liberal or a fascist, and one player is Secret Hitler. The fascists coordinate to sow distrust and install their cold-blooded leader; the liberals must find and stop the Secret Hitler before it's too late. The liberal team always has a majority. At the beginning of the game, players close their eyes, and the fascists reveal themselves to one another. Secret Hitler keeps his eyes closed, but puts his thumb up so the fascists can see who he is.

11. 

    Skull

    👥 3–6 · best 5–6 · ⏱ 15–45 min · 1.1/5 weight · ★ 7.0 BGG

    Edited description from Bruno Faidutti's write-up of the game in his Ideal Game Library: Skull & Roses is the quintessence of bluffing, a game in which everything is played in the players' heads. Each player plays a face-down card, then each player in turn adds one more card – until someone feels safe enough to state that they can turn a number of cards face up and get only roses. Other players can then overbid them, saying they can turn even more cards face up. The highest bidder must then turn that number of cards face up, starting with their own.

12. 

    BANG!

    👥 4–7 · best 7 · ⏱ 20–40 min · 1.6/5 weight · ★ 6.3 BGG

    "The Outlaws hunt the Sheriff. The Sheriff hunts the Outlaws. The Renegade plots secretly, ready to take one side or the other. Bullets fly. Who among the gunmen is a Deputy, ready to sacrifice himself for the Sheriff? And who is a merciless Outlaw, willing to kill him? If you want to find out, just draw (your cards)!" (From back of box) The card game BANG! recreates an old-fashioned spaghetti western shoot-out, with each player randomly receiving a Character card to determine special abilities, and a secret Role card to determine their goal.

13. 

    Kabuto Sumo

    👥 2–4 · best 2 · ⏱ 15 min · 1.2/5 weight · ★ 6.3 BGG

    Spring time in Japan means the return of the rhinoceros beetles — "Kabutomushi", which is Japanese for "helmet bug" — and their athletic contests of dominance. Out in the wild, you can find them butting heads trying to show off their strength and impress their insect friends with their wrestling skills. This is the origin of the phenomenal World Insect Wrestling Championship. In Kabuto Sumo, you are one of the contending beetles that is battling for supremacy in the ring and your place in the pantheon of legendary wrestlers.

14. 

    When I Dream

    👥 4–10 · best 6–7 · ⏱ 20–40 min · 1.2/5 weight · ★ 6.5 BGG

    The night has fallen and your mind is floating in the magical world of dreams. But the Dream Spirits want to have some fun tonight! They are giving their best and the dreams become strange and surreal. Become the dreamer, put on your sleeping mask and try to figure out your dream and which spirits are the Naughty ones. Become a good spirit and help the Dreamer by giving him clues about the dream before the naughty spirits mess it up. Close your eyes and dive in! At the beginning of each round of When I Dream one player takes the role of the Dreamer and "falls asleep", wearing a cloth mask.

15. 

    7 Wonders

    👥 2–7 · best 4–5 · ⏱ 30 min · 2.3/5 weight · ★ 7.5 BGG

    You are the leader of one of the 7 great cities of the Ancient World. Gather resources, develop commercial routes, and affirm your military supremacy. Build your city and erect an architectural wonder which will transcend future times. 7 Wonders lasts three ages. In each age, players receive seven cards from a particular deck, choose one of those cards, then pass the remainder to an adjacent player. Players reveal their cards simultaneously, paying resources if needed or collecting resources or interacting with other players in various ways.

16. 

    Blood on the Clocktower

    👥 6–21 · best 9–12 · ⏱ 30–120 min · 3.0/5 weight · ★ 7.7 BGG

    In the sleepy town of Ravenswood Bluff, ‌a demon walks amongst you. During a hellish thunderstorm, on the stroke of midnight, there echoes a bone-chilling scream. The townsfolk rush to investigate and find the town storyteller murdered, their body impaled on the hands of the clocktower, blood dripping onto the cobblestones below. A Demon is on the loose, murdering by night and disguised in human form by day. Some have scraps of information. Others have abilities that fight the evil or protect the innocent. But the Demon and its evil minions are spreading lies to confuse and breed suspicion.

17. 

    Catch Phrase!

