Programming guide

How to Pick the Right Game for Your Group

The fastest way to lose a room is picking a game for the group you wish you had instead of the one actually on your couch, tonight, watching you scroll. Three questions sort it out every time: how many people, how much energy, and how gamer-y is the least gamer-y person here?

By group size

2–4 people: this is where the deeper games breathe. Co-op runs like Locked In or Space Walk, head-to-head skill like Road Rage or Push Comes to Shove (both 1–4), or a thinky duel from the strategy shelf like Territorial (1–6).
5–8 people: the sweet spot — almost everything on the platform seats this range. Mix one writing game (Zinger), one skill game (Paddle Royale), and one auction or economy game (Flip City or Market Rush) for a full arc.
9 or more: reach for the 10-and-12-seaters — Werewolf, Baloney, Scatterbrains, Quick Draw — and rotate spectators through the roster between rounds. Full breakdown in the big-groups guide.

By energy level

Loud room, drinks flowing: voting and bluffing games thrive on noise — Zinger, Baloney, and Poker's forehead-guessing mode. Skill games with short rounds (Push Comes to Shove, Paddle Royale) keep the adrenaline up without anyone sitting out long.
Wind-down mode: drawing-telephone (Pass the Doodle), trivia at your own pace, or a cooperative strategy game where the room plans out loud — Hold the Line or Space Walk.
Competitive friends who talk trash: anything with an economy — Market Rush, Deed or Alive, Flip City — or the tower-defense showdown inside Hold the Line. Direct rivalry, visible scoreboards.

By who's in the room

Mixed ages / grandparents / kids: drawing and word games have no skill floor — Quick Draw, Pass the Doodle, Scatterbrains, Funeral Potatoes (built to stay family-friendly). Nobody needs to have held a controller before, because the controller is a phone they already own.
Coworkers who just met: avoid games that eliminate people early. Simultaneous-answer formats (Know-it-All, Zinger, Scatterbrains) keep everyone playing every round, and nobody has to perform alone.
A table of board-gamers: the strategy category is theirs — hidden-money auctions (Deed or Alive, Flip City), settlement-building (Territorial), an asymmetric showdown (Sick Day), or the cooldown-chess chaos of Check, Please!

By time available

Ten minutes before dinner: one round of Paddle Royale, Rat Race, or Know-it-All. In and out.
A full evening: chain three or four different games — the hosting guide has a pacing recipe (icebreaker → loud peak → cozy finish) that works for nearly any group.

Still unsure? Open the full library — every game lists its player count, objective, and how-to-play steps, so you can decide with the room instead of for it.