Family game night, for the family you actually have

The family in family game night is never the one in the adverts. It's a seven-year-old with no patience, a teenager negotiating to leave, two tired adults and a granny who will destroy everyone at anything verbal. These games hold that room.

• Charades Ages 5 to 95No kit The great leveller. The seven-year-old's interpretation of a swan is the night's highlight. How to play →

  How to play

  1. For mixed ages, act out animals and jobs instead of film titles. Everyone knows a penguin.
  2. No words, no sounds, no pointing at the actual thing.
  3. Whoever guesses acts next. Skip the scoring with wee ones; they keep count anyway.

  Stuck for ideas? Our free charade dealer → Flip back
• Sardines Ages 4 upA whole house Hide and seek, inverted: one hider, and every finder squeezes into the hiding place too. How to play →

  How to play

  1. One person hides. Everyone else counts, then searches separately.
  2. Find the hider and you silently squeeze in beside them.
  3. Last searcher standing finds a wardrobe full of giggling relatives, and hides next.

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• Simon says Ages 3 upNo kit Burns off the wee ones before the sitting-down games. Adults fall for it too, gloriously. How to play →

  How to play

  1. One caller. "Simon says touch your nose" means do it.
  2. An instruction without "Simon says" means don't. Doing it puts you out.
  3. Speed up until only one remains. They call next.

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• Twenty questions Ages 7 upNo kit Quiet, portable, and the granny's home turf. Nobody has ever beaten the granny. How to play →

  How to play

  1. One person thinks of a thing everyone in the room would know.
  2. Twenty yes-or-no questions to pin it down.
  3. Guessed in time, you take the chair. Not guessed, same thinker goes again, insufferably.

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• Categories Ages 7 upNo kit Dinosaurs for the eight-year-old, eighties bands for the adults. Same game, rigged fairly. How to play →

  How to play

  1. Pick a category the youngest player owns: dinosaurs, sweets, cartoon characters.
  2. Around the circle, one answer each, keep the rhythm.
  3. Hesitate or repeat and you're out. Winner picks the next category.

  Or let the letter round deal one → Flip back
• Consequences Ages 8 upPen and paper A story written blind, one folded line at a time. Reading them out is the event. How to play →

  How to play

  1. Everyone writes a name, folds the paper over, passes left.
  2. Next lines, folding each time: met who, where, they said, and the consequence was.
  3. Unfold, read aloud, and discover granda met a dinosaur at the leisure centre.

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• MortifiedFamily preset 2–15 playersEveryone's phoneNo internet needed The Family preset keeps every scenario safe for the room: kids about, nothing they shouldn't hear. Anonymous answers, then the reveal. Grannies thrive. See the game →
• CamoIn testing 3–12 playersEveryone's phoneFamily friendly Built family-friendly from the ground up: biscuits and dinosaurs, not secrets. The eight-year-old usually wins, and nobody can prove how. See the game →

Send them hunting.

The classic twenty-minutes-of-peace move: deal a scavenger hunt list, pair the wee ones with the big ones, and judge the haul at the kitchen table with full ceremony. Works in a garden, a park, or (rainy day rules) entirely indoors.

Keeping the whole room in it.

Three rules from hard experience. Pick games where knowing more doesn't always win, acting and bluffing beat trivia across generations. Rig categories toward the youngest, they'll never notice and the game gets funnier. And stop one game earlier than you think, a night that ends wanting more happens again next week.

Out now on Google Play

Mortified

For the room where the ages don't match.

The Family preset keeps every scenario safe while the wee ones are still up. One phone hosts, everyone else joins by QR from their own, and it needs no internet at all.

2–15 players · Family preset · Plays offline · One copy covers the house

See how it plays

Free to try. One £3.99 unlocks the full game, every pack.

Asked every week.

Planning the Christmas edition of this exact room? There's a page for that. Everything else lives in the games night guide.

Other games nights.

• 🎲Instant games
• 🕹️Games like Jackbox
• 📱Phone party games
• ⛺Camping games
• 🎄Christmas party games
• ❤️Party games for 2