How To Plan a Perfect Game Night for Family and Friends

Cool summer nights are the perfect time for hangouts with friends and family. And arranging game nights can be the perfect way to wind down after long days of busy schedules. Game nights can be the opportunity for you to have a fun and memorable time with all your nearest and dearest people. It can also be an ice-breaker activity to get closer with new people and make friends. But what are the fun games to play with friends and family? And how to successfully host an entertaining game night? Don't you worry! We are here to help you with some great tips and ideas to keep in mind.

Some Fun Game Ideas:

Here are some fun and interactive game ideas totally suitable for an adult game night. Some are already pretty famous and classic whereas some are a bit unique yet thrilling.

1. Truth or Dare: Yes, a classic! And for absolutely good reasons. You can't deny this game's ability to bring forth the best kind of entertainment. You get a chance to know all kinds of fun or embarrassing truths of your friends or get them to do some hilariously gutsy tasks like taking a dip in the pool fully clothed or eating a whole chili (oops!).

2. Never Have I Ever: Another fun game to discover what your friends might have been upto. In this game, one player names something they haven't done in life, like 'never have I ever gone fishing' and then the person who has gone fishing before, takes a sip of drink from their glass. You might get surprised to find out some weird or totally unexpected things the players might have done before. And if you want to avoid getting drunk, then use juice instead of alcohol.

3. Game of Charades: This game is the perfect family night game which could be enjoyed by everyone. You can choose any kind of category of your liking, movies, tv shows or books. Then divide in teams and choose one player from each team to enact the name of the movie or book to their teammates. If the teammates can successfully guess the name, they win points. It's also really fun to see everyone struggling to describe a particularly tricky name through body language.

4. Game of Mafia: A popular game perfect to play with a large group of people. In this game, the host chooses 2 or 3 people from the players to be the mafias and others are automatically citizens. The game goes for a few rounds and in each round players discuss among themselves in daytime to determine who could be the mafia and choose one suspect to kill. And during the night, mafias get the chance to kill one citizen of their choice. If all mafias get caught at last, then citizens win. This is a thoroughly entertaining game because you can see how everyone gets suspicious of each other and starts treating every word and action as some kind of bizarre clue.

5. Pictionary: One of the best games for game night. Time to showcase your talent for drawing through this interesting game where you are given a word and you have to describe it to your teammate through a drawing. If they can guess it right, your team wins. But the catch? You only get 30 seconds to draw!

6. Shouting in Silence: It's a new and unique team game but has the potential to become a new favorite among the players. In this game, everyone stands in a line wearing headphones with loud music blasting in their ears. And only the last person in the line is given a name. That player then passes on the word to their next player by shouting their best. This shouting and passing on the word goes on till the last player and finally if the last player can shout the correct word out loud, the team wins the winning point. This game can get really hilarious when words start to get so distorted you can't even comprehend their meaning anymore.

7. Poker Face: This is another addition in the fun, unique game category to play with friends. The rule of the game is simple, keep a poker face throughout anything no matter what. This will be a team game. You can play this in any way you want but we will share here what we did. We gave each member of a team a glass of coke to drink and only one of the glasses had a lot of soya sauce mixed in it. But no one knew who got that glass because it was the mission to keep a poker face even while drinking a bizarre mixture of coke and soya sauce (Eww!). If the opponent team can guess correctly which player drank the ingenious drink, they win!

8. Forbidden Word Debate: Get ready to quickly add it to your game night favorite activity list because you are sure to have a lot of fun playing this game with your friends. In this game teams debate with each other on a given topic, but the interesting thing is debate is not the important focus of the game. Important focus is the forbidden words/actions given to the opponent team. Before the game starts, a team decides to give some forbidden words to opposing team members but said the opponent team would have no idea what those words could be. During the game whenever they end up saying those words, they get penalty points. Finally, the team with the most penalty points wins. 

9. Spoons: A classic card game perfect to liven up your game nights. In this game you sit in a circle and place spoons in the center. The number of spoons should be one less than the number of players. Then the dealer distributes 4 cards to each player. Then the player chooses a card from their deck and moves one card face down to the player left to them. This goes on till one player has four of each kind of card, then they can take a spoon. This way the last player who remains without a spoon becomes the loser of the game.

10. Game of 20 Questions: This can be a perfect game night activity for couples to test their understanding of each other. Or it can be played among friends as well. Here one player thinks of a word in their mind. It can be any random word. Then the other player will get the chance to ask the first player 20 questions to guess what the word in their mind could be. If they guess correctly, they win and they also prove that they have a good understanding of the other player.

Now that we have shared some of our popular game night ideas, we would like to share some overall tips as well so it's easier for you to host a perfect game night.

1. Carefully prepare the invitees list: This is the first task you should do whenever you are planning to host a gathering in your place. Carefully prepare your guests list. Along with your close friends and family members, you can also invite people you would like to befriend or reconnect with. Because a fun game night can be the perfect ice-breaker activity for you. Also make sure that your guests are actually upto playing games and know beforehand what to expect from the event. You don't want people sitting awkwardly in corners killing the fun vibe of the game night.

2. Prepare the games ahead of time: Think and prepare the games you would like to play beforehand. Many games need items like cards, board, papers, crayons and many more. So you should prepare all these items before your guests arrive so you don't waste precious time deciding what to do and scrambling for things you need. When you are deciding games, please keep in mind your guests' preferences as well. You can discuss with them ahead of time so you know to choose games which everyone would enjoy.

3. Prepare prizes and penalties: To make your game night more thrilling and fun, you should prepare little prizes for winners and some minor penalties for losers. Promise of a prize makes people more competitive and passionate. And making the loser eat a whole sour lemon as a penalty is sure to create some great and fun memories to back on later.

4. Clear up space in your living room: Move around the furniture in your living room in a way so you can free up the maximum floor space. Because game nights demand a lot of space, especially if you have a large number of guests. Spread a soft rug and some cushions around so everyone can sit comfortably. If the space is still not sufficient, then you might want to move the gathering outside to your backyard or rooftop.

5. Prepare snacks and drinks: No gathering or party is complete without food and drinks. Game nights are no exceptions. Preparing some finger foods as snacks is pretty easy, or you can just order takeout. And cool, refreshing drinks are a must for guests after heated rounds of intense games.