Games for New Year’s Eve with friends

A good New Year’s Eve alternates quieter moments with ones where everyone is laughing. Here is a full plan for the night, from drinks to the small hours, with a game for each stage.

For New Year’s Eve with friends, the easiest approach is to plan a different game for each part of the evening: a quick game over drinks, a conversation game at the table, a ritual at midnight and something livelier afterwards. Each stage needs very little kit, and often a single phone will do.

Why plan games for the 31st?

New Year’s Eve is a long night, often six or seven hours. Without a little planning, things tend to stall: groups don’t mix, conversation goes round in circles before midnight, then the energy drops all at once after the toasts. A few well-timed games lift the mood at the right moments, without turning the party into a holiday camp.

The evening, stage by stage

Drinks (around 8pm): something to break the ice. Not everyone has arrived yet and some guests don’t know each other. You need a game people can join halfway through.
Dinner (around 9.30pm): questions at the table. You can’t deal cards between courses, but you can ask one question per course.
Before midnight (around 11pm): looking back on the year. A homemade quiz or a music round of the year’s songs wakes everyone up before the countdown.
Midnight: a simple ritual. The countdown, the good wishes, then one small thing everybody does together.
After midnight: a livelier game. Time for dares, laughter and the confessions people are still talking about a year later.

Which game works over drinks?

Choose one that needs no preparation and can be played standing up, glass in hand. Yes or No, the question game played on a single phone, is ideal: you pass the phone round, answer yes or no, and nobody is allowed to explain themselves or they take a forfeit. It has 60 questions and 14 forfeits, works for 2 to 12 players and costs €5. Latecomers can join in without anyone needing to explain the rules.

How do you keep dinner lively without overdoing it?

Prepare one question per course, written on a slip under each plate or read out by the host. Everyone answers in turn, with no need to go into detail. A few ideas:

What is your best memory from the year that is ending?
What did you learn this year that you didn’t know in January?
Who around this table would you most like to get to know better?
If next year were a film, what would it be called?

What should you do just before midnight?

A quiz of the year, which takes half an hour to put together: ten questions on the news, sport and your own group’s highlights (“Who moved house in March?”). Split into two teams, mixing people who barely know each other. A music round with a speaker and the year’s big hits works just as well.

Which ritual for midnight?

After the countdown, everyone writes a resolution on a slip of paper, unsigned, and drops it into a hat. Draw them out one by one and guess who wrote what. It is funny, sometimes touching, and takes only a quarter of an hour.

Which game for after midnight?

This is the moment for something a little bolder. Spin the bottle takes the childhood game and puts it on screen: the bottle spins, and whoever it points to draws a question or a dare from 74. To have both games for the night ready to go, the Friends box includes Yes or No and Spin the bottle for €9. You play straight from a phone, with no app or account, and a free sample lets you try before the big night.

A few tips so everyone has fun

Never push anyone: anybody can skip a turn.
Keep rounds short, twenty minutes is plenty.
Have one person in charge of starting the games, to avoid long dithering.
Keep a charger near the phone you are playing on.

The best New Year’s Eve game is the one that has guests laughing together who were strangers when they arrived.

Frequently asked questions

What games can we play on New Year’s Eve with friends?
A quick question game over drinks, questions at the table during dinner, a quiz of the year before midnight and a dare game afterwards. Changing formats keeps the energy up until the end.

Which game suits a big group?
One played on a single phone that you pass round, such as Yes or No, which takes up to 12 players. Beyond that, split into two groups.

Do we need to download an app?
No, PLAYLOVE games open in the phone’s browser, with no app and no account.

How do we fill the time just before midnight?
A quiz on the year gone by or a music round of the year’s songs. Both take less than an hour to prepare and wake everyone up before the countdown.