The Big Potato Guide to Party-Starters
Parties, like most things, are always a lot better when there’s games involved. With this list of our best house party games, you can finally wave goodbye to awkward guests, agonising small-talk and that one drunk girl that won’t stop playing ABBA. (Well, maybe not the last one.)
One Night Ultimate Werewolf
Murdering unwanted party guests is frowned upon, but here’s the next best thing.
A bunch of villagers, two werewolves and one hell of a good time. In this party game, you close your eyes, let the narrator tell the story and hope you don’t wake up dead. If you survive the night, you get to debate with the rest of the players who the killers might be and burn someone at the stake. If you die, you at least get to find out who killed you and start planning your revenge. It’s a win win.
Scrawl
There’s still an awkward silence, but this time it’s because of the cat orgy you drew.
From man-eating toilets to sexual mittens, this party game is the perfect start to our list. Start by drawing something innocent (like a ‘Monkey Knife Fight’) and pass it on to the next player. By the time it makes it’s way back to you, things will have probably gone from bad to worse. Ideal for big parties, make sure you play with a couple of bad artists in the group – it just makes the game that much funnier.
Happy Salmon
If you live in a place with four chairs or less, this is the game for you.
Replace boring introductions with fun things like yelling “POUND IT” while you fist-bump and screaming “SWITCHEROO” as you jump across the table. This is a frantic run-around party game where the faster you get rid of your cards the better. To do that, however, you have to match the card with another player’s and complete the action. Luckily the game lasts around two minutes per round – enough time for you to catch your breath, not enough time for your neighbours to make a noise complaint.
Punderdome
How do you organise a house party in space? You planet!
As you can tell by our space party joke, we’re not very good at puns – but don’t let that put you off. This is a great little party game that gives you two random words and forces you to make a pun out of them. It’s funny when someone nails a good one and even funnier when someone’s put on the spot and delivers something terrible. Trust me, we’ve had it happen enough times.
Two Rooms and a Boom
Someone you don’t like at the party? Great, you can literally tell them to leave the room.
Two Rooms and a Boom is unlike any other game we’ve played. There’s a red team and a blue team, members are mixed together and sent to one of two different rooms. Nobody knows who their teammates are – they only know that the red team want to blow up the president and that the blue team wants to save the president. With hostage exchanges, leadership challenges and a chance for everyone to yell “BOOM” together, this is a great choice for those who want to add a little (metaphorical) danger to their house party.
Fake Artist Goes to New York
A great social deduction game with the added bonus of using fancy coloured pens
So by now you should’ve played all the games on this list and your house party has probably been an absolute hit. If that’s the case, then you’ll pick this one up pretty quickly. Imagine Werewolf or The Chameleon, where one person is the imposter and you’ve got to smoke them out. This is how Fake Artist works, except this time it’s through the medium of terrible drawings. Loads of fun if you enjoy starting witch-hunts or the thrill of not getting caught. Plus if you’re drunk and can only manage to draw a curly line at best, that might actually make the game even more fun.
Social Sabotage
Why wait for someone to upload an embarrassing party picture of you when you can play a game that does it for you?
Quick warning: if you’re one of those people who carefully curates every single element of their social media personality, this game might be a little hard to handle. That being said, we think that your offline life is much more important, so we highly encourage you to have a go. Released by Buzz-feed, Social Sabotage is a party game about pairing up ‘What’ cards and ‘Where’ cards to create some seriously scary combinations – from “Send a relative… a video of you twerking” to “Post to Facebook… your mum’s mobile number”. The more courageous you are, the more points you win and the more laissez-faire you look in front of your guests.
Cards Against Humanity
LOL just kidding, everyone’s played that already. Onto the next one.
Truth Bombs
Embarrass your friends in an anonymous, guilt-free environment.
Remember that hilarious crush your best friend had? Or the stuffed toy your flatmate keeps under their bed? Well, here’s your chance to openly laugh about it. Just choose one of the questions on the table, pick a target and write your answer on their sheet. Just be careful on how explosive the truths are… because you’re a target as well.
Game of Phones
Everyone’s going to be on their phones anyway, might as well make a game out of it!
If you’re at a party with people that have to update their snapchat every hour or instagram everything they come across, then this is the game for you. Choose a player to be the judge, hand them the deck of Challenge Cards and compete with the other players for his or her approval while they deal out cards like “Find the funniest name in your contacts list” or “Find a picture of an ugly baby”. In this game, the more time you spend staring at your phone, the better.
Superfight
Get ready for the most important fight of your life
The Chameleon
Turn your house party into a mini detective series, minus all the killing.
A bit like werewolf, here’s another game that lets you accuse and interrogate your party guests. In each round of The Chameleon, there’s a secret word that’s known to everyone except for one player – the chameleon. Using deduction, communication and a bit of mob mentality, it’s everyone’s job to track down the chameleon before he learns the secret word. If you’re the chameleon, however, the aim is much more simple – don’t get caught!
