Drag your mallet around your half of the table and smash the puck into the far goal. Swing faster to hit harder. First to the target number of goals wins.
👫Games to play with two people
Not every game needs a crowd. These work with just two players – on a date, on a train or at the end of a long day – and still get better as you add friends.
The ten-second classic. Take turns placing crosses and noughts on a 3×3 grid and be first to get three in a row. The Hard bot plays perfectly – a draw against it is a win.
A proper dartboard with doubles, trebles and the bull. Touch the board to aim – the sight sways like a real hand – and let go to throw. Count down from 301 to exactly zero, or chase the highest score.
Full chess rules including castling, en passant and promotion. Practise against a bot on three levels, share one phone with a friend, or send a joining code and play on separate phones.
Drop coloured discs into a seven-column board and be first to line up four, across, down or diagonally. Quick to learn, and the bots get cleverer on Hard.
Place five ships in secret, then take turns calling shots. A hit shows a flame; sink every enemy ship to win. One phone mode puts both boards on one screen – lay the phone flat between you and play face to face. Online, up to six captains can share a battle: pick any captain still afloat and fire at their waters. The last fleet afloat wins.
English draughts on an eight-by-eight board with forced captures, multi-jumps and crowned kings.
Place nine pieces, slide them along the lines and make three in a row (a mill) to remove an opponent’s piece. With three pieces left you may fly.
Each round shows a scale with two ends – Cheap and Expensive, Underrated and Overrated. The Psychic secretly sees where the target sits, says one clue, and everyone else turns the dial to match.
Two tricky choices appear on every phone. Everyone picks one in secret, then the group result is revealed along with who chose what – and the arguing begins. Play it as a pure laugh, or go with the crowd to score points. Add seasonal packs for Christmas, Diwali and Halloween, plus United Kingdom, United States, Europe and India dilemmas.
The same question appears on every phone with a countdown. Tap the right answer fast – faster answers score more, and consecutive correct answers build a streak bonus. Pick from general knowledge, science, geography, history, film and TV, music, sport, food, nature and tech, then add packs such as Pub Quiz, India, Britain, America, Eurovision, Christmas, Diwali and Halloween.
Hold the phone to your forehead so you cannot see the screen. Your friends see the word and act it out, describe it or hum it, and you guess before the timer runs out. Swipe down on the screen when you get it right, or up to pass. It works with just two players and scales up to a whole room.
Each player is secretly given an identity – an animal, a celebrity, a film character or a food. Everyone else can see it on their phone, but you cannot. Take turns asking yes or no questions to work out who or what you are.
Each round gets a letter and a list of categories – a food, a city, an animal, a film. Everyone races to type an answer for every category that begins with the letter. The first player to finish hits PANIC and everyone else has five seconds to finish.
Flip two cards and try to find a matching pair. If they match you keep them and go again; if not, they flip back and it is the next player’s turn. Play on your own to beat your best number of moves, pass one phone around a table, or have everyone join from their own phone and see the same board.