Best Party Games for TV in 2026: 10 Games You Play With Your Phone
Ten games that put the show on your TV and turn every phone in the room into a controller. Including the one you honestly cannot buy any more.
Every party hits the same wall. It is late, the playlist has looped, somebody says "so what do we play?" and the room goes quiet. Out comes a board game with a rulebook, and by the time the rules are explained half the room is back on Instagram.
The fix has been hanging on your wall the whole time. Put the game on the TV, let everyone use the phone already in their pocket, and the living room turns into a game show in about three minutes. Here are ten games that work that way, ranked by how fast you can get an actual group playing. One entry comes with bad news.
How we picked these
This list did not come out of review scores. It came out of one question: what can you actually get running tonight, in a living room with a few people in it and nobody in the mood to configure anything.
We judged every entry on three things. Whether you can still play it today, not "in 2019". How long setup takes, counted from the moment somebody says "fine, let us play something". And whether it survives a room of six people where two of them do not play games at all.
This is not a ranking of production budgets. Jackbox has more money and better animation than most of this list. It is a ranking of how quickly you get everyone playing without explaining who holds which controller and who needs to download what.
The 10 best party games for your TV
01
Buzzin - TV Show
A game show on the TV, phones as buzzers, guests install nothing
You open the game in your TV browser, a room code shows up on screen, and everyone types that code into their own phone. No accounts, no app store trip, because a guest's phone is just a buzzer running in a browser tab. A real voice reads the questions out loud, the TV keeps score, and between rounds you can hit whoever is running away with it: freeze their screen, fog their answers, or send bugs crawling across them.
The host carries half the show. They do not read questions off a list, they wind people up, riff on the answers and stretch the pause before the reveal, so the tension holds right to the last second. Two to eight players around one screen, which is the size most living rooms actually are.
You can tell the whole thing was planned end to end: rounds, power-ups, the final and the scoring add up to one evening rather than a pile of loose minigames. The real advantage though is how easily everyone gets in. All it needs is a browser, so it runs on any brand of smart TV, on a laptop under the telly or through a Chromecast. Everything else on this list wants specific hardware: Jackbox a console or Steam, game.city a Roku box, Netflix Games an app on the one TV model that supports it.
Best for mixed groups where half the room does not play games and will not install anything for one evening.
This is the game that should be sitting at number one, and for a few years it would have been. A colourful pyramid on the TV, everyone holding a phone, slapping ink over rivals' answers and freezing their screens. Knowledge is Power pulled off the hardest trick in party games: it got people who had never held a controller to play a console game and enjoy it.
The problem is that you cannot legally buy it now. The PlayLink titles disappeared from the PlayStation Store in early November 2023, and the companion app your phone needs to connect was pulled from the App Store and Google Play at the same time. Wish Studios, who built it, had already closed in February 2019. If you own the disc and still have the app installed, enjoy it. If you do not, there is nothing to hunt for, and that is exactly why the rest of this list exists.
Nostalgia only, plus whatever disc is still in somebody's drawer. As a plan for tonight, it is out.
One pack holds five games, and Quiplash and Fibbage still produce the best nights of anything on this list. The mechanic is the same as the number one: the game runs on the big screen, players open jackbox.tv in a phone browser and punch in a room code.
Two catches. Somebody has to own the pack on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Apple TV, iPad or Fire TV, at roughly 30 dollars a pack. Jackbox's own smart TV service was promised for 2026 and has not landed yet. The second catch matters if your group is not fully comfortable in English, because almost every game runs on wordplay and written jokes.
Best for confident English speakers with a console or a laptop already wired to the TV.
AirConsole turns a TV or laptop into a console and every phone into a gamepad, with nothing to install on the players' side. You open the site on the big screen, everyone scans a code, and you get a catalogue of dozens of games: racing, drawing, card games, party quizzes.
Some games are free, the rest sit behind the AirConsole Hero subscription. Quality swings hard because the catalogue comes from many different studios, so expect your first evening to be part game night and part browsing. There is also an Android TV app, which saves you when the TV browser is sluggish.
Best if you want one place with lots of variety and do not mind a subscription.
Already included in a subscription you probably pay for
Netflix put games on TVs and got the setup exactly right: a QR code appears on screen, you scan it, and your phone becomes the controller. No extra charges, no in-app purchases, no ads. It is all inside the subscription.
For a party the ones worth opening are Boggle Party, LEGO Party, Pictionary: Game Night and Party Crashers. This is not a hosted game show with a voice reading questions, it is a set of short games, but as something to start in ten seconds flat it is very hard to beat.
Best when you want to be playing something within seconds of deciding to.
This one gives you the real shows: The 1% Club, Pointless, Catchphrase, Deal or No Deal. The host starts a game on the TV, everyone scans a QR code, and phones become the buzzers. No app required.
