Couple Challenges

How to play

1. 1Read the challenge and check you have what you need. You will.
2. 2Start the timer.
3. 3Cooperative challenges: you either both win or you both fail.
4. 4Competitive ones: keep score if you want, or do not.
5. 5Skip anything that does not work in the space you are in.

Why couples love this game

Almost nothing else on this site involves moving. That is the appeal — the games where you have to physically do something together produce a completely different kind of laughing than the ones where you talk, and couples who have been together a long time get very little of it.

A set of short physical challenges — draw each other without looking, build something out of what is on the table, get through a minute without laughing.

Some are cooperative and some are competitive, and the cooperative ones are consistently funnier because you discover that after all these years you still cannot describe a shape to each other.

Everything needs at most what is already in the room. Nothing needs buying, printing, or setting up.

Example challenges

• Draw each other without looking at the paper (60s)
• Describe a shape to your partner. They draw it. No naming it (90s)
• Build the tallest thing you can from what is on the table (120s)
• Stack as many objects on each other as possible without dropping any (90s)
• Say the alphabet backwards. Faster time wins (60s)
• Balance on one leg. Last one standing wins (120s)

The full game has 20 of these, shuffled every time you play.

Who this game is best for

• —A night in that needs energy
• —Couples bored of question games
• —Rainy afternoons
• —Groups — most of these scale to four

Tips to make it better

• ✦Do the cooperative ones. Everyone gravitates to the competitive ones and the cooperative ones are funnier.
• ✦Do not skip the drawing challenges because you cannot draw. That is the point.
• ✦Keep the timer strict. Untimed challenges lose all their tension.
• ✦Photograph the drawings. You will want them later.

Frequently asked questions