The whole idea in one sentence
One of you secretly got different information, and the room has to work out who from how they talk.
That is it. Everything else is a variation on what the different information is. There are three games, they all run on one phone that gets passed around, and nobody ever gets knocked out and made to watch.
Imposter: you do not know the word
Four friends. The phone goes round. Maya, Theo and Liv all see the same secret word, GIRAFFE, and its category, Animals. Josh sees only “Animals”. He is the Faker and he does not know the word.
Then one clue each, out loud:
- Maya: “You’d need a ladder to feed it.”
- Theo: “I saw one at the zoo.”
- Liv: “Its pattern looks like paving stones.”
- Josh: “It would make a terrible house pet.”
Josh’s clue would fit a badger, a crocodile or a wasp just as well. That is the tell, and it is not because he played badly. With no word to work from, a clue that fits everything is the safest thing he can say. Safe is exactly what gives him away.
The room votes in private. If they catch him he gets one guess at the word to steal the points back. If they miss, he scores for surviving.
Odd Answer: you do not know your question is different
Everyone is asked something out loud. Most of the room sees “Which animal would make the best flatmate?” One player sees “Which animal would make the best road-trip companion?”
Here is the part that makes this different from Imposter: that player is not told. They think they have the same question as everyone else, so they answer completely honestly.
“A dog” works for both questions and sails past. “A greyhound, they sleep the whole way” starts to sound strange for a flatmate. The odd one out usually realises something is wrong halfway through the round, from the faces looking back at them.
Which means everyone spends the round quietly wondering whether their question was the odd one. That is the mode.
Rigged Ranking: you have a secret agenda
The room is given five options and ranks them together, arguing it out. For example, best to worst pizza topping: pineapple, mushrooms, hot chips, honey, broccoli.
One player has a secret objective: get broccoli into the top two. They have to argue for it with a straight face, convincingly enough that nobody works out what they are doing.
Landing the objective is worth more than quietly surviving the vote, so there is no point hiding. You have to actually try it.
What it is like to play
Rounds are short and nobody is eliminated. Getting caught costs you points, not your evening, so the person rumbled in round one is still causing problems in round two.
Everything runs on one phone with no accounts and no internet. Private screens wait for the named player to confirm they are holding the phone, and they hide themselves again if you get a call or lock the screen, so a stray tap cannot expose the next person’s role.
Party Mix rotates all three games across one scoreboard. It is the best mode once the room knows how all three work, and a confusing place to start if they do not, so start with Imposter.