★ Games everybody knows ★
Party games
Prompts and referees for the games everybody already knows, with the scoring and the clock built in.
All 13 tools
Pictionary words
Random words to draw with a hidden peek, a round timer and team scores, all on one screen.
OpenJar of questions
Icebreakers, check-ins and dinner-table questions on folded slips. Pull one, and it stays out.
OpenTruth or dare bottle
A bottle that spins to a name, then a truth or a dare from a bank you can trust with children.
OpenSimon says
Random commands, some with Simon and some without, at the pace you set. The screen calls them.
OpenCharades bowl
A bowl of prompts, a turn timer and team scores on one screen. Classic charades or three rounds.
OpenForbidden words cards
Describe the word without saying the five below it. Timer, buzzer and team scores included.
OpenNever have I ever
A statement at a time, family safe by default, with ten fingers each for anybody playing that way.
OpenWould you rather
Two options, one choice each, and the split on screen. Count the hands or pass the device round.
OpenPenalty wheel
The loser spins and the wheel picks the forfeit. Family-safe by default, or write your own.
OpenChallenge cards
A shuffled deck of challenges. Draw, complete or skip, and the deck remembers what is already done.
OpenTelephone game
Type a sentence, pass the phone, read it for a few seconds, and type what you remember. Then see how it changed.
OpenWhispers referee
Nobody types. The screen names the next pair, counts the pass, and reveals the starting phrase at the end.
OpenWhiteboard
A simple drawing board with pen, highlighter and eraser, saved in your browser and downloadable as a PNG.
OpenThe game is yours, the admin is ours
Nobody needs to be taught charades. What actually goes wrong on the night is the admin around it: somebody has to think of a word, somebody else has to watch a clock, and a third person is trying to remember whether the blue team got two points or three. Those are the jobs this family of tools takes over.
Each page does one of them properly and stays out of the way. A word appears where only the person drawing can see it. A round timer counts down in type the whole room can read. Points go up with a single tap and are still there after a refresh. The game itself stays exactly as everybody already plays it, house rules included, because a party tool that insists on its own rules is a party tool that gets closed.
Picking one for the evening you are having
For a room that already knows each other, the prompt games are the quickest way in: never have I ever with ten fingers each, would you rather with the split drawn on screen, or truth or dare with a bottle that spins to a real name. For a room that does not, the jar of questions is the icebreaker that is not the same five questions.
For teams and a clock, take the charades bowl or forbidden words, both of which run the timer and the scores on the same screen as the prompt. For children and for the last five minutes of a lesson, simon says calls the commands out loud and challenge cards deals a deck that runs out. And for the two games where the device is only the referee, there is telephone, where each person types what they remember, and whispers, where nobody types at all.
One screen, passed around
These tools work on one device on purpose. There are no room codes, no invitations and no accounts, because there is no server behind the site for any of that to run through. What replaces it is the oldest arrangement there is: the phone or the laptop is the board, and it goes round the table. Where somebody has to see something alone, the screen asks for them by name and hides it again before it changes hands.
It costs you the ability to play from separate houses and it buys you a game that needs no signal, no setup and no explanation. Names, team scores and any prompts you wrote yourself are kept in the browser on that one device so a refresh does not lose the game, and they are never uploaded, never shared and never put into a link. Clear your site data and they are gone.
Questions
- Can everyone join from their own phone?
- No, and that is deliberate. There are no rooms and no accounts here. One device is the board: prop it up where everyone can see it, or pass it round the circle.
- Do I need to print anything first?
- Not for these. The party tools run on the screen and need no preparation. If you would rather have cards on paper, the charades generator prints a set.
- Are the prompts suitable for children?
- Every set a page opens with is written for a room with children in it. The grown-ups sets are behind a button, are labelled office-party level and never rude, and a share link can never select one.
- Do the prompts run out?
- Not in an evening. The smallest bank here holds forty prompts and the largest several hundred, and the tools draw without replacement so nothing repeats until a set has been worked through.
Other families
Buzzers and votes
Hidden votes cast on one passed-around device and turned face up for the whole table at once.
See themTrackers and meters
Teams, points, positions and prizes, big enough to read across a room.
See themCollect and unlock
Trays, sets, recipes, pieces, keys and locks, for games where gathering things is the point.
See themEvery family is listed on the tools page.