Couple Games With No Equipment

How to play

1. 1Read the round, start the timer, put the phone away.
2. 2Play it. Nothing here needs anything you do not already have.
3. 3Swap roles where it makes sense and run it again.
4. 4Keep score or do not. Most of these do not need one.
5. 5Skip anything that will not work where you are standing.

Why couples love this game

These are the games you can actually reach for. Everything else on this site needs at minimum a phone you can both look at; this needs a voice, which means it works in the twenty minutes standing on a platform where you would otherwise both be on Instagram.

Most "no equipment" lists still assume a table, paper, or a phone each. These assume nothing at all: a voice, a body, and a memory between you.

That makes them the only games that work in a queue, on a platform, in a waiting room, on a walk, or in the dark at 2am when neither of you can sleep.

Every one is a timed round, because without props the constraint has to come from somewhere and a clock is the only thing you always have.

Example challenges

• Name a country for every letter you can, alternating. No repeats (90s)
• Say the alphabet backwards. Faster time wins (60s)
• Describe a film badly. The other guesses (60s)
• Count to twenty, alternating, without saying the same number at once (90s)
• Name everything you can see beginning with S (45s)
• Hum a song. They get three guesses (45s)

The full game has 18 of these, shuffled every time you play.

Who this game is best for

• —Queues, platforms, waiting rooms
• —Walks
• —The car
• —Lying in the dark unable to sleep

Tips to make it better

• ✦Read it, then put the phone down. Holding it defeats the point.
• ✦The one-word story is the best of these and the hardest to stop.
• ✦Most work over the phone too — only the straight-face one needs seeing each other.
• ✦Perfect with children present, if you skip the two about us.

Frequently asked questions