10 Drinking Games To Play With Your Friends When You Can See Them Again
Quarantine and social distancing rules have been a bit more relaxed recently, and it might be time to finally invite your friends over for a hang out in the back yard! Here are some really fun and easy drinking games to play with your friends that have been put to the test and passed with flying colors!
Some of these I can explain pretty well, others, not so much. I’ll let the experts weigh in for the more intricate ones!
1. Stack Cup
Ah, yes. My absolute favorite of all of the drinking games. Proceed with caution, though, as this game could end friendships. The rules may seem difficult, but I promise they’re not. Once you get the hang of it, its so much fun!
This drinking game can be played with any amount of people, as long as there are more than 2! Materials needed for this game are a table, 2 pong balls, cups, and whatever you are drinking. Here are the general rules:
- Fill the center of the table with cups. Leave room on the edges only big enough to be able to perfectly execute bouncing a pong ball into a cup. The entire center of the table should be full of cups from one end to the other.
- Fill the cups with all different levels of whatever your drinking. Some cups should be filled more than others, and vise versa. If you’re all not drinking the same drink, pour whatever you are drinking in the cups closest to where you are standing. The center cup will be filled to the brim with whatever you choose.
- Start with two empty cups. The two people standing at each head of the table start with the cups and the pong balls. Those people will start at the same time, trying to bounce the pong ball into the cup.
- If you make the pong ball into the cup on your first try, pass the cup to whomever you want at the table. You will want to pass it to the person who is closest to the other cup going around, as the object of the game is to “stack” the cup on top of the other cup that is circulating. If the person to your right gets their pong ball in their cup before you do, you are stacked and you take a cup from the middle and chug it.
- The cup that was just chugged will then become the new second cup, and the cup used for stacking will start a stack of cups. This stack will become VERY tall, making it extremely hard to bounce the ball in on the first try,
- If the ball is not bounced into the cup on the first try, you HAVE TO pass it to the person on your right when you finally do make it in, rather than handing to anyone at the table.
- Keep doing this until all the cups are gone. The center cup will be awarded to the loser or the last person to be stacked. This person has to chug the entire center cup!
2. Flip Cup
This drinking game is a classic and is sure to get the party started every time.
Materials needed to play flip cup are a table, cups, and whatever you are drinking! Any amount of people can play, as long as there are more than two! Here are the rules:
- Set up a cup for each person playing and pour only a shots worth of your drink into the cup.
- Stand with an equal amount of people on each side of the table. 2v2 or 4v4 doesn’t matter. Just make sure there is an equal amount on each side.
- The two people at the front of the table will start at the same time by chugging what’s in their cup and flipping it. The next person in like cannot start drinking until the person before has successfully flipped their cup.
- Whichever team flips all of their cups first is the winner!
3. Chandelier
This drinking game could also end friendships, so please be careful and kind! This is another one of my favorites and doesn’t require too many rules.
According to College Party Guru, here are the rules:
1 – Everyone has their own cup, and has the same amount of beer in their cup as if they were playing pong or flip cup.
2 – The cups are arranged in a circle, and there is one middle cup that is filled to the brim with beer.
3 – The game begins as one person (let’s call him Steve) bounces a ping pong ball on the table and tries to bounce the ball into a cup. If Steve manages to bounce the ball into someone else’s cup (let’s call him Phil), Phil has to drink the beer in his cup, then refill his cup.
4 – If Steve bounces the ball into the middle cup, everyone has to drink their cup and then play flip cup on the edges of the table. The last person to flip their cup has to chug the middle cup.
5 – If Steve misses bouncing the ball into anyone’s cup or the middle cup, the ball can either be passed to the next person in the circle, or the ball can go to whoever catches it.
*If Steve bounces the ball into his own cup, he has to drink his beer and refill it. Everyone must refill their cup after every time they drink out of their cups.
4. Pong
A cult classic! There are so many version of beer pong that trying to explain the rules to you will probably only make you more confused. My friends and I usually play by “house rules”, meaning that the host of the party tells us their version of the rules, and we play by those! Get creative and have fun with it!
5. Dance Cup
This drinking game is SO MUCH FUN! This is like an adult version of musical chairs. Everyone has their drink ready in a cup just like you would for flip cup, with only a little bit in the cup. Carry it with you as you dance around the table. Whoever was designated as the DJ will stop the music randomly and when they do, stop wherever you are and start flip cup. The last person to flip their cup when the music stops is out! This continues until there is a winner.
6. Flip Tac Toe
Another take on flip cup that uses a bit more brainpower than the original! This drinking game is 4v4. Materials needed for this one are the same as flip cup, but also requires tape to make a tic tac toe board on the table.
According to Beerlympics, here are the rules:
~1/4 beer per cup.
~Both teams start at the same time.
~Drink. Flip. Play.
~Play by placing your cup on the tic-tac-toe board.
~First team to get 3 cups in a row wins. (Tie = Repeat Round).
~First team to win 4 games wins.
7. Picolo
This is one of my all time favorite drinking games! Picolo is an app on your phone that includes every member of the party. Download the app, type in everyone’s name, and it generated fun mini-games and questions using everyone’s name! This makes you drink A LOT!
