Guilty Party

Over a video call

Games to play on Zoom

Games that work when everybody is in a different room, sorted by what they need: nothing, one shared screen, or a screen for each player.

Board games do not survive a video call. Games made of talking do, and so do the ones where everyone already has a screen in front of them. Two things shape the evening before the game does. A free Zoom meeting with three or more people ends after 40 minutes. And anything that needs a host to share their screen costs you that person for the whole game. Every entry below says how many people it takes, what it really costs, and what it is bad at.

Nothing to open

No link, no app, nothing to share. These start in one sentence and stop when you stop.

  • Two Truths and a Lie

    2+ playersFreeNothing to open

    Everyone says three things about themselves. One of them is invented. The rest guess which.

    • The cheapest way to start an evening, and it shows you early who at this table can lie.
    • One round is usually all it has, and old friends already know each other’s material.

  • Twenty Questions

    2+ playersFreeNothing to open

    One person thinks of something. Everyone else has twenty yes-or-no questions to find it.

    • All voice, so it survives a bad connection and works with the cameras off.
    • One person owns each round and the rest wait for a turn to speak.

One person shares a screen

A host runs the game on their screen and shares it in the call. Everyone else plays from a phone. It works, but the screen share is on all evening and the host sees things nobody else does.

  • The Jackbox Party Pack

    Up to 8 players$29.99 a packScreen share required

    Five games in a pack. The host runs it on a computer or a console and shares the screen. Everyone else joins at jackbox.tv in a phone browser. Jackbox puts a session at 15 to 20 minutes.

    • The best thing here for a big, loud group, and guests need nothing but a browser and the room code.
    • Nothing Jackbox makes is free. One person buys a pack, owns a machine that runs it, and shares their screen with computer sound for the whole evening.

  • Kahoot!

    10 players on the free planFree plan, paid tiersScreen share required

    Quizzes. The host puts the questions on screen and everyone answers on their own device. There is also a Kahoot app that runs inside a Zoom meeting, which keeps the answers in the call window.

    • Millions of ready-made quizzes, so the host picks one instead of writing one.
    • The free plan stops at 10 participants, and at 3 if the host signed up as a business account. The host needs an account. Players do not.

A screen each, joined by a link

Everyone opens the same room in their own browser, so nobody shares a screen and the video call stays a video call. This group also copes best with a mix of phones and laptops.

  • Codenames Online

    4+ players, up to 64FreeOwn browser

    Two teams, a grid of words, and a spymaster on each side who may give only one-word clues. This is the publisher’s own free web version: type a nickname, share the room URL, play.

    • About fifteen minutes, no account, and the site itself tells you to keep your video call running beside it. The two-player Duet mode is free in the same room.
    • It wants two people willing to be spymaster, and it is a puzzle more than a conversation. The $4.99 mobile app is a different product from the free web one.

  • Gartic Phone

    4 to 50 playersFree, ad-supportedOwn browser

    Telephone played with drawings. You write a sentence, the next person draws it, the next describes the drawing, and the chain comes back wrong in a way nobody planned.

    • The least effort on this page. Nobody has to be clever and nobody has to be able to draw.
    • Ad-supported, behind a consent screen listing hundreds of advertising partners. The smallest room is four people.

  • skribbl

    2 to 20 playersFreeOwn browser

    One person draws a word and everyone else types guesses. Create a private room and send the link.

    • Free, no account, and you set the number of rounds and the seconds per drawing yourself.
    • Use the private room. Public rooms are unmoderated strangers. The site works, but its changelog has not moved since 2022.

  • One Night Ultimate Werewolf

    3 to 29 playersFreeOwn browser

    Werewolf compressed into one night and one round of accusations, with roles that swap while everybody’s eyes are shut. The host clicks New Game and shares a four-letter code. The same site runs Spyfall, Avalon and five more, all free.

    • No moderator. The site handles the night phase, which removes the usual reason Werewolf does not happen: somebody has to sit out and narrate.
    • It is one person’s hobby project, and the site says he is still checking that the publishers are happy with it being there. Free, but not something to build a tradition on.

  • Guilty Party

    4–6 playersFirst case freeOwn browser

    A written murder mystery for one evening. Everyone gets a character and cards only they can see, one of you did it, and the table has three rounds of conversation and a dossier to work out who. The app deals the roles and counts the votes, so nobody hosts and nobody sits out.

    • The talking is the game, so a grid of faces is the right shape for it rather than something to work around. Guests join by link in a browser, and only the person who opens the room pays.
    • It takes four people and about half an hour. Below four the app will not deal the roles. A case is played once, because after the resolution everybody knows who did it.
    Play a free case

    The Eclipse is free. No install, no sign-up.

