The Wink
Players 6–20Time 10–15 minYou need nothing
One person in the room is killing everyone with a look, and the group has to work out who before it runs out of people.
Everyone stands and mills about. One player has secretly been made the murderer — the simplest way is for the host to tap one shoulder while everyone has their eyes shut.
The murderer kills by catching someone’s eye and winking at them. A player who is winked at must wait three full seconds, then die as theatrically as they like and sit down.
Anyone who thinks they know the murderer says “I accuse” and waits. If a second player seconds the accusation, both name a suspect on a count of three. Wrong, and they both die. Right, and the round is over.
The three-second delay is the whole game — without it everyone simply watches whoever died last. With it, the murderer can wink and walk away.
Two Truths and a Haunting
Players 4–12Time 15 minYou need nothing
The old icebreaker with one rule changed, and the change makes it a Halloween game.
Each player tells three short stories about something inexplicable that has happened to them or to someone they know. Two are true. One is invented on the spot.
The room votes on which is the invention. Everyone who guesses right scores a point; the teller scores a point for every person who guesses wrong.
The scoring is what stops people inventing something absurd — a lie nobody believes is worth nothing, so the best play is a lie that sounds like your real life.
It works better than the ordinary version because everyone has one unexplained story they have never had the right moment to tell.
What's in the Bowl
Players 4–15Time 10 minYou need bowls, a tea towel, cold food
Hands go in, eyes stay out, and the room finds out how bad people are at identifying food by touch.
Fill four or five bowls with things that feel worse than they are: cold cooked spaghetti, peeled grapes, dried apricots, a wet sponge, cooked cauliflower. Cover each with a tea towel.
Players go one at a time, hand under the towel, thirty seconds per bowl, and write down what they think each one is.
Nobody says anything out loud until every player has been round. The reactions are the game; the answers are the excuse.
One warning worth taking seriously: tell people what the allergens are before they put a hand in, not after.
Doughnuts on Strings
Players 4–12Time 5 minYou need doughnuts, string
Apple bobbing without the bucket of water, which is the version people will actually agree to play.
Hang a ring doughnut from a length of string for each player, at mouth height. A broom handle across two chair backs works.
Hands behind backs. First to finish their doughnut wins. That is the entire rule set.
It takes about ninety seconds and produces the photographs everyone will look at the next day, which is a better return than most games on this page.
Sugared doughnuts photograph better than glazed ones and are considerably less unpleasant to get out of hair.
Guess the Scream
Players 5–15Time 10 minYou need nothing
Somebody screams. The person in the middle has to say who it was, using nothing but the sound.
One player stands in the middle with their eyes closed. The rest arrange themselves silently around the room.
The host points at one person, who screams — once, as long or as short as they like.
The player in the middle names them. Right, and the screamer takes their place. Wrong, and they stay in for another round, up to three.
The trick everyone discovers in round two is that a whisper-scream is harder to place than a loud one, and that changes the game completely.
The Werewolf Circle
Players 7–16Time 20–30 minYou need nothing
The village sleeps, the wolves choose, and the room argues about who is lying. The version below is stripped to what one host can run without cards.
Count the players. Two of them are wolves, one is the doctor, one is the seer, the rest are villagers. Assign roles by tapping shoulders with everyone’s eyes closed.
Night: everyone shuts their eyes. The host wakes the wolves, who silently agree on a victim. Then the doctor, who points at one person to save. Then the seer, who points at one person and is told by the host, with a nod or a shake, whether that person is a wolf.
Day: everyone opens their eyes and the host says who died, unless the doctor saved them. The village then discusses and votes to eliminate one person. Majority wins; the eliminated player says nothing about their role.
Repeat until the wolves are out or the wolves outnumber the villagers. The host never plays — running it well is more interesting than being in it.
Horror Charades
Players 6–20Time 20 minYou need paper, a bowl
Charades with one restriction: everything in the bowl has to be frightening, and it turns out that makes it much harder.
Everyone writes three horror films, monsters or scenes on separate scraps and folds them into a bowl. Nobody signs anything.
Two teams. A player draws and acts — no words, no sound, no pointing at objects in the room — while their team has sixty seconds to guess.
A correct guess scores one point and the team keeps the scrap. A pass costs nothing but the clock keeps running.
Because everyone contributed, the bowl is full of things this particular room has seen, which is why it beats a printed list of titles nobody recognises.
Mummy Wrap
Players 4–16Time 5–10 minYou need toilet roll
Two minutes, one roll of paper, and a room briefly divided into wrappers and the wrapped.
Split into pairs. One person is the mummy, the other has one roll of toilet paper and two minutes.
