Guide
Games to play with friends on your phone
Almost every “best party games” list ignores the question that actually decides the evening: how many phones are in play? A game built for one phone passed around a restaurant table falls apart in a living room where everyone has their own, and the reverse is worse.
So these twelve are sorted by that first. There is one phone, passed around — charades and hidden roles, where the screen is a secret one person holds at a time. There is everyone on their own phone, the shape most modern party games take, because nobody waits for the device to reach them. And there is a screen with phones as controllers, the Jackbox model, still the best one if a TV is free.
Every price, rating and player count below was read off the US App Store listing on 19 September 2026. Where a listing states no player count, this page leaves it blank rather than inventing one. Prices change; check before you buy.
The twelve
Rank 100 (our game)
- Joseph Christopher Spisak
- Free, with ads; optional subscription
- 2–10 players
- Everyone’s own phone
- Rated 4+
A real top-100 list drops — most-streamed songs, biggest box-office hits, most populous countries — and everyone names one entry. Your score is that entry’s rank, so the #3 everybody shouts pays 3 points and the #94 nobody saw coming pays 94. The obvious answer is the worst answer, a rule you can explain while round one runs.
One person starts the game, the rest join with a code, nobody makes an account, and every list carries its published source and date.
Our own pricing, held to the standard this page holds everyone else to: free to download and play, with an ad between some rounds for free players. Rank 100 Premium is an optional subscription — monthly or annual, free trial — that removes those ads and unlocks every pack, and the one pack today, Sports Pro, is $2.99 on its own.
Right pick when: The group is competitive and you want the quiet one to win a round on something nobody else knew.
Free · iPhone · 2–10 players · no account needed
Psych! Outwit Your Friends
- Warner Bros.
- Free
- Everyone’s own phone
- Rated 12+
From the makers of Heads Up!. Everyone writes a fake answer to a real question, the fakes go up next to the true one, and you score for spotting the truth and for every player you fool. Some categories are trivia; others — “The Truth Comes Out” — are about the people in the room.
Pitched by its own listing for “family game night, Zoom calls, road trips, or even waiting in line”, and rated 12+ for mild mature and suggestive themes.
Right pick when: The laugh you want comes from the group being funny, not from the group being right.
Heads Up!
- Warner Bros.
- $1.99
- One phone, passed around
- Rated 12+
The charades one. Phone against your forehead, everyone else shouting clues at the word only they can see, tilt down when you get it and up to pass. Over 100 themed decks, plus your own.
One of the few paid entries here at $1.99, and one of the few that needs exactly one phone and room to wave your arms.
Right pick when: A loud room, a mixed-age group, and about ninety seconds of attention span.
The Jackbox Party Pack
- Jackbox Games, Inc.
- $29.99
- up to 10 players
- A screen, phones as controllers
- Rated 12+
The format most people mean by “phone party game”: the pack runs on a big screen and everybody plays on the device already in their hand. Jackbox puts it plainly — “No extra controllers needed - players simply join the game and play using phones, tablets or computers!” — and Party Pack 9 supports up to 10 players plus an audience.
Before you buy: on the App Store the Party Packs are iPad and Mac titles, not iPhone ones, and somebody needs a screen the room can see. Party Pack 11 is $29.99; The Jackbox Party Starter bundles Quiplash 3, Trivia Murder Party 2 and Tee K.O. for $19.99, and Quiplash, Drawful 2 and Fibbage XL are $9.99.
Right pick when: A TV or a laptop on the coffee table, and someone willing to spend real money on the evening.
Wavelength
- Palm Court LLC
- Free
- 2–10+ players
- Everyone’s own phone
- Rated 9+
A dial sits between two extremes — hot and cold, soft and hard — and one player sees a hidden target on it. They give a one-word clue; everyone else moves the dial. Cooperative: you are reading one person’s head, not beating them.
The app version of the board game: free with no ads by the developer’s own description, 2 to 10+ players, in the room or across the world.
Right pick when: A smaller group, a slower evening, people who enjoy arguing about where a hot dog sits on a spectrum.
Out of the Loop
- Tasty Rook
- Free
- 3–9 players
- One phone, passed around
- Rated 4+
Everybody but one player knows the secret word. Questions go round, answers stay deliberately vague, and the group works out who is bluffing through a conversation about something they cannot name.
Its listing is unusually exact: “a single iOS device and a few friends”, 3–9 players, five to ten minutes a round, rated 4+ with no in-app purchase advisories.
Right pick when: A queue, a car, a restaurant table — anywhere only one phone can reasonably come out.
Triple Agent!
- Tasty Rook
- Free
- 5–7 (9 with the expansion) players
- One phone, passed around
- Rated 4+
Social deduction on one device: everyone is secretly a Service agent or a VIRUS double agent, the phone goes round, and each pass hands you something you then have to lie about. The free base game is 5–7 players with 12 operations; the paid expansion takes it to 9 and adds hidden roles.
