Phone games to play with family, in the same room or far apart

A phone game for the family has to solve one of two problems, and they are not the same problem. When everyone is in one room, you want a game that one phone can carry from hand to hand. When everyone is in a different town, you want a game each person plays on their own phone, with something in common to talk about afterwards. Work out which one you have first, and the choice of game mostly makes itself.

A note before the list: Puzzle Lantern and Family Trivia come from the same independent developer. They are here because each one is built for exactly one of the two situations, and this page says plainly where each one does not fit.

Start with one question: are you in the same room?

In the same room: one phone, passed around

A restaurant table, a long drive, the twenty minutes before dinner is ready. There is one phone that everyone can reach, and not everyone has a phone of their own. A game earns its place here when it has four things:

• Short turns. The phone moves on before anybody gets restless.
• Nothing to install for the others. One device holds the whole game, so a grandparent or a seven-year-old joins in without an account.
• A way to read aloud. One person can hold the phone and run the game for anyone who cannot read the screen.
• Room for different ages. The hardest part of a mixed table is a question that suits the adults and nobody else.

Family Trivia

Family Trivia is a pass-and-play trivia game for iPhone and iPad, made for exactly this table. Up to 10 players or teams share one device. Each player picks their own topic and their own difficulty (Easy, Medium or Hard), so the dinosaur fan gets dinosaurs on Easy while someone else gets space on Hard, in the same game. Every question has four choices and is worth one point, and you choose how many rounds to play, from 3 to 15.

What to know before you install it:

• The questions are generated for each player’s topic, so it needs an internet connection.
• Generated questions can occasionally be wrong or repeat. There is a button to report one.
• It is for ages 13 and up on their own. Younger children play when a parent sets up the game, chooses the topics and reads the questions aloud.
• It is a subscription, monthly or annual. The app shows the prices and any free trial.

The developer wrote up how to run a family trivia night with just one phone, from setting up the players to who holds the phone.

Other same-room games

Heads Up! is the classic one-phone party game: one person holds the phone to their forehead and the others give clues for the word on the screen. It suits a noisy room better than a quiet one. If there is a TV, Jackbox Games puts the game on the big screen and uses each person’s phone as a controller, which means everyone needs a phone.

Far apart: the same puzzle, on your own phone

A parent in one city, a sibling in another, a grandparent who goes to bed at nine. Nobody can agree on a time, so a game that needs everyone at once does not happen. What works here is the shape Wordle made familiar:

• One puzzle a day, the same one for everybody. A result means something because everyone faced the same grid.
• Play whenever you like. Morning coffee for one person, the train home for another.
• A result small enough to mention. It gives the family chat something to say on a day when nothing else happened.

For a step-by-step remote setup, see daily puzzle games with friends: built-in boards, group-chat sharing, separate trackers and spoiler etiquette.

Puzzle Lantern

Puzzle Lantern is a collection of short daily puzzles for iPhone and iPad. Everyone playing on a given date gets the same Sudoku grid, the same Recall pattern, the same Vanish hand of cards and the same three Word Sense words. Play any of them, or just the one you like. Nothing asks you to finish the set.

Each game keeps a friends leaderboard for the day, so the family’s results sit in one list instead of a scroll of pasted emoji grids. Adding a relative takes an invite link you send them, or a request to their exact username, and they accept it. There is no contact syncing. How adding a friend works is written up here.

What to know before you install it:

• It is one player per phone. Each person in the family installs it on their own device.
• A new installation is free for seven days with no card and no signup, then it needs a subscription. The full terms are explained here.
• There are no ads.
• It is on iPhone and iPad. Android is currently in a closed test.

Other daily games for a family far apart

Wordle and Connections from the New York Times are free, daily, and easy to share as a pasted grid in the group chat. If some of the family are tired of letters, these daily games have no words in them at all. For a slower pace, turn-based games such as Words With Friends or a chess app wait days for the other player to move.

Same room: one phone and short turns. Far apart: one puzzle and your own phone.

Where each one does not fit

Puzzle Lantern is not a pass-and-play game. It keeps one account on each device, so a phone passed around the table records every turn as the same person. In a room with one phone, it is the wrong app.

Family Trivia is not a daily puzzle, and it has no online play. Everyone has to be with the phone. For a family spread across cities, it is the wrong app for the rest of the year.

Many families have both situations: trivia around the table when everyone is home for the holidays, and a daily puzzle from separate cities the rest of the time.

Questions people ask

What is a good game to play with family on one phone?

A pass-and-play game, where turns are short and the phone moves from person to person. Family Trivia is built for this: up to 10 players or teams, each with their own topic and difficulty, on one iPhone or iPad. Heads Up! is the other well-known choice, with the phone held up for the others to give clues.

How do you play games with family who live far away?

Pick a game where everyone gets the same puzzle on the same day and plays it on their own phone, whenever suits them. Wordle and Connections work this way through a group chat. Puzzle Lantern does it with a friends leaderboard for each game, so the day’s results sit in one list.

Can a family play Puzzle Lantern together on one phone?

Not really. Puzzle Lantern keeps one account on each device, so a passed-around phone records everyone’s turns as one person. It is made for each person playing on their own phone. For one phone in one room, a pass-and-play game such as Family Trivia fits better.

Is Family Trivia made by the same people as Puzzle Lantern?

Yes. Both apps come from the same independent developer. Family Trivia is for one phone in one room, and Puzzle Lantern is for a daily puzzle on everyone’s own phone.