Whether you’re at home with friends hanging out or socializing on the weekend, getting together with relatives and family members for a holiday event or special occasion, or planning your next work team meeting at an off-site, playing party games can be a great way to break the ice and have people getting to know each other better.
“Life is more fun if you play games” – Roald Dahl
Sometimes it can be challenging to come up with the right party game ideas that will be suitable for everyone. Luckily, we’ve come up with this list of games so that you can relax and start enjoying the good times.
Fun games to play with friends online
But if your friend group is busy doing other things and you can’t get together in person, there are plenty of ways for you and your closest friends to continue gaming online, during an evening at home.
Thanks to the growing popularity of mobile and online game apps, there’s never been more options to bring you closer to the action with these new and classic online games.
Words with Friends
Words with Friends is a popular word game that is tons of fun and has grown lots in popularity over the past several years.
It’s most similar in gameplay to Scrabble, which gets into more later down below, but what makes Words with Friends unique is that it’s super convenient to play with your friends online using your mobile devices.
Essentially, each player gets a letter and places it on the board until a word is formed, with additional scores being handed out for placing letters on bonus tiles. This is definitely a game that’s best played with friends online but there are also options where you can play solo to practice and hone your word scoring skills.
Cards against Humanity
Cards Against Humanity is another super fun and relatively new party game that has gained tremendously in popularity in recent years. It’s designed to be a fun (and funny) game where anything goes, but it can often be outrageous and sometimes even controversial.
Although it originally got its start as a card game that uses an original (and very creative) dedicated deck to play with, it is now available for you to play online for free on both iOS and Android devices.
Online Casino and Sports Betting
Sports betting is meanwhile gaining in popularity as it becomes more regulated and accepted in the mainstream. Online sportsbooks and casinos these days allow players to wager their bets on a number of different outcomes between two teams.
There are even opportunities for players to put up their money against prop bets, betting on specific outcomes like which players will score the most points, or how many points a team will outscore the opponent by.
Fans who are looking to get involved with online sports wagering should be warned about the risks. This includes becoming familiar with the regulatory bodies that oversee provincial sports betting, including the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, which is responsible for overseeing the province’s online gaming activity and ensuring that players’ needs are being properly protected.
Monopoly Virtual Games
This is an online take on the classic board game that’s been around forever. Although the classic game would sometimes take hours or longer for you and your friends to play until it was complete, this game has since moved into the virtual world, allowing players to take their game along with them into their pockets everywhere they go.
This is a great game to play online if you’re simply looking for a way to fill the time, as it’s one that almost everyone should be familiar with, having played this game before. Online versions of the board game classic even allow players to explore new cities and worlds while staying true to the game’s original theme and style.
Online Bingo
Online casinos, like sports betting sites, have also enjoyed tremendous gains since the advent of legalized online gambling by Ontario’s provincial authorities. Revenues at online casinos have continued to grow which only speaks to the success they have been enjoying currently in gaining popularity among fans in the mainstream.
At online casinos, players can benefit from all kinds of different games from online jackpots, to multiplayer games, and traditional casino events like blackjack, poker and roulette.
For those who may opt to keep things more simple, you can learn to play bingo and then once you’ve mastered those skills, take your abilities and try them out at one of canadian popular online casinos.
Fun games to play with friends in real life
While online and multiplayer games are certainly loads of excitement to play, they won’t be everyone’s favorite. The next time you’re doing a game night, or spending the day among your friends or co-workers, sometimes the best games are the original games without any gadgets or devices.
With that in mind, we’ve prepared this summary of classic and original party games you can play and get started with right away!
Telephone Pictionary
This is a simple game you can play with friends and family of all ages.
Here’s how the game is played:
- Each player writes down a random phrase on their own piece of paper
- Players pass their paper to the next person on their left
- That player draws a picture based on the description, on a second piece of paper
- The player passes that drawing to their left, and that player tries to guess the original phrase
- The process is repeated, until each drawing is returned to the original player
This can serve as a hilarious and fun family-friendly game for holiday gatherings and parties as well as a good ice-breaker for work events and team building exercises.
As famous game designer Gary Gygax once said, “Games give you a chance to excel, and if you’re playing in good company, you don’t mind if you lose because you’ll have had the enjoyment of the company during the game.”
Never Have I Ever Party Game
This is a great party game for adults, however it may be difficult for working events or games with children, so if that’s what you’re after please keep reading on further down. This game involves the players sitting in a circle and taking turns with each person naming anything that they have “Never” done before.
If the player names something that another player has admitted to doing before, that player “Loses” a point for that turn. It’s similar in nature to truth or dare, because players will take turns making riskier bets on things that they suspect the other players in the room may be guilty of having done before.
Wrong Answers Only
This is a mentally stimulating and challenging game where players are asked a question, but can only give their answer in an incorrect format.
To get started:
- Create a list of questions based on popular topics
- Players take their turns, and must name the wrong answers only
- For example, “Who was the inventor of the telephone?” to be replied with “Thomas Edison”
- Players get points based on the number of wrong answers they’ve provided
This is a great game that can be suitable for work environments because it doesn’t require many things to set up, it is easy to understand and learn, and it can be a great way to get players thinking and responding quickly, on their feet.
Scrabble
This is a classic board game but a wholesome and traditional friends and family favorite. The game begins with players being given a set of letters from which they are tasked with forming a conventional word. Once each player takes their turn, then the next person must take their turn placing a letter on the board.
The game gets progressively more difficult the longer it gets and the more players that are in the game, as the board gets filled up rather quickly and it can become difficult to find appropriate spaces to place your letters.
Scavenger Hunt
If you’re having a get-together for a party night but perhaps you’re a little short on gaming supplies, this is a surefire game that everyone can play and a real fun way to pass the time. All you need for this game is an item of interest, and a place to hide it. Players can then search all around the room, until someone finds the missing item.
Scavenger hunts can also be tremendously useful in a pinch if you have a large number of players. Just be careful and watch out as this can be a rambunctious game when things gets going.
Uno
This is another popular card game but one that is simple to learn and can be played by all ages. The game is played using a special deck of cards, and players match the cards in their hand to the top card in the pile.
If the player isn’t able to find a match by their color or their number they are forced to pick up a card, and they can keep passing and picking up new cards until a suitable match can be played.
Most importantly, when a player gets down to their final and last card, they must shout out “UNO!” to alert the other players in the game. Points are scored based on the number of points held by the other players in the hand, once the last card has been put down.
If You’re Looking for More Options…
This list we’ve provided is far from exhaustive and there are plenty more options, from charades to online trivium, for you and your friends to consider playing in addition to those we’ve described above.
That said, we hope you’ve gotten the most out of this list of the top games to play at home or online with your friends. Be sure to check back here for the latest in your favorite gaming updates!