Play the Mafia party game on one phone, with no narrator needed. Mafia is the classic social deduction game: a few players are secretly the mafia, everyone else is the town, and the town has to work out who is lying before the mafia take over. Usually one person sits out as the narrator who runs the night. Here the phone does that job, so all 5 to 12 players get a role. A game takes 15 to 30 minutes. It is free, needs no sign-up and works offline once the page has loaded.
How to play Mafia
- Roles. Pass the phone around. Each player taps to see their secret role, then hides it and hands the phone on. The mafia also see who their teammates are.
- Night. The phone goes to every living player in turn. Each one makes a secret choice: the mafia pick a target, the Doctor protects someone and the Detective checks someone. Everyone else answers a harmless question, so every night turn looks the same from across the room.
- Morning. Put the phone on the table. It says who was eliminated in the night, or that nobody was because the Doctor protected the target.
- Day. Talk it over. Who acted strangely, who is defending whom, who changed their story? A day timer keeps the talk moving.
- Vote. Vote one player out, or choose no elimination. The most votes is out; a tie means nobody.
- Winning. The town wins when every mafia member is out. The mafia win as soon as there are as many of them as everyone else.
The complete Mafia game rules cover every rule in detail, including ties, the Doctor’s limits and what eliminated players may do.
Prefer to watch? See the 8-minute video on the Mafia rules page.
Mafia game roles
- Mafia: know each other. Each night they choose one player to eliminate. When the mafia disagree, the player picked most often is the target, and a tie goes to the earliest pick.
- Doctor: protects one player each night. The Doctor may protect themselves, but not the same player two nights in a row.
- Detective: checks one player each night and learns “Mafia” or “Not mafia”.
- Townspeople: have no night power. They win by talking, listening and voting well.
The Doctor and the Detective are on by default and can be switched off under More options.
A Mafia game without a narrator
In the traditional game the narrator calls “Mafia, open your eyes” and watches the night. On one phone that would give the roles away, so the night works differently. The phone is passed to every living player, one at a time, behind a pass screen that only the right person should tap. Every player gets the same kind of screen: a short line with their role and a list of names to pick from, then a confirmation card and a “Hide and pass” button. A villager answers “Who do you suspect?”, which changes nothing, so nobody can tell roles apart by how long someone holds the phone. Later mafia members see what their teammates picked earlier that night, so the mafia can agree without speaking. The most-picked player is the target, and a tie goes to the earliest pick.
The phone also handles the parts a narrator would have to remember: who the Doctor protected last night, what the Detective learned, and when one team has won. Announcements for screen readers only say whose turn it is and what happened in public, never a role or a night choice.
Setup options
- Theme: Mafia (a town) or Werewolf (a village with werewolves, a Healer and a Seer). Only the words and icons change.
- Mafia members: Auto, or 1, 2 or 3.
- More options: Doctor on or off, Detective on or off, reveal the role of an eliminated player, a day timer of 2, 3 or 5 minutes (or off), and the day vote: Together, where the group agrees and taps one name, or Secret, where each living player votes alone behind the pass screen.
Rematch deals new roles to the same players, and the session score counts how many games each person has won.
Quick tips
- Town: ask why. Ask every player to explain their vote. Reasons are harder to fake than accusations.
- Mafia: blend in. Vote with the group most of the time and avoid defending a teammate too hard.
- Detective: pick your moment. Saying what you know helps the town, but it also tells the mafia who to eliminate next.
The Mafia strategy tutorial has more tips for the town, the mafia, the Doctor and the Detective. Looking for more games for a group? See our party games and the games that work offline.