    👥 4–16 · best 6–16 · ⏱ 30 min · 1.1/5 weight · ★ 5.9 BGG

    Quick, rattle off as many clues until somebody on your team yells the word or phrase you want to hear. Get as physical as you want. Gesture. Say anything you want. Just keep talking. And keep passing. 'Cause if the buzzer goes off while you're holding the disk, the other guys get the point in CATCH PHRASE... the fast-passing, fast-talking game.

18. 

    Monikers

    👥 4–16 · best 6–10 · ⏱ 30–60 min · 1.1/5 weight · ★ 7.2 BGG

    Monikers is a party game based on the public domain game Celebrities, where players take turns attempting to get their teammates to guess names by describing or imitating well-known people. In the first round, clue givers can say anything they want, except for the name itself. For the second round, clue givers can only say one word. And in the final round, clue givers can’t say anything at all: they can only use gestures and charades.

19. 

    Love Letter: Premium Edition

    👥 2–8 · best 4–6 · ⏱ 20–30 min · 1.3/5 weight · ★ 6.9 BGG

    Love Letter Premium takes the familiar Love Letter game and enhances it in two different ways. First, the cards are supersized and much thicker than normal, the hearts that players claim are large and wooden, and the hard-sided box has a magnetic closure. Second, the game now plays with up to eight players thanks to the inclusion of an additional set of cards, such as the Assassin (0) which eliminates an opponent if that opponent forces you to reveal it and the Sycophant (4) who must be the target of a played card until it's covered on the next turn.

20. 

    Time's Up!

    👥 4–18 · best 6–8 · ⏱ 90 min · 1.2/5 weight · ★ 6.8 BGG

    Time's Up! is a charades-based party game for teams of two or more players (and is best with teams of two). Before the game begins, each player looks at several cards featuring famous historical or fictional characters and chooses some of them. Each player's cards are shuffled to form a deck, and this deck of famous names is used for each of the game's three rounds. In each round, team members take turns trying to get their teammates to guess as many names as possible in 30 seconds. In round 1, almost any kind of clue is allowed, and the cluegiver cannot pass on a card.

21. 

    Captain Sonar

    👥 2–8 · best 8 · ⏱ 45–60 min · 2.2/5 weight · ★ 7.3 BGG

    At the bottom of the ocean, no one will hear you scream! In Captain Sonar, you and your teammates control a state-of-the-art submarine and are trying to locate an enemy submarine in order to blow it out of the water before they can do the same to you. Every role is important, and the confrontation is merciless. Be organized and communicate, because a captain is nothing without his crew: the Chief Mate, the Radio Operator, and the Engineer.

22. 

    Dixit: Odyssey

    👥 3–12 · best 6–7 · ⏱ 30 min · 1.2/5 weight · ★ 7.1 BGG

    Dixit Odyssey is both a standalone game and an expansion (Dixit: Odyssey (expansion)) for Jean-Louis Roubira's Dixit, which won Germany's Spiel des Jahres award in 2010. Game play in Dixit Odyssey matches that of Dixit: Each turn one player is the storyteller. This player secretly chooses one card in his hand, then gives a word or sentence to describe this card—but not too obviously. Each other player chooses a card in hand that matches this word/sentence and gives it to the storyteller.

23. 

    Insider

    👥 4–8 · best 5–6 · ⏱ 15 min · 1.1/5 weight · ★ 6.5 BGG

    Do we really have free will? Who decides this? Are we controlled by what we hear and what we see, even while thinking we decide freely? Insider is a game that deals with these questions. While communicating to others, you have to find the right answers to a quiz or find the "insider" who is manipulating the discussion. The insider will do everything to hide their identity while misleading the others. In more detail, players are assigned roles at random. One player is the "master", and they secretly select a word from a set given in a deck of cards.

24. 

    Pictomania

    👥 3–6 · best 5–6 · ⏱ 25 min · 1.5/5 weight · ★ 6.6 BGG

    Pictomania is a drawing game in which everyone is both drawing and guessing at the same time, giving a chance for those who excel only at one or the other skill to crush the dreams of other players. Pictomania lasts five rounds, and at the start of each round, you set up six randomly drawn cards on card racks visible to all players. Cards are double-sided, come in four levels of difficulty, and include seven related words on a single side.

…and more in the deck