8. Kings
A classic card game that is sure to do the trick and have everyone tipsy in the end. According to Chickenshit, here are the rules:
Ace – Waterfall. (Each player starts drinking at the same time as the person to their left. NO player can stop drinking until the person before they stops.)
Two – You. (Whoever draws this can choose anyone to take a drink.)
Three – Me. (The person who draws this takes a drink.)
Four – Floor. (The last person to touch the floor takes a drink.)
Five – Guys. (All the guys at the table drink.)
Six – Chicks. (All the girls at the table drink.)
Seven – Heaven. (If you draw this card, raise your hand above you head. Every other player must do so as well. The last person takes a drink.)
Eight – Mate. (Choose someone to be your mate. For the rest of the game, they drink when you drink.)
Nine – Rhyme. (You say a word, then the person to your right has to say a word that rhymes. This continues until someone can’t think of a word. That person takes a drink. You can’t reuse words.)
Ten – Categories. (Come up with a category of things. The person to your right must name something that falls within the category. This continues until someone can’t think of something. That person takes a drink.)
Jack – Never Have I Ever. (Everyone plays Never Have I Ever.)
Queen – Questions. (Ask someone a question. That person then asks someone else a question. This continues until someone messes up or fails to ask a question. That person drinks. No question can be repeated.)
King – King’s Cup. (Set a rule to be followed, e.g. stand on one foot when you drink, only speak in an accent, etc.)
The way that my friends and I play, we put whatever card was just drawn under the tab of a beer can, Keep doing this until someone’s card forces the tab to open the beer. Whosever card that was, has to drink it!
9. Ride the Bus
This drinking game is another one played with cards. This one might be the most dangerous of them all.
According to Thrillist, here are the rules:
Phase One: Dealing the Cards
Round One:
One player is assigned as the dealer. The dealer shuffles the deck and begins to the left, asking the first player “red or black?” The player guesses whether the card is red or black; if they’re right, nothing happens, but if they’re wrong, they take a sip of their drink. Play continues around the circle until everyone has their first card.
Round Two:
The dealer now asks player one, “higher or lower?” The player has to answer whether they think the card that’s about to be dealt is higher or lower than the first card they received, with Ace being the highest. Wrong guess? Drink. Play continues around the circle until everyone has their second card. If the two cards are the same, the dealer reshuffles the dealt card back into the deck and picks from the top again.
Round Three:
With the same format as the previous two rounds, the dealer asks “in-between or outside?” meaning, will the card that’s about to be dealt fall in-between the two previous cards’ values, or outside of the gap? For example, if your first two cards are four and nine, five would be “inside” while a Queen would be “outside.” If the card is the same as either boundary card, the dealer again reshuffles the dealt card and picks from the top.
Round Four:
For the final dealing round, the dealer simply asks each player to pick a suit, giving them a one in four chance of avoiding a drink. If the player guesses wrong, as they likely will, they drink. If they happen to guess correctly, they are rewarded with five drinks to distribute amongst the other players, either assigning each drink to a different opponent or stacking five sips onto one person.
Phase Two: Building the Pyramid
Players collect their four distributed cards and hold them privately. The dealer then builds a pyramid of face-down cards, with five cards at the base, four in the next row and so on until there is one card at the top. Drink values increase as you go up the pyramid, with cards on the bottom row counting for one drink each, and the single top card counting for five drinks—or one shot of liquor, if you want to up the ante.
Starting at the bottom row, one card is flipped at a time. Anyone who has a matching card in their hand can lay their card on top, gaining them the right to punish another player with the quantity of drinks associated with that row. Multiple cards can be laid down per row and on the same card, and the drinks earned can be distributed however the player pleases. Play continues up the pyramid.
Example: The dealer turns over a four on the second row of the pyramid, and a player has a four in their hand. They lay down the four, earning two drinks to distribute to multiple people in the group or to one person.
Players have the option of saving their cards in the hopes they’ll be able to match them to a higher pyramid value. But it’s a risky move, as having the most cards in your hand by the end of Phase Two means you have to ride the bus.
Phase Three: Riding the Bus
Once the pyramid cards are completely turned over and the final drinks have been distributed, players compare how many cards they have left in their hands. Ideally, they will have gotten rid of them all. More likely, they will still have cards left. The person with the highest number of cards has to ride the bus.
Note: In the event that two people have the same quantity of cards, the person with the highest value card in their hand has to ride the bus. If both players have matching highest cards, the loser is whoever has the next highest card.
The dealer lays 10 cards face down. One by one, the dealer flips a card over. If it’s a number card, nothing happens and the dealer continues to the next card. If it’s a face card or an Ace, the player riding the bus has to drink: One drink for a Jack, two for a Queen, three for a King and four for an Ace.
10. Relay Race
This drinking game is intense and will test your skills in pong, flip cup, and how fast you can run!
Here is how my friends and I play:
You start with 1 cup that you bounce a ball into. After that has been completed, you go to 3 cups in a row and do flip cup for all of them as fast as you possibly can, then run back to the start where you first bounced the ball into the cup, and do beer pong. You normally do the number of cups for beer pong as you do people on your team so if you have 3 people on 1 team you have 3 cups for flip cup and in a triangle for the beer pong. The first team to have all of their members complete each task of the relay race wins!
