Games to play over text: 8 group chat games with rules that actually work in a thread
The best games to play over text are the ones where every turn fits in one message and nobody has to reply right away: twenty questions, emoji movie guessing, would you rather, two truths and a lie, and a story written one line at a time. They work one-on-one or in a group chat, they survive people going quiet for an hour, and you can start one with your next message.
Below are the rules for each, adjusted for a message thread, plus how to stop a group chat game from dying on day two.
Quick pick: which text game fits your chat?
| Game | Players | One turn takes | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Twenty questions | 2 or more | Seconds | Any chat, any time |
| Emoji movie guessing | 2 or more | A minute to write, seconds to guess | Group chats that like movies |
| Would you rather | 2 or more | Seconds | Getting a quiet chat talking |
| Two truths and a lie | 3 or more is best | A minute | Friends who think they know each other |
| One-line story | 2 or more | Seconds | Slow, all-week games |
| Ghost | 2 to 5 | Seconds | Word lovers |
| Close-up photo guessing | 2 or more | Seconds | Friends in different places |
| Hide and seek on a map | 2 or more | A minute | Friends in different places |
1. Twenty questions
One player, the answerer, thinks of something. Everyone else asks questions that can only be answered "yes" or "no." Guess it within 20 questions and you become the next answerer; if nobody does, the answerer has stumped the group and goes again. No lying (Wikipedia). The game is old: in the 1780s, the writer Hannah More recorded teaching it at a London dinner party.
Over text:
- Number every question ("Q7: Is it bigger than a car?"). In a busy thread nobody remembers the count otherwise.
- The answerer writes the answer down first, in a note, so nobody can accuse them of switching.
- One question per person until the answerer replies, so one fast typist doesn't use up all 20.
Why it works: if each question rules out about half of what's left, 20 questions can tell apart around a million things (2 to the power of 20 is 1,048,576). So start broad: "Is it alive?" beats "Is it a cat?"
2. Emoji movie guessing
A game made for a messaging app. One player picks a movie (or a song, a show, a book) and sends its title or plot using only emoji. Everyone else guesses. First right answer wins the round and picks the next one.
There's no official rulebook, so agree on a few house rules:
- No letters or numbers, only emoji.
- Say the category up front: movie, song, TV show.
- Three wrong guesses each, then the setter gives one extra emoji as a hint.
- Keep score in the chat name if your app lets you rename it.
Plot clues are more fun than title clues. A boat, an iceberg and a broken heart is easier than it should be. Fun fact: "emoji" is Japanese for "picture" (e) plus "character" (moji), and it has nothing to do with "emotion" (Wikipedia).
3. Would you rather
Someone asks a question starting with "Would you rather...?" and gives two options. Everyone answers. The one firm rule: you have to pick one. Answering "neither" or "both" is against the rules (Wikipedia). The point is the argument about why, so make everyone give a reason.
Over text: ask people to reply before reading anyone else's answer, or the first reply sways the rest. Rotate who asks, and when a question splits the chat down the middle, the asker gets a point.
Good starters: "Would you rather always be 10 minutes late or always be 20 minutes early?" "Would you rather give up music or give up your phone's camera?"
4. Two truths and a lie
A player sends three statements about themselves: two true, one made up. Everyone else replies with the one they think is the lie, then the player reveals it (Wikipedia). It's a classic icebreaker, but it's better among old friends, because they think they already know the answers.
Over text:
- Set a deadline for votes ("reveal at 6 pm"), so the slow repliers still get a go.
- Give a point to each person who spots the lie, and a point to the player for each person they fool.
- The best lies are boring. The best truths are strange.
5. One-line story
Someone writes the opening line of a story. Each person adds one line, in any order, whenever they open the chat. It's a cousin of the Surrealists' game "exquisite corpse," where each player added to a shared piece while seeing only the end of the last contribution (Wikipedia). Stories in a group chat drift fast, so set one rule at the start:
- a genre (heist, ghost story, nature documentary),
- a word every line has to include, or
- a main character who can't die.
Pick an end date, and on that day someone pastes the whole story into one message.
6. Ghost
A spelling game. Players take turns adding one letter to a growing word fragment. Every fragment must be the start of a real word, and whoever completes a word loses the round (Wikipedia). Groups usually set a minimum length, often three or four letters, so shorter words don't count.
If you think someone added a letter that can't lead to any word, challenge them: they have to name a word that starts with the fragment. If they can, the challenger loses the round; if they can't, they do. Each lost round earns a letter of G-H-O-S-T; spell it out and you're out.
Over text: play it in a separate thread or keep the fragment in caps ("GHO_") so it doesn't get lost, and keep a fixed turn order. Dictionaries are banned, obviously.
7. Close-up photo guessing
Not strictly text, but every messaging app sends photos. Take an extreme close-up of something around you (the edge of a mug, a tree's bark, a shoelace) and post it. Everyone gets three guesses. First right answer posts the next one.
It's best for friends who live in different places: over a few weeks, you see bits of each other's days.
8. Hide and seek on a map
Yes, over text. The hider picks a public place everyone knows, like a fountain, a bridge or the steps of a museum, and writes it down. Seekers ask yes-or-no questions about it ("Is it within a mile of the train station?" "Is it near water?"), and after five questions they guess on a map. Fewer questions used means more points.
Keep it to public places. Never someone's home, workplace or anywhere close to it.
How to keep a group chat game going
Text games rarely die because they're bad. They die because three people stop replying. A few habits help:
- One host per round. Someone owns the game: they post the turn, count the questions, chase the stragglers.
- Deadlines, not real time. "Guesses in by tonight" works better than waiting for everyone.
- Post the score. Even a silly running score keeps people coming back.
- Short rounds. Twenty questions and emoji guessing should end in a day. Save the slow games (stories, Ghost) for a separate thread.
- Let a dead game die. Start a different one rather than pinging people about the last one.
If the group is all free at the same time, a call is better for fast games. Our list of games to play with friends on the phone has live ones too.
When a link is easier than typing
Some games are easy to type: a question, a yes, a guess. Others get messy in a thread. Hide and seek on a map is one: the hider answers every question by hand and checks the map each time, and the scroll back through old questions gets long.
That's where sending a game link saves effort. In Planque, the hider picks a play area (one street or a whole city), drops a secret pin and can add a clue, then sends the link to the chat. Friends play their turn whenever they have a minute: they spend a few questions (radar, hot or cold, same district? and nearest metro), the game answers on its own, and each answer clears part of the map. Then they tap where they think the pin is, and questions they don't use become points. The hider gets a ping as they get closer. No account needed, just a nickname. It's on iPhone and Android.
For a bigger version of the idea, see how Jet Lag hide and seek works, or the classic rules in how to play hide and seek.
FAQ
What's a good game to play over text with one person?
Twenty questions, would you rather, Ghost and close-up photo guessing all work with two. For a partner far away, see our long distance relationship games.
What text games work for a big group chat?
Emoji movie guessing, would you rather and two truths and a lie scale best, because everyone can answer at once. Turn-based games like Ghost get slow above five players.