Games are bought individually, around eleven dollars each, and stay yours. It is also available as a Roku channel, which makes it one of the few picks that installs straight onto the TV rather than running in a browser tab.
Best for people who want the actual game shows they watch on TV.
Kahoot grew up in classrooms and it shows, but for a quiz about the bride and groom or the birthday guest it is excellent. You write your own questions, put the game on the TV, and guests join at kahoot.it with a PIN.
One serious caveat: the free plan now allows 10 participants per game, down from the 50 people remember. Paid plans start at three dollars a month billed annually. Fine for a small get-together, not enough for a wedding or an office party.
Best for occasions where the questions need to be about the people in the room.
Drawing charades, except the drawing appears on the TV while each player sketches with a finger on their own phone. Open the site on the big screen, everyone joins by QR code, and you play with up to eight people.
It is the lightest thing on this list and the best palate cleanser between heavier games. I would not count on it to carry a whole evening, but it reliably produces half an hour of people crying with laughter.
Best as a break, and for groups who would rather draw than answer questions.
Over a hundred minigames and a board to move around, polished the way only Nintendo polishes things. With four people on a couch it beats everything else here on sheer craft.
The barrier is a different league though. You need a Switch, the game, and four Joy-Cons, and with six guests two of them are watching. The Switch 2 edition adds camera modes. This is a night with people who already play games, not a party with a random guest list.
Best for exactly four people with a console already under the TV.
Free and instant, but everyone stares at their own screen
Both are free, both run in a browser, both start in about ten seconds. Drop a link in the group chat and you are playing. Gartic Phone in telephone mode reliably produces half an hour of genuinely great nonsense.
They are last for one reason: they are not TV games. Everybody looks at their own screen and there is no shared stage, which is the thing that actually makes a party game work in a living room. You can put them on a big screen, but they were not built for it.
Best when the group is scattered around the room, or playing remotely.
Rather than hunting for one best game, match it to the room. That is the whole secret of a good game night, far more than any review score.
Mixed group who do not play games: Buzzin or Netflix Games. Guests installing nothing is not a detail, it is the difference between playing and explaining.
Confident English speakers: Jackbox, no contest. Quiplash has no real rival.
An occasion that needs personal questions: Kahoot, remembering the 10 player free cap.
Four people and a Switch under the TV: Super Mario Party Jamboree.
You need a half hour breather: Gartic TV or Gartic Phone.
What you actually need to play on the TV
For everything in the top half of this list, the hardware is already in your living room. There is nothing to buy and nothing to wire up.
1A big screen with a browser: a smart TV, a laptop on an HDMI cable, or a Chromecast or similar dongle.
2Wi-Fi your guests' phones can join. This is the one thing that can sink an evening, so find the password before people arrive.
3A phone per player. Nothing installed, a browser is enough.
4The room code from the TV, typed into those phones. From decision to first question is about three minutes.
One TV and that is it
Everything above comes down to one sentence: one TV and that is it. A shared screen does something six separate phones never will. The laugh after a badly wrong answer, the heckling, everyone looking at the same place at the same moment.
That is the thing Buzzin is built around. If you play it and feel like saying what you enjoyed and what is worth improving, that feedback collects on the game's Discord.
Frequently asked questions
Can you still buy Knowledge is Power on PS4 or PS5?
Not digitally. The PlayLink titles were pulled from the PlayStation Store in early November 2023, and the companion app that phones need to connect was removed from the App Store and Google Play. Second-hand discs still circulate, but without a working phone app you cannot play it properly anyway. There was never a PS5 version; the game was built for PS4.
Do I need a console to play party games on my TV?
No. Most of this ranking, including Buzzin, AirConsole, Gartic TV and Kahoot, runs in a browser. A smart TV, a laptop connected to the TV, or a Chromecast will do. Only Jackbox bought on PlayStation or Xbox, and Super Mario Party Jamboree, actually require console hardware.
Do guests have to install an app?
For Buzzin, Jackbox, AirConsole, game.city and Kahoot they do not. Phones connect through the browser after entering a room code or scanning a QR code. Netflix Games is the exception, since it needs the Netflix Game Controller app, as did the now-dead Knowledge is Power companion app.
How many people can play at once?
It depends on the game. Buzzin and Jackbox target two to eight players, Gartic TV handles eight, and Kahoot's free plan now stops at ten. Super Mario Party Jamboree allows four on one console and more online. For most living rooms, four to eight players is where all of these are at their best.
What is the best free party game for a TV?
Gartic TV, skribbl.io and Gartic Phone are genuinely free with no catch. AirConsole and Kahoot have free tiers with limits, ten players in Kahoot's case. Netflix Games costs nothing extra if you already subscribe, which for most households makes it the cheapest real option on this list.
Written by
Eryk Kruk · Buzzin Founder
I build Buzzin and test every one of these games at my own game nights. Got a question about this piece, or an idea for the next one? Write me: eryk@ravenlab.tech