Somebody else runs it

Paid, scheduled, and hosted by a person who is not one of you. These are booked in advance rather than started because a call went well.

  • The Escape Game Remote Adventures

    Up to 10 players$30–35 per player60 minutes on Zoom

    A live guide stands in a real escape room wearing a body camera and does what your team tells them to. You watch through their eyes on Zoom and solve it by talking. Three rooms to choose from.

    • Nobody organises anything and nobody explains any rules. You join a Zoom call and it happens.
    • Per player plus tax, so six people is around two hundred dollars. It is an occasion, not a Thursday.

  • Sporcle Live virtual trivia

    Up to 10 devices per team$5 per deviceHosted on Zoom

    A pub quiz with a live host on Zoom. An hour is $5 per device and two hours is $8. Sporcle’s own quizzes at sporcle.com are free if you would rather run one yourself off a shared screen.

    • The cheapest hosted option here, and the host does all the work.
    • A booked event with a stranger running it, which suits a planned night rather than a spontaneous one.

How it works over a call

  1. Five people at a candlelit table, each holding a card face down; one of them whispers behind her hand.

    One of you opens the room

    The room gets a six-letter code. Paste the link into the call chat, or read the code out and let people type it. Everyone else plays in a browser tab. Nothing to install, no account, no email address.

  2. The same table, one guest talking with his hands open while the others watch him.

    Your cards stay on your own screen

    Everyone gets a character and cards only they can see. On a call this is easier than at a table: nobody is sitting close enough to read your screen.

  3. Close up: a man laying a sealed card face up on the tablecloth, the woman beside him laughing.

    The dossier lands on every screen at once

    After each round one new fact arrives for the whole table. It never clears anyone, so the work is the conversation, not the screen. The faces in the grid are what you are reading.

  4. The whole table pointing at once in different directions, phones showing the same dossier in front of them.

    Everybody accuses at the same time

    Three rounds, then one blind vote and the resolution. Nobody is eliminated on the way, so no one spends the last twenty minutes with their camera off.

Do not share your own window

Your window has your cards in it. Share your screen in the call and the whole table sees them. It is easy to do by accident while showing somebody where to click.

There is a window you can share. The shared screen at theguiltyparty.app/b/CODE shows the dossiers, the scene and the clock, and nothing else. It is never sent a private card, so it cannot leak one. Open it in a second window and share that one.

Play a free case

The Eclipse is free. No install, no sign-up.

Questions people ask

What can you play on Zoom with no setup at all?

Talking games. Two Truths and a Lie and Twenty Questions need nobody to open anything, which is why they are the ones that turn a call into a game night mid-sentence. Everything else on this page needs at least a browser tab.

Does the free Zoom plan cut the evening short?

Yes, once there are three of you. Zoom Basic ends a meeting at 40 minutes, and one-to-one calls have no limit. You can start again on the same link, so either pick something that reaches an ending inside 40 minutes or plan for one break.

How many people can be on the call?

Zoom Basic allows 100 participants per meeting. The games are the real limit: most of these are best between four and eight, because past that people stop talking and start waiting.

Which of these are actually free?

Codenames Online, Gartic Phone, skribbl and netgames.io are free in a browser with no account. Kahoot has a free plan that stops at 10 participants. Jackbox is not free, and no title of theirs is. The hosted trivia and escape rooms run $5 to $35 a head. Guilty Party gives you the first case free; the rest are $4.99 each, or $29.99 a year for the shelf.

Can we play Mafia or Werewolf over Zoom?

Yes, and without anyone sitting out to moderate. netgames.io runs One Night Ultimate Werewolf free in the browser, for 3 to 29 players, and handles the night phase itself. The same site runs Spyfall, Avalon and five others on the same terms.

Can we play a murder mystery over Zoom?

Yes. Guilty Party is one, it runs in a browser, and it takes four to six people and about half an hour. The app deals the roles and counts the votes, so nobody has to host it, print anything or read a script aloud.

Is it safe to share my screen?

Not your own window, in any game where you hold something private. Your cards are on your screen. Guilty Party has a separate shared screen at theguiltyparty.app/b/CODE which is only ever sent what the whole table already has, so that is the window to share.

What if some of us are on phones and some on laptops?

That is fine for everything here that runs in a browser. Guilty Party lays out differently on a phone and on a laptop, and a laptop window parked beside the video call is a width it is built for.

Also worth reading

The one that needs a screen each

The Eclipse is free, takes four to six people and about half an hour, and explains itself as it goes.

Play a free case

The Eclipse is free. No install, no sign-up.