Entertaining your party guests can be a challenge, but Alexa and Google Assistant can help.
Beyond their basic functions as a personal assistant, both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are capable of entertaining your group of party guests with a variety of voice-controlled games.
Now, it's worth going in with lower expectations because many of these games still feel like proof of concept rather than full-fledged games. You won't want to plan your whole party around playing Alexa games, but they can offer a quick hit of fun that pretty much anyone can jump in and play.
Amazon Alexa
Amazon's offerings are available as Alexa Skills, which need to be enabled in the Alexa app. This is good because it means that app developers can create their own games, but that also means you got to find the diamonds in the rough.
These are the best Alexa party games with availability dependant on your location and language settings in your Echo speakers.
Heads Up
The smartphone version of was popularized by Ellen Degeneres, and the Alexa version flips it on its head.
In this version, Alexa will try to get you to guess the words by giving you clues. The skill is free and comes with three free decks — Superstars, Blockbuster Movies and Favorite Fictional Characters — but more decks are available for just $1 if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber.
You'll definitely want to try before you buy, and might ultimately be better off sticking with the phone version.
Would You Rather for Family
Would You Rather is a random and fun little time-waster that offers quick questions in the "would you rather" format. It's all pretty silly and lighthearted, and the family version we're recommending here is even more sanitized so as to not create controversies at your party.
You can keep asking for more and more questions and just go around the room, although there is also a multiplayer mode available.
Categories Game
Categories Game is essentially Scattegories except everything is played and managed by Alexa. Each round starts with Alexa rolling the letter and then starts giving out categories. Shout out an answer that matches the letter and category and you'll get points.
This is the sort of game where Alexa might have trouble hearing some of your answers, so it might be worth keeping track of scores with a pen and paper, too.
Twenty Questions
Twenty Questions is a classic party game that has been given the Alexa treatment. Someone at your party thinks of a thing (animal, vegetable, mineral) and Alexa will try and figure out what you're thinking about by asking you a series of questions.
It's a pretty standard game that works pretty well with Alexa. You might get the occasional weird question or deal with some wonkiness, but that sort of comes with the territory of playing Alexa games.
Trivial Pursuit Tap
The iconic trivia-based board game has an Alexa equivalent that also offers optional support for that make it easier to buzz in to answer questions, but you can play without them.
Once again you're going to find this to be a much more limited version than what you'd find from a physical copy of Trivial Pursuit, but it's still a fun game that requires little to no time to set up and play.
Song Quiz
This one is perfect for music fans of all ages. With Song Quiz, Alexa will play a snippet from a popular song and you'll have to answer with the artist and song title. You're able to play against the people in your house or against the scores of players around the world.
There are playlists available that cover decades from the 60s right up to the latest top-40 hits. Be sure to turn the volume up real high so everyone can get a chance to hear and guess along.
Google Assistant
Amazon's Skill store offers a staggering number of options — not all of which are worth your time. Google, on the other hand, heavily curates its picks and each are available without needing to be set up in advance.
Lucky Trivia
This is the default trivia game that's pretty polished, supports multiple players, and is honestly good fun to play by yourself or with others.
Just ask Google to "play Lucky Trivia" and your Google Assistant will slip into game host mode — complete with corny jokes and audience applause.
Mad Libs
Who doesn't remember this childhood classic? Mad Libs let you create a silly and fun story by filling in the blanks without knowing how they will be used in the story. You're asked to give a collection of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, or verbs to flesh out a story which is then read aloud to you.
This one can get a bit raunchy depending on the answers you give, and it's a great party game if you end up including the names of partygoers or inside jokes along the way.
Song Pop
Google's version of Song Quiz lets you test your music knowledge across a wide range of genres. Google will play you a short clip of a song and ask you to name the artist and/or song title.
It works pretty well when playing alone, and can be played with a group by either taking turns for each round or working together as a team to get a high score.
Absurd is the Word
This game is like a mish-mash between Categories and Would You Rather. The first round has each player giving answers that fit in a specific category. The second round pits the answers from the first in a would you rather scenario.
For example, you might be asked to list a bunch of celebrities in the first round, and then decide which you would rather save from a burning building in the second round. It's a pretty light-hearted game that might stir up some conversation at your next party.
Star Wars/Star Trek/Game of Thrones/Pokémon Trivia
If you love pop culture trivia, Google also offers a number of Trivia games that are based on specific topics, including Star Wars, Star Trek, Game of Thrones and Pokémon.
Each game has three levels of difficulty to choose from and can be a great way of settling once and for all who is the bigger Trek fan amongst your group of friends.