🎭 Charades

Act it out, guess the word: timer, scoring and peek-proof flow on a single phone

👥 2+ players🎭 Guess & Act⚡ No download · No sign-up

🎭 For fun only · records stay on this device

🎭 Charades

One acts, everyone guesses — 60-second score showdown

Word packs (multi-select, pick ≥1)

Difficulty

Round length

Skip rule

Scoreboard (team match)

🕹️ How to play

Pick word packs and round length: First tick one or more word packs (idioms / movies / animals / people / objects / actions / memes — mix freely), then choose difficulty (easy / any / hard) and a round length of 30 / 60 / 90 seconds (default 60). To play with team scoring, turn on the scoreboard and set 2–6 teams.
Hand the phone to the actor: Tap “Start acting” to reach the ready gate: hand the phone to your team's actor with the screen facing them, and everyone else looks away. The actor taps “I'm ready” to reveal the word and start the countdown.
Act against the clock, teammates guess: Words pop up one by one; the actor mimes or describes them without saying the word itself, and teammates shout guesses. A correct guess taps “✅ Got it” for 1 point and auto-draws the next word; if stuck, tap “⏭ Skip” to swap.
Settle at time-up, swap teams: When the countdown hits zero the round ends, showing the score and a “correct / skip” word recap. Pass the phone to the next team and repeat; the team with the highest score wins, ties share the crown.

📖 Rules & variants

Basics: one phone, same screen, taking turns — the actor holds and reads the word while everyone else guesses. The bank is bucketed by category (idioms/movies/animals/people/objects/actions/memes) × difficulty (easy/hard), multi-select and mixable; each round is a timed countdown (default 60s), and every “got it/skip” draws the next word with no near-term repeats. The actor may not say the word itself or its homophones (honor system, no voice checking).

Scoring & winning: +1 per correct guess, skips cost nothing by default. With the scoreboard on you can set 2–6 teams and 1/2/3 rounds each, taking turns and accumulating; once all rounds are played, totals are ranked — highest wins, and a tie at the top shares the crown, no overtime. Everything is fully local, offline, with no global leaderboard; multi-team scores live only in this session and clear on refresh.

House-rule variants: round length adjusts to 30/60/90s; the skip rule can switch between “free skip / skip -1 / max 3 skips” to stop skip-farming; difficulty can stay on “easy” for kids or go “hard” with obscure idioms and niche movies; multiple categories can be merged into one big mixed bucket. With the scoreboard off it's single-phone free practice tracking your local best single-round score.

Fairness & anti-cheat: draws use a reproducible random source with no near-term repeats, and one judgement scores exactly once; the moment the countdown hits zero the buttons lock, killing any “keep tapping after time” score-farming. Devices with motion sensors can enable “hold & flip” judging (flip forward = correct, flip back = skip) for hands-free play; if unsupported or permission is denied it silently falls back to tapping, with both big buttons always available.

❓ FAQ

How do you play Charades here?

One acts, a group guesses: hand the phone to the actor with the screen facing them, tap start, and within the time limit the actor describes the popped-up word with gestures but can't say the word itself. Teammates shout guesses; tap “Got it” to score or “Skip” to swap, and when time's up you see the score and word list before passing the phone to the next team. Playable from 2 people with a single shared phone.

What are the rules of Charades?

Simple: a timed round (default 60s), the actor acts out the word without saying it or its homophones, teammates guess against the clock, +1 per correct, skips cost nothing by default. Turn on the scoreboard for 2–6 teams taking turns and accumulating; after all rounds, totals decide it — highest wins, ties share victory. Skip rule, difficulty and round length are all house-adjustable.

What word pack categories are there?

Seven original packs: idioms, movies/TV, animals, people, everyday objects, actions/emotions, and internet memes, each split into easy / hard, single- or multi-select and mixable. For example idioms include “draw-a-snake-add-feet”, animals include elephant and chameleon, memes include “lying flat” and “involution” — all short, easy-to-act words so you don't have to think them up.

What idiom prompts are included?

The idiom pack picks ones you can actually act out: easy tier like “draw a snake and add feet”, “wait by a stump for a hare”, “scratch ears and cheeks”, “mend the fold after losing sheep”; hard tier like “cover ears to steal a bell”, “play the lute to a cow”, “a frog at the bottom of a well”. A good tip is to signal the character count and structure first, then act the key motion.

Any acting tips, and what mistakes do beginners make?

Three tricks: first show how many words with your fingers, act out the easiest key word first, and hit “Skip” the moment you're stuck instead of grinding one clue. The three common beginner mistakes: blurting out the word or a homophone (which voids the point), trying to act the whole phrase at once instead of splitting it into clues, and refusing to skip and burning the full 60 seconds on one hard prompt. Agree on finger signals for “how many words / which word” up front and your team scores much faster.

How is this different from Pictionary (draw-and-guess)?

Charades is “act and guess” — you use body language and description to get people to guess, no drawing; Pictionary is “draw and guess”, sketching on a canvas. This site is the acting version: one phone passed around, with a built-in word bank plus timing and scoring, no pen or drawing board and no networking. The drawing version is a different game.

How long is a round and how many players is best?

60 seconds per round is the most balanced; pick 30s for tension or 90s to act out more. Two players is enough, but 4–10 split into two teams is the sweet spot: one acts, their team guesses, racing the clock for points, then rotate players and teams. With more people, add more teams queuing up and use the scoreboard for totals — that's the liveliest.

🎮 Related games

⚠️ This is a same-screen act-and-guess game: the actor holds the phone and reads the word while everyone else guesses, on the honor system — no peeking, no saying the word itself. For fun only; no network, no leaderboard, records stay on this device.

Last updated: 2026-07-21 · Saved on this device only