Fun birthday games while waiting in line?

March 7, 2019 12:12 PM

What fun and silly games can five adults play while standing outside a restaurant for 1-2 hours, waiting for our group to be called? (They do not take reservations.) This is for a birthday, so birthday-themed games are especially good! I already have Mad Libs, fun hats, candles, and mini cakes. I thought something like the telephone game might be fun, but not sure with only five people. I'm totally willing to buy supplies and/or make simple items.
posted by anonymous to Grab Bag (14 answers total)

Best answer: If you can find a list of celebrities born on the same day, make a guessing game out of it -- give the other people in line a little cheat sheet about one of the people, and the birthday person can ask them questions to try to guess who they are.

Or... the reverse version of this... put the celebrity name on a post-it on a person's forehead... and they have to guess who they are, through conversation with the birthday person (who can see the post-it.)
posted by profreader at 12:18 PM on March 7, 2019

Everyone probably has phones, so works with friends or other games are fun.
posted by theora55 at 12:20 PM on March 7, 2019

Best answer: Birthday-person trivia! A couple of my friends have done this at their birthday parties. Have the birthday person prepare 10 trivia questions about their own bad self, and the person who gets the most right gets a prize.
posted by wellred at 12:21 PM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Not birthday-themed and requires a ($10) purchase- but Zombie Dice is a really great waiting-around game.
posted by charmedimsure at 12:22 PM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Spaceteam would be a lot of fun in that context.
posted by LKWorking at 12:27 PM on March 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

Best answer: Exquisite Corpse is may favorite party game. Half-size clipboards would make it line-friendly.
posted by carrioncomfort at 12:32 PM on March 7, 2019

n'thing Spaceteam. Also, we love Pass the Pigs as a version of a dice game while waiting around for things.
posted by allkindsoftime at 12:54 PM on March 7, 2019

SPACETEAM YES
posted by cooker girl at 1:16 PM on March 7, 2019

Best answer: Not specifically birthday-related, but fun and challenging: Hedbanz
posted by gryphonlover at 1:27 PM on March 7, 2019

There's a web-app that is perfect for this and free. It's called spyfall, I believe the webapp is spyfall.crabhat.com. Basically, your whole party knows where you are except one person. Then, you take turns asking each other questions. At the end of the timer, you discuss, then vote on who you think the spy is. But, if the spy knows the location, they win! So you have to be extra vague.
posted by bbqturtle at 2:30 PM on March 7, 2019

Best answer: The hardest I've laughed lately in a group setting has been when playing the Heads Up! game (available on the app store). Only one person needs it, then you just pass the phone around.
posted by stellaluna at 3:25 PM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Spot it. It helps to have a surface on which a stack of cards can be placed, but otherwise it doesn't take up a lot of space. Can be played with any number of people and any combination of cards. I like it because it's easy to learn the rules and because it requires no decision making or real strategy. Just how fast is your eye-brain-mouth connection? And when your table is called, there is no frustration about being mid-game. Just determine the winner then and there based on the size of the player's stack!
posted by oxisos at 5:37 PM on March 7, 2019

I would play a game of "who can think of a restaurant that's just as nice as this one, within walking distance of where we're waiting right now, where we would have sat down, ordered & been served already".

But if that doesn't sound like fun, I'll nth Spaceteam. Invite other random people who are waiting to join too, soon the whole queue will be in it & it'll be the funnest birthday ever, despite the wait.
posted by rd45 at 4:09 AM on March 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

I highly endorse Contact for this sort of thing. (One comment I'd add to the linked discussion: the fact that the wordmaster never wins is a feature, not a bug. It's a social, non-competitive game.)
posted by yankeefog at 7:01 AM on March 8, 2019