Play charades online on a single phone, tablet or laptop. This charades game turns one device into a deck of word cards and a timer: either hold the phone to your forehead and guess the word your friends act out and describe, or read the word yourself and act it out without speaking. Play as two to four teams or as two to twelve players, with ten family-friendly decks of charades words. It is free, needs no sign-up and keeps working offline once the page has loaded.
How to play charades
- Choose Teams (2 to 4, with names) or Players (2 to 12), then a mode, the decks and, under More options, the round time (30, 60 or 90 seconds) and the number of rounds each team or player plays (1 to 5).
- The phone is passed to the first team or player. Press Start round, and a 3-2-1 countdown gives the holder time to get ready.
- One word appears at a time, in big letters. Get it across before the clock runs out: each word guessed is a point, and passing on a hard word costs nothing.
- When time is up, everyone checks the list. Tap any word to fix a mistake, then confirm. The phone moves on to the next team or player.
- After the last round the highest total wins. Equal scores share a place, and the session score keeps adding up over rematches.
The complete charades rules cover the classic hand signals, team scoring and variants.
Prefer to watch? See the 5-minute video on the Charades rules page.
Forehead mode: the guess the word game
In Forehead mode the guesser holds the phone to their forehead with the screen facing out, so everyone can read the word except the person who has to guess it. The others describe it, act it out or even hum it, without saying the word itself. It is the quickest way to play, and a good fit for a group where some people would rather talk than mime.
- Tilt down (screen toward the floor) when you guess the word, and tilt up to pass. The phone needs to come back upright before the next tilt counts, so holding a tilt never scores twice. It works in portrait and in both landscape directions.
- On iPhone and iPad, the browser asks for permission to use motion the first time you press Start. If you say no, or your device has no motion sensor, nothing breaks: the large Correct and Pass buttons always work.
- A short full-screen “Correct” or “Pass” confirms every answer, with a vibration where the phone supports it, so the guesser knows it counted.
Acting mode: classic charades
In Acting mode the actor is the only one who looks at the screen. They read the word and act it out without speaking while the rest of the team, or everyone else in Players mode, calls out guesses. The actor taps Correct or Pass. This is the classic party version, and it is the easiest one for young children, who can act out a word like Kangaroo long before they can describe it.
Charades ideas: what is in the decks
There are ten decks of charades ideas, and you can mix any of them: Animals, Actions (Brushing your teeth, Juggling), Food, Jobs, Sports, Around the house, Places, Nature, Things that move and Easy for kids. Every word is a generic, family-friendly thing to act or describe. There are no brand names, famous people or titles. No word comes up twice in a game until every word in your chosen decks has been played; after that the words come round again, the ones nobody guessed first, so every team still plays all its rounds. The words you saw in your last few games are kept for later, so a new game starts with words you haven’t seen lately whenever your decks still have some, much like a charades generator that remembers what you already played. With only one or two decks, mix in another now and then for more variety.
Playing on a keyboard
On a laptop, the Down arrow or C marks a word correct and the Up arrow or P passes. Every button is reachable with Tab, so a whole game can be played without a mouse.
More party and family games
Charades is one of our party games for a group sharing one screen. For a quieter word game, try Hangman, and for more ideas see our family games and games for kids. The charades tips for actors and guessers help a new group get going.