Whether you want a nice dose of nostalgic, fun texting games to pass the time or you’re looking for some cute emoji games to play over text with your girls, here are 30 of the most fun texting games for girls and guys alike. You can play these on your phone with anyone—from friends to your girls to your boyfriend to your extended family. So grab your phone and get a fun texting game started!
30 Texting Games to Play Over Text
1. 20 Questions
To play the 20 questions texting game, one player must pick something from their imagination; it could be an object, place, or even an obscure celebrity. Then your friend will try to guess the object you chose in 20 “Yes or No” Questions or less.
2. Emoji Translation
If you and your friend both have an emoji keyboard, give this texting game a try! The rules of the game are simple: You send an emoji (or a string of them), and your friend tries to interpret what it means.
3. Friendship Tag
This texting game is a great way to discover how well you and your pals know each other! Simply, ask your friend or loved one questions about yourself or your relationship together to see how well your friend knows you.
4. Trivia
The great thing about trivia is that it can be played anywhere—including your phone! To start, have you and your friend pick a category familiar to you. Then, ask each other different questions from that chosen category. Each correct answer scores a point and the first person to earn 10 points, wins!
5. Kiss, Marry, Kill
Take a modern twist on this classic and fun school game. To play the Kiss, Marry, Kill, you will select three people (they can be anyone from mutual friends to A-List celebrities) and your friend has to choose which one to kiss, which one to marry and which one to kill.
6. Would You Rather?
“Would You Rather” is a fun texting game, and it’s also known as “either-or” and “this or that.” The Would You Rather game requires you and your friend to pick one of two difficult choices.
7. Most Likely To
This texting game can be played with one or even a big group chat. Ask a most likely to question. If you’re playing with a group, everyone will mention the person the question fits. If only two people are playing, both will choose the person who most likely the question fits.
8. Never Have I Ever
This texting game can also be played during a video call and is a great way to get to know people or learn more about your friends. This game is usually played with alcohol but you can always play with a different form of punishment like point deduction, post an embarrassing photo to social media—it’s up to you! The rules of the game are as follows:
- A deed beginning with “Never have I” is read.
- If you have done the deed, you take a sip from your drink or the set punishment.
- No lies!
9. Guess the Riddle
Riddles are always fun and brain-teasing. The rules for this texting game are simple. Ask your friend a riddle. Set the number of tries they have to get the correct answer. Pro Tip: Don’t pick overcomplicated riddles as it makes it hard to solve and can suck the fun out of the game.
10. Name Game
This texting game is one of the most spectacular ways to waste time. You and your friends choose a topic, such as celebrities or zoo animals. The first player will say a word in the chosen category. The second player then says a word or a name that begins with the last letter of the first player’s word.
11. Word Unscramble
This texting game is the closest to Scrabble! You pick a word, and then your friend has to come up with other words that could be formed using the letters from the selected word.
12. Story Time
In this texting game, you and your friend will make up a story—one sentence at a time. One person starts the story with a line. The other player adds to the story with another line. This game can go on for as long as the players want or when the story comes to a logical stopping point.
13. Unpopular Opinions
In this fun game, you and your friends will take turns sharing your unpopular opinion on various topics like restaurants or hit movies and commenting on each other’s opinions.
14. Take a Trip
Start this texting game by writing “I am going to ____ and I am taking ____.” Both you and your friends have to finish this sentence by filling the blanks with words starting with the letter A and working through the alphabet until you get to the letter “Z”.
15. Gun to Your Head
In this fun texting game, you ask your friends what they would do if a gun were pointed to their head. For example: “Gun to your head, which celebrity event would you sneak into?” The rules are you cannot attack your attacker and you have to answer the question.
16. Name that Tune
The rules of this texting game are easy. You simply text a lyric to your friends and whoever correctly names the song first is the winner. If no one gets it from the line you send out, you can keep sending them lyrics until they guess it or admit defeat.
17. Questions Only
This texting game is a great way to pass time with friends. All the participants can only ask each other questions—nothing else! When asked a question, you can only reply with another question and you cannot repeat a question that’s already been asked. If someone takes too long to answer, they are out.
18. Abbreviations
To play this game, you have to pick a category, mention an abbreviation or acronym in that category and your friend has to tell you the correct meaning of the abbreviation. The person with the highest number of correct answers wins the game.
19. WWYD?
Calling all the creative storytellers out there! WWYD is a fun texting game full of situations and questions. Come up with a hypothetical scenario and pose it to your friend. Ask them what they would do to escape the situation or how they would adapt.
20. Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
This texting game is great for movie buffs. Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a trivia game based on the “Six Degrees of Separation” concept which says that any two people on the planet can be linked with a maximum of six steps. To begin, present Kevin Bacon and another actor or actress to your friends. Watch them try to link the two together by linking their movie roles in as few rounds as possible.
21. Tell the Truth
Set a punishment for any player who declines to answer (some examples are sending everyone $5 over Venmo, posting an embarrassing picture on Instagram or sliding into a celebrity’s DMs). Then, pick a person to go first and ask that person a personal question and that person has to answer or face the punishment (if you play over Snapchat or FaceTime, you can do dares!).
22. Make It Rhyme
To begin, one person enters a word or phrase to which the second person must respond with a word or phrase that rhymes with the previous text. You will go back and forth until one of you can no longer come up with a rhyming response.
23. Finish My Sentence
This texting game is best played with close friends and romantic partners. One person will start a sentence and the other will complete it. The sentences can be cool, funny and even a little dirty.
24. Hangman
It’s hard to picture playing Hangman without the stick figure dangling in the wind but it’s possible! Text your friend a series of underscores representing the number of letters in the word you’ve chosen. Your friend will respond with a letter they believe might be in the word. If the guess is correct, send your friend the underscores again, this time filling the correctly guessed letter. If they are wrong, you can reply with the number of guesses that remain (in a typical game of hangman, they’re 6!).
25. Ghost
The goal of this texting game is to add letters to a growing word without actually completing it. You can set rules like the word must have a certain length or the category in which the word may fall but you must have an actual word in mind. Each player adds a letter, one after the other, and the person who completes the word receives a “G”. The game continues until one friend gets all the letters in the word “ghost.” This is similar to the game Horse!
26. Where’s Your Location?
To begin this texting game, examine your surroundings, and notice that make it unique (like a coffee table, a chalkboard or an espresso machine). Your friend guesses where you might be, using your hints as stuff to go off of. You can be as vague or specific as you like. This game is like iSpy except you’re describing a location instead of an object.
27. Text Strip Questions Game
If you’re looking to get a little flirty with your latest Tinder match, then this texting game is for you. You and your boo will ask each other trivia questions and anyone who gets the answers wrong has to remove a piece of their clothing.
28. The Laughing Game
This texting game has a fun twist: the person answering the question may only respond with pre-selected answers! At the beginning of the game, you and your friends will choose words that will act as answers (like bees, flowers, owls and Ruth Bader Ginsberg). Next, you will ask each other questions and the answers can only be the words that have been chosen.
29. Lightning Fast
This texting game is a great way to see into someone’s inner psyche. You will send your friend a word and they must reply with the first thing that pops in their mind when they read that word—easy peasy and oh so much fun!
30. Fantasy Team
Have you ever wondered who you want on your team during a zombie outbreak? Or your own personal boy band? In this texting game, you and your friend will take turns building your own personal team ready for action. Simply, decide on a task or a scenario and set the number of people per team. Take turns recruiting people until you reach the number you decided upon (make sure there are no repeats). The person with the strongest team wins! For even more virtual fun, here are the 30 Best Tower Defense Games and 75 Random, Fun Websites.
