Getting together with family or friends is the best…except when it’s not.

It happens to all of us. The music isn’t right or the conversation might be dull. Maybe you heard your crush isn’t coming. Or your significant other is out of sorts for some reason. Sometimes the evening is just a drag for no particular reason.

So be a party hero. Learn the easy rules of these games and always be ready to pull one out of your pocket to get the night going again.

1. Mirror Charades

PlatonicTroglodyte loves this game, posting, “Just like charades, but two people go up instead of one. One person knows what they are acting out and performs the charade behind everyone trying to guess. The other person does not know, and simply mimics the first person, since they are the only one who can see them. It’s odd how much harder this version is.”

2. Balloon Duel

Good game for kids. In teams of two, each person tapes a balloon to one of their legs. The first person to burst the other’s balloon wins.

3. Cookie Pocket

Reddit user, Farkyfarkabc123, posted this about the game Cookie Pocket:

“It’s best played during winter when everybody is wearing jackets and multiple layers. You buy a giant party platter of cookies from the supermarket for everybody to use, and you try to reverse-pickpocket cookies into people’s pockets. If they don’t catch you in the act, they have to eat the cookie when they find it. If they catch you, you have to eat the cookie. I’ve seen somebody sneak 12 cookies into somebody’s coat, and they drunkenly ate all of them.

It sounds fantastic at first, but cookies add up very quickly. Twelve cookies is a lot when you’ve already eaten five or six.”

4. Dictionary

Reddit user cptcliche explains:

“Basically, all you need is paper and a dictionary. Everyone has a piece of paper and one person at a time has the dictionary. That person opens to a random page, finds a word they don’t know, and announces it to the group. If nobody in the group knows the word, they can proceed.

Each person writes the word on a slip of paper and makes up a definition for it, except for the person who found the word (they write the actual definition). After writing, everyone turns in their definitions to the first person who proceeds to read all the definitions (fake and real) aloud to the group.

Everyone but the announcer gets one guess as to which definition is correct. After everyone has guessed, the announcer reveals the correct answer. If you guessed the correct definition, you get a point. If someone guessed your made up definition, you get a point for each time it was guessed. If nobody guesses the correct definition, the person who originally chose the word gets a point. Then the dictionary is passed to the next person and the process is repeated.”

5. Telephone Pictionary

Reddit user, SpenFen, suggests this game:

“Everyone, seated in a circle, has a sheet of paper and a pen. First, everyone writes a sentence with preferably vivid imagery. Next, everyone passes their paper, now with a sentence, to their right, and now everyone must draw a picture representing that sentence. Before passing the paper on, you fold over the sentence, leaving only the picture, with which the next person must describe using a sentence.

Repeat these steps until you get your paper back, and have fun charting the course of sentence and pictures!”

6. Spoons

“It’s like a kinda violent musical chairs,” posted chewbaccasdadd. “All you need is some spoons and a pack of cards. You all sit round a table, and lay out spoons in the middle, one less than the total number of players. You then deal out all the cards in the deck. On ‘GO’, you pass one card from your hand to the person on your left. The idea is to keep it moving quickly, almost rhythmically, and the objective is to get four of the same cards, like having all four kings, etc.

Once you have four of the same cards, you can make a grab for the spoons in the middle. As soon as someone makes a grab, every other player can make the grab. Think of it as the music stopping in musical chairs. At the end, one person will be left without a spoon and they are out. One spoon is taken away, and the game begins again until only one winner remains. The overall winner gets great glory and riches.”

7. Murder Wink ‘Em

User ChaoticV likes this version of a Murder Mystery party:

“Everyone sits in a circle and draws a piece of paper from a bucket. Most are blank, but one will have an M or something to identify the ‘murderer’. A person is killed when the murderer makes eye contact and winks. The more dramatic and drawn out the death the better. The murderer tries to ‘kill’ as many people as they can without anyone seeing who they are and identifying them.”

Knowing a few new games will make you a welcome guest at any party. Low tech laughs and good times are the best. Happy connecting!