One phone, six people, no board to set up
Quiz games on a phone split by how the room is arranged. A pass the phone game needs one device and works in a kitchen. A one phone each game needs everybody to install something, which costs ten minutes and some goodwill. A question master game needs one person willing to run it. Picking the wrong shape is why a game dies after one round, and it has nothing to do with the questions.
Three shapes of evening
| Arrangement | What it needs | Works best for |
|---|---|---|
| Pass the phone | One device, two or more players | A kitchen table, no setup |
| One phone each | Everyone installs it, usually an account | People who already play games |
| Question master | One phone, one willing host | Larger groups, a pub, a family |
| Phone against the forehead | One device and some space | Children, and the end of a party |
| Online against strangers | A connection | Playing alone, not a room |
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The games
Trivia Crack. The category wheel is still the best designed quiz format on a phone, and it works either passing one device or against someone elsewhere.
The retro styled version of the same, with a slightly harder question bank and fewer interruptions.
The variant where players write and vote on the questions, which turns a quiz into an argument about what counts as general knowledge.
A large question bank that works entirely offline, which makes it the one for journeys. Heavily advertising supported.
The other properly offline quiz, plainer and with no accounts at all. Several thousand questions and a pass the phone mode.
Short rounds against friends with a clean interface. Good for a group that drifts in and out of the room.
Built specifically for a room with one screen and several phones, from the people behind a very large online quiz library.
Heads Up. Hold the phone to your forehead and let the room shout clues. The most reliable way to get people who hate games to play one.
Psych. Everyone invents a plausible wrong answer and the room votes. Funnier than its question bank deserves.
Charades and headbands with a large category list, including ones aimed at children, which matters at a family gathering.
The same idea with tighter rounds and a deck editor, so you can write a category about your own family.
Family Feud. Survey answers rather than facts, which levels the field between the one who reads encyclopaedias and everyone else.
The live hosted version of the same show format, for when the group wants somebody else to run it.
Jeopardy. A genuine test rather than a party game, and the right choice for a group that actually wants hard questions.
Logo Quiz. Absurdly popular, instantly understood, and the one game on this list a six year old and a grandparent can tie at.
Guess The Emoji. Short puzzles everyone can see at once on a single screen, which makes it better in a room than it looks.
The quiz platform schools use, and an excellent host tool for a home quiz night because the questions appear on one screen and everyone answers on their own phone.
Evil Apples. The crude fill in the blank card game, for an adult room that knows what it is getting. Not one for a family Christmas.
Running a quiz night that does not fall apart
- Decide the arrangement before you open anything Pass the phone for four people in a kitchen. Question master for ten. Mixing the two mid evening loses half the room.
- Install it on one phone and test a full round alone Five minutes earlier in the day. Every failed quiz night is a tutorial nobody watched and an advertisement nobody expected.
- Mute the game and keep the room as the noise The music and the sound effects are built for one person on a bus, not for six people talking.
- Set a round limit out loud Three rounds and then something else. Quiz games have no natural ending, which is how an evening quietly becomes two hours of trivia.
- Have one offline game ready The signal will fail at the worst moment at least once, and the evening should not end with it.
- Rules explainable in one sentence
- A round that lasts under five minutes
- Works with one device
- Questions a mixed age group can all attempt
- An account for everybody
- A video advertisement between rounds
- Questions from one country only
- Energy or lives that run out mid game
Keeping it fair across a mixed room
General knowledge banks are written somewhere, and it shows. A quiz that keeps asking about one country's television in the nineteen eighties is not a hard quiz, it is a local one, and in a mixed room it stops being fun in about four questions. Games where players write the questions, or where the answer is a survey rather than a fact, hold up much better across ages and countries.
The other fairness problem is reaction speed. Several of these award points for answering fast, which quietly sorts the room by age rather than knowledge. Most have a setting to turn the timer off, and it is usually worth finding.
Pick the arrangement first, test one round in advance, mute the game, keep one offline quiz in reserve, and stop after three rounds.
Frequently asked questions
Which of these work without an internet connection?
The two built as offline quizzes hold their questions on the device, and the charades and forehead games need nothing at all. Most of the rest fetch questions as they go.
Do all the players need to install something?
Only in the one phone each games. Pass the phone and question master formats need a single device, which is why they survive a room where half the people will not install anything.
Are the free versions playable?
Yes, with advertisements between rounds. In a room that is more disruptive than it is on your own, so it is one of the few cases where paying a couple of pounds genuinely improves an evening.
What works with children and adults together?
The forehead and charades games, logo quizzes and the survey answer formats. Straight general knowledge sorts the room by age immediately.
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