12 games you can play with friends while social distancing
We’re all stuck at home right now so it’s only natural if you’re feeling a little lonely. Thankfully, this collection of party games will offer you a great way to play with your friends while you’re stuck at home practicing social distancing. I’ve personally played pretty much all of these with my friends and can say without a doubt they’re a ton of fun. Here are my favorites!
Jackbox.tv
The brilliant thing about all Jackbox games is that they teach you how to play them while you play. No need to read directions, just install, launch, and get playing. All of these games are extremely fun and the more people you can get involved, the better. You can have up to 8 players in each game and all each player needs to play is a smartphone, tablet, or computer.
Jackbox games aren’t free but you can usually find good deals on them. They frequently have discounts on various platforms. Personally, I’d recommend starting with a party pack, such as Party Pack 4.
Fibbage 3
Fibbage 3 is a game where you’re given the joyful task of fooling your friends with clever lies. Players submit their best “truths” to fill the blank in a piece of obscure trivia. Everyone then votes on which “truth”they think correctly completes the fact. You can still win the Thumbs Cup and you can still rely on the “Lie for Me” button if you’re stumped.
There’s also a prequel and sequel to Fibbage 3 — Fibbage 2 and Fibbage XL, respectively. All three are a ton of fun.
Survive the Internet
During each round of Survive the Internet, players get a different prompt on their device that asks a simple, opinion-based question like, “How do you feel about Fidget Cubes?” Let’s say you’re wildly addicted to them, so you respond with, “I’m addicted to them!” or you know, you can make something up.
That response is then randomly sent to another player. Their objective is to take your quote out of context in the funniest way they can. So your opponent might add a hashtag to make it seem like you’re addicted to #HomeworkAssignments, #Swirlies, #UndercookedFrenchFries, or some other thing that makes you look like a total putz!
Then, everyone votes on who comes out looking the most ridiculous. You earn bonus points for being the person who made them look that way! And your putz friends earn some pity points for sacrificing their reputation. The player with the most points at the end “survives.”
Monster Seeking Monster
Monster Seeking Monster is a dating-themed party game where players send each other secret messages trying to set up dates. After each round, you discover who chose to date each other… and who was betrayed.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention you’re also all secretly monsters with different hidden powers. These hidden powers could be getting extra points for spreading vampirism or gaining or losing points depending on whether you date someone during a full moon. Regardless of what your hidden power is, keep it in mind while playing to score the most points.
Players are awarded hearts for matching with other players and bonus hearts that relate to their special hidden powers. Throughout the game, monsters are revealed and you have the opportunity to counteract their powers. But you can ignore all that if you want, and just use Monster Seeking Monster as another excuse to type funny things in on your mobile device that will make your friends laugh.
Trivia Murder Party
In Trivia Murder Party each player must compete in a series minigames that range from trying to drink from a non-poisoned chalice, memorizing murder weapon patterns, and making the longest word you can from a block of ransom note letters, just to name a few. It all comes down to a mad dash to the exit as everyone answers rapid-fire trivia questions to be the first one out the door.
Mad Verse City
In Mad Verse City, you hear your MC avatar rap the bars that you’ve written (they’re a little robotic, but hey, they’re doing their best). Feeling a bit off your lyrical game? Use the “Write for Me” and “Suggestions” buttons to help. Once you submit your rhyme, smash the “Fire” and “Boo” buttons to react to the other players during the battle.
This game can be a lot of fun, especially if you’re playing with friends who are gifted with words. Trust me.
Civic Doodle
When it comes to Civic Doodle, two players draw at once, adding whatever they choose to a simple starter drawing. Other players and audience members can react with an onscreen emoji in real time as the drawings emerge.
When the time’s up, everyone votes on which drawing is the “best.” The winner’s drawing becomes the new “base drawing” that the next two players add to, in the same fashion as the first round. After everyone has drawn twice, you get to see your finished masterpiece displayed in a place of honor in the town! And yes, it looks as bad as you would expect.
In the final round, the mayor commissions you and your fellow players to paint a portrait for the town hall. This culminates in a drawing free-for-all where everyone competes at once. Name your portrait something truly inspired, then admire the final result. The player who made the most popular additions wins!
Plato
Plato is a wonderful little app that lets you easily play minigames with your friends right from your phone for free. Simply download the app, open it, and you’re ready to go. It gives you a username (which you can change, if you so choose) and you can add your friends and even create groups for multiple friends to be part of. In addition to the games listed below, there’s more games in the app, including Chess, Pool, Minigolf, Conspiracy, and many others.
Ocho (aka Uno)
Everyone loves playing Ocho (aka Uno), the fun, multi-colored card game. If you play on Plato you can have up to six people in a game along with options to enable live play (the default) or turn-based play as well as the option to enable special cards (which can make things a bit more interesting).
Bowling
So you think you can bowl? Well, to be honest, it’s pretty much irrelevant whether you can or not with this fun two player game. Compete against your friend to see who can rack up the highest score–and don’t let your finger slip!
Sea Battle (aka Battleship)
Get your captain’s hat on, in Sea Battle, you play against your friends and try to sink their battleships. If this sounds familiar that’s because it is, but now you can play on your phone!
Cards Against Humanity
Everyone’s favorite card game — but online (and for free). The rules and play are the same, but your cards are virtual. Additionally, the creator of the room can add various different packs to the deck to make it even more fun.
Skribbl.io
Another great free game: Skribbl.io. It’s a super fun game to play with a large group, simply enter in words/topics you want to be used during the game or let it pick them on its own. Then when it’s your turn to draw, you will have to choose a word from three options and visualize that word in 80 seconds, alternatively when somebody else is drawing you have to type your guess into the chat to gain points, be quick, the earlier you guess a word the more points you get!
Among Us
Among Us is an online multiplayer game that can be played between 4-10 players. The game is inspired by real-life party game known in some parts as Mafia. Players are randomly designated roles such as crewmates and impostors. The goal of the impostors is to kill all of the crewmates without being caught before the crewmates finish their minigames. The crewmates can win the game by finishing their mini-tasks before everyone is killed or if they figure out who the impostor is.
The game already was rising in popularity in gaming hotspots like South Korea and Brazil but it was when a popular Twitch streamer's in the United States started playing and streaming Among Us, that the game reached a meteoric rise in its popularity. In the first half of September 2020 alone, Among Us was downloaded almost 42 million times on Steam compared to just 1.1 million downloads in January 2020 - an increase of over 3700 percent.
You can download Among Us for free on mobile (iOS, Android) or buy the game on your computer (Windows only) for $5 on Steam.