Games run about ten minutes — the difference between this and a whole evening of Werewolf.
Right pick when: Five or more people, one phone, and a group that enjoys accusing each other.
Wolvesville Classic
- Wolvesville GmbH & Co. KG
- Free
- One phone, passed around
- Rated 9+
Not a game so much as the missing deck of cards. If you know how to run Werewolf or Mafia, this sets the player count and roles, then goes round the table so each person taps to see who they are. More than 30 roles included, and you still supply the moderator.
Right pick when: A big group, a long evening, and one person who knows the rules by heart.
Picolo
- Marmelapp
- Free, with a subscription
- One phone, passed around
- Rated 17+
Type in everyone’s names, pass the phone, do what it says. It is the drinking-game shape and the listing is honest about it: rated 17+ with a frequent/intense advisory for alcohol, tobacco and drug references. Free to start, with weekly, monthly and annual subscriptions.
Right pick when: Adults only, late, and never the one you open in front of someone’s parents.
Among Us!
- InnerSloth LLC
- Free
- 4–15 players
- Everyone’s own phone
- Rated 9+
The impostor game that ate 2020 and never left. Four to fifteen players run tasks on a spaceship while impostors sabotage and kill; the arguments happen in the emergency meetings. Cross-platform, so a friend on a PC or console joins the same lobby as the phones.
The one entry here that works as well across four cities as on one sofa.
Right pick when: A group happy to look at their own screen for twenty minutes at a time, in the room or on a call.
Kahoot!
- Kahoot ASA
- Free
- A screen, phones as controllers
- Rated 4+
The school-assembly quiz format, genuinely good at a party if somebody does the prep. One person hosts live, everyone else joins on the app and submits answers, and the scoreboard rewards speed as well as accuracy. Write the questions about the people in the room and it stops being a lesson. Free, rated 4+.
Right pick when: A big, mixed group — kids included — and one person who will write the questions in advance.
Codenames
- CGE Digital s.r.o.
- $4.99
- Everyone’s own phone
- Rated 9+
The word-association classic, officially digital: one-word clues, a grid, two teams, and the risk of pointing your own team at the assassin. The paid app is turn-based by design — matches wait for you — which makes it the odd one out here, better as a week-long game than as something you start at 9pm on a Friday.
Own the physical box? The separate Codenames Companion app is free and generates key cards.
Right pick when: A group chat that wants a running game, not a room that wants a round right now.
Side by side
| Game | Players | Phones | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank 100 (ours) | 2–10 | Everyone’s own phone | Free, with ads; optional subscription |
| Psych! Outwit Your Friends | — | Everyone’s own phone | Free |
| Heads Up! | — | One phone, passed around | $1.99 |
| The Jackbox Party Pack | up to 10 | A screen, phones as controllers | $29.99 |
| Wavelength | 2–10+ | Everyone’s own phone | Free |
| Out of the Loop | 3–9 | One phone, passed around | Free |
| Triple Agent! | 5–7 (9 with the expansion) | One phone, passed around | Free |
| Wolvesville Classic | — | One phone, passed around | Free |
| Picolo | — | One phone, passed around | Free, with a subscription |
| Among Us! | 4–15 | Everyone’s own phone | Free |
| Kahoot! | — | A screen, phones as controllers | Free |
| Codenames | — | Everyone’s own phone | $4.99 |
US App Store figures read on 19 September 2026. A dash means the listing states no number.
If you only take one thing from this
Pick for the room, not for the review score. A game that needs everyone's own phone is dead weight at a table where two people left theirs in a coat, and one that passes a phone around dies in a group of nine, because seven of them wait.
Rank 100 sits in the everyone's-own-phone column, and what makes it work is that the content is real: rounds are built on published top-100 rankings, so after a reveal you can check the number. On a night nobody is free, the Daily Climb is the same idea for one.
Questions, answered
What is the best game to play with friends on your phone?
It depends how many phones you can use. If everyone has their own and you want a fast competitive round, Rank 100 or Psych! fit. If only one can come out — a restaurant table, a car — Heads Up!, Out of the Loop and Triple Agent! are built for that. With a TV, the Jackbox Party Packs still set the standard.
Are there free party games for phones?
Yes, and most of this list is free to download: Rank 100, Psych!, Wavelength, Out of the Loop, Triple Agent!, Wolvesville Classic, Among Us! and Kahoot! all cost nothing to start, though several of them — ours included — carry ads or an optional subscription. Heads Up! is $1.99, Codenames is $4.99, and the Jackbox Party Packs are $19.99 to $29.99, all checked on the US App Store.
How many people do you need for a phone party game?
Two is enough for Wavelength or Rank 100. Out of the Loop takes three to nine, Triple Agent! at least five, Among Us! four to fifteen, and the Jackbox packs up to ten plus an audience. Werewolf-style games need a real crowd.
Two to ten players. Everyone on their own phone.
Free · iPhone · 2–10 players · no account needed