The paper must be continuous — a break means starting that limb again. Faces stay uncovered.
At two minutes everyone stops and the room votes for the best mummy. Winners are almost always decided on the head, which nobody plans for.
It is the loudest game on this page and the fastest to clear up, which makes it a good one to end on rather than start with.
The One-Word Séance
Players 5–12Time 15 minYou need nothing
The room asks a question and the spirit answers, one word per person, going round the circle.
Everyone sits in a circle. One player asks the spirit a question out loud — anything from “how did you die” to “what do you think of this party”.
The answer is built one word at a time, going clockwise, until someone judges the sentence finished and says “so it is spoken”.
No planning, no whispering, no taking two words. The answers are nonsense for the first two rounds and unnervingly coherent by the fourth.
It is the quietest game here and the best one for the middle of an evening, when the room is full and nobody wants to stand up.
Pass the Pumpkin
Players 6–20Time 10 minYou need a pumpkin, music
Hot potato, except the potato weighs four kilos and the forfeits get worse as it goes round.
Players stand in a circle and pass a small pumpkin while music plays. When the music stops, whoever is holding it takes a forfeit.
Forfeits escalate: the first is answering a question, the third is telling a story about yourself, the fifth is performing something. Write six on a scrap before you start so nobody has to invent them under pressure.
Anyone who drops the pumpkin is out immediately. This rule sounds harsh until the first person tries to throw it.
Use a small pumpkin. A large one turns the game into a health and safety matter and someone’s foot pays for it.
Spot the Vampire
Players 8–25Time runs all eveningYou need nothing
A slow game that runs in the background of the party for hours, which is why it is the only one here with no fixed end.
Before the party, tell one person privately that they are the vampire. Nobody else knows.
The vampire turns others by catching them alone and quietly saying a chosen phrase — “the moon is up” works. Anyone turned becomes a vampire and can turn others the same way.
Any player, at any point, may accuse someone by announcing it to the room. If they are right, the accused sits out ten minutes. If they are wrong, the accuser does.
The party goes on around it. By eleven o’clock either three people are left human and know exactly who they trust, or everybody is a vampire and nobody noticed it happen.
The Last Word
Players 4–12Time 15 minYou need nothing
A ghost story built one sentence at a time, with a rule that stops it collapsing into a joke.
Someone starts a ghost story with a single sentence. Going round the circle, each player adds exactly one sentence.
The rule that matters: your sentence must begin with the last word of the sentence before it. If the previous player ended on “door”, you begin with “door”.
Anyone who takes more than ten seconds, or breaks the chain, ends the story — and has to give it a final sentence that resolves everything.
The constraint does the work. Without it the story turns silly in four sentences; with it, people are too busy solving the word to make jokes, and the story goes somewhere genuinely strange.
Murder in the Dark
Players 6–15Time 15–20 minYou need a dark room
The oldest game on the list and still the best argument for turning the lights off.
Deal or draw roles so that one player is the murderer and one is the detective. Only the detective announces themselves.
Lights off. Everyone moves slowly and silently. The murderer kills by placing a hand on a shoulder and whispering “you are dead”; the victim counts to five, then screams and lies down.
On the scream, the detective calls for lights. Nobody may move from where they are standing. The detective has three questions to ask the room — and everyone must answer honestly except the murderer, who may lie freely.
One accusation, then the round ends either way. Three questions is the right number: two is guesswork, four and the murderer runs out of lies.
Costume Swap Relay
Players 8–20Time 10 minYou need the costumes people arrived in
The one game that requires everyone to have dressed up, and rewards the ones who overdid it.
Two teams line up. On go, the first player of each team removes one wearable item of their costume — hat, cloak, glasses, one shoe — and passes it to the next player, who puts it on.
That player then adds one item of their own and passes both along. Every player adds one; nothing may be removed once added.
The last player in the line has to wear everything at once and get across the room and back without dropping anything. Drop something and the team goes back one player.
Elaborate costumes lose, which is the pleasure of it.
The Unhelpful Fortune Teller
Players 3–10Time 10 minYou need nothing
A quiet two-hander that a room will watch for twenty minutes, played entirely straight.
One player is the fortune teller and answers any question about the future — but every answer must be technically true and completely useless. “Will I get the job?” “You will hear news on a Tuesday.”
The questioner may push twice for detail. The fortune teller must not repeat a construction they have already used.
The room judges: if the fortune teller says something that is either useful or plainly false, they lose the chair and the questioner takes over.
Played seriously, in a low voice, it is much funnier than played broadly — and it lasts exactly as long as the room wants it to.
