Trivia, riddles and brain games for groups
Quiz questions, riddles, maths and brain-teasers. All 12 are free, play on a single phone that gets passed around, and need no download or account.
A quiz is the most reliable group game there is, because everybody already knows how to play. Somebody asks, everybody argues, somebody is smug. The only thing standing between a room and a good quiz round is a person willing to spend an evening writing questions — and then that person cannot play.
This group of 12 games removes the quizmaster. Trivia Royale runs a full pub quiz across ten categories with streak bonuses and a fun fact on every reveal. Riddle Rush deals lateral-thinking puzzles with a hint button you will use and then regret. Quick Maths is mental arithmetic under a countdown, and it is genuinely humbling. Mystery Stories gives the group a strange scenario and lets them ask nothing but yes-or-no questions until the picture snaps into place.
The rest are the short ones you play while waiting for food. Emoji Decoder, Odd One Out, Higher or Lower, Guesstimate, 20 Questions, Fact or Fiction, Bad Movie Plots and Crack the Code are all one-to-ten-minute games that work solo, in pairs or in teams. None of them need a pen, and none of them need googling — which is the house rule that makes the whole category work.
All 12 games in this collection
Trivia Royale
Trivia Royale is a multiple-choice quiz game for 1–20 players in which each player or team has 20 seconds to answer a four-option question, earning 100 points per correct answer and a 50-point bonus while on a streak of three or more.
Riddle Rush
Riddle Rush is a pass-and-play riddle game for 2 to 20 players in which one phone shows a riddle to the whole room, a hint is available for the price of a point, and the phone-holder awards the point to whoever solves it first.
Quick Maths
Quick Maths is a pass-and-play mental arithmetic game for 2–20 players in which each player answers timed questions on the phone’s own number pad, scoring 10 points a correct answer plus a bonus for every third one in a row.
Emoji Decoder
Emoji Decoder is a pass-and-play guessing game for 2 to 20 players in which the phone shows a short string of emoji that spells out a film, song, place or phrase, and players shout the answer before anyone takes the hint.
Mystery Stories
Mystery Stories is a lateral-thinking party game in which one player reads out a strange scenario and privately holds the solution, while everyone else reconstructs what happened by asking questions that can only be answered yes, no, or irrelevant.
Guesstimate
Guesstimate is a party game for 2–20 players in which everyone privately guesses the numeric answer to a question like "how tall is Mount Everest?", and the closest guess to the true value scores the points.
Odd One Out
Odd One Out is a quick-fire puzzle game in which four items appear on screen, three of them share a hidden category, and players race to spot the one that does not belong.
Fact or Fiction
Fact or Fiction is a party game for 2–20 players in which a claim is read out, everyone votes on whether it is genuinely true or completely made up, and the answer is revealed with the real story behind it.
Higher or Lower
Higher or Lower is a comparison game for 2–20 players in which two things from the same category are shown, one with its real statistic and one hidden, and players call whether the hidden number is higher or lower than the one they can see.
Crack the Code
Crack the Code is a digital version of Mastermind for 1–8 players in which one player (or the phone) hides a 3, 4 or 5-digit code and everyone else takes turns guessing, learning after each guess only how many digits are in the right place and how many are right but misplaced.
Bad Movie Plots
Bad Movie Plots is a pass-and-play guessing game for 2 to 20 players in which a famous film is described as badly and as literally as possible, in the style of a one-star review, and players race to name it.
20 Questions
20 Questions is a deduction game in which one player secretly thinks of a person, place or thing and everyone else has twenty yes-or-no questions to work out what it is.
Frequently asked questions
Can one person play these alone?
Trivia Royale supports a single player, and Riddle Rush, Crack the Code, Word-style puzzles and Quick Maths all work fine solo if you are killing time. Everything else is more fun with somebody to be wrong in front of.
How do you stop people googling the answers?
The honest answer is a house rule, but the games help. Quick Maths, Higher or Lower and 20 Questions are on a countdown short enough that looking it up costs you the round, and Guesstimate rewards the closest estimate rather than the exact figure, so a search does not help much.
Are the questions repeated?
Not until a pool is exhausted. Each game tracks what your group has already been shown on this device and works through the rest of the library first, so a second round on the same evening is all new material.
Which of these is best for kids?
Emoji Decoder, Odd One Out, Higher or Lower and Riddle Rush land well with children, and Quick Maths turns homework into a competition, which is a trick worth having. Set the content level to Family and every question in every game is age-appropriate.
Can we play in teams?
Yes. Trivia Royale, Emoji Decoder, Odd One Out and Mystery Stories all work with the room split into teams — one phone stays with whoever is reading, and each team confers before answering.
Looking for something else?
Social deduction7 games
Secret roles, straight faces, and accusations.
Word & acting10 games
Describe it, act it, draw it, guess it.
Talk & confess8 games
Dilemmas, confessions and pointing fingers.
Creative3 games
Bluff, debate, and build stories together.
Challenges3 games
Timers, tongue twisters and sixty-second madness.
Large groups33 games
Games that get better the more people turn up.
2 players23 games
Games that work when there are only two of you.