Hazelburngames is a small desk of habitual game-night hosts who keep testing the browser party games that work over a video call or round a telly. We sketch badly, type fast, argue about clues and write down what each one is actually like with four, eight or twenty people in the room.
skribbl.io earns the top spot because it is the quickest route from “anyone fancy a game?” to a room full of people shouting at a badly drawn giraffe. One link, a nickname, and you are sketching.
The rules fit in a sentence: one person draws a secret word, everybody else types guesses, and faster correct answers earn more points. What keeps us coming back is the room settings. A private lobby takes anything from two to twenty players, the draw timer stretches from a frantic 15 seconds to a leisurely four minutes, and you can feed it your own word list so the in-jokes from your office or family finally have somewhere to live. It runs on phones too, which matters when Gran joins from the kitchen.
Every group has a personality. Some want to draw, some want to argue, some want to type until their fingers ache. Here is the game we match to each mood.
For groups who genuinely enjoy drawing and cheering a clever sketch, skribbl.io is the natural home. The adjustable timer means you can give artists room to show off or force everyone into frantic stick figures, and custom words let you aim the whole night at your own shared references.
skribbl.io →gigglersIf the best part of the evening is watching something fall apart, Gartic Phone is your game. Nobody is really trying to win; the joy is the end-of-round replay, where a sensible sentence becomes a drawing, then a wild misreading, then something nobody can explain at all.
Gartic Phone →plottersFriends who like to think before they speak will get the most from Codenames Online. One clever word that links three cards on the grid is a moment of real triumph, and watching your team overthink a simple clue is nearly as good as getting it right.
Codenames Online →typistsWhen your crowd lives on their keyboards, BombParty on JKLM.fun turns vocabulary into a reflex test. The bomb passes, the letters appear, and there is no time to be clever; you just need any word that fits, typed before the fuse runs out.
JKLM.fun BombParty →driftersFor a solo lunchtime round with strangers, Gartic.io keeps rooms busy and themed. Pick a topic you know, start guessing, and leave whenever you like. Signing in unlocks your own themes and a list of favourite rooms if you start to settle somewhere.
Gartic.io →minimalistsDrawasaurus suits people who want a plain drawing room and nothing else. Quick Play drops you into a match, or you set up a private room and share it with friends. It is a desktop affair, so it suits evenings round a laptop.
Drawasaurus →A drawing game played alone tells you nothing. Every title here was tested with real groups across several evenings, in small private rooms and in public lobbies full of strangers, on laptops and on phones. Scores come from what happened at the table, not from feature lists.
Each game gets at least three sessions: a tight group of friends who know each other’s jokes, a mixed bunch including someone who never plays anything, and a public room of strangers. A game that only shines with one of those crowds loses marks, because hosts rarely get to choose who turns up on a Friday.
We time how long it takes the least confident person in the room to understand what to do and take their first turn. Then we watch whether they are still laughing twenty minutes later. Rules that need a long explanation, menus that hide the join button and lobbies that freeze newcomers out all show up in the score.
We open every room on a laptop and on a phone, share the invite link the way an ordinary host would, and poke at the settings until we know which ones matter. Device notes on each review come from checking the publisher’s own pages and stores, so the line about where a game runs is one you can rely on.
Hazelburngames is a reading site with nothing to sell. Play buttons send you straight to each game’s own website, and the ranking is argued out between editors who have each hosted these games for friends and family. If we change a score, it is because a game changed or because we changed our minds after another session, and we will happily say which.
None of the six needs installing to play. Each opens in a browser tab from the link on its review. Gartic Phone, Gartic.io and Codenames Online also offer apps for phones if you prefer, while skribbl.io and JKLM.fun play in a mobile browser. Drawasaurus is the one we would keep to a laptop or desktop.
Gartic Phone and Codenames Online were built with remote groups in mind. Codenames needs everyone talking, so keep a voice call running alongside it; the site itself recommends exactly that. Gartic Phone is quieter while you play and loud during the replay, which makes it perfect for a call where people chat over the reveal.
skribbl.io is happy with two and can take twenty in one private room. Codenames really wants four or more so you can form two teams with a spymaster each. BombParty works with a small group but gets tense and funny with more names in the circle. Gartic Phone needs a few people before the chain has room to go wrong.
The games themselves are simple enough for younger players, but public rooms are full of strangers and chat. For a family evening we strongly suggest private rooms with a shared link, and skribbl.io’s custom word list lets you control exactly what gets drawn. Keep an adult in the room and you will be fine.
Then you are in excellent company. Drawing games reward speed and cheek more than talent, and a terrible sketch often gets guessed fastest. If your crowd still flinches at a blank canvas, start with Codenames Online or BombParty, which are all about words, and save the doodling for later.
Each game is scored on four criteria after several real sessions: how often it makes people laugh, how easy it is to gather a group, how much room there is to get better, and how pleasant the lobbies are. The ranking reflects which games most reliably made a good evening across all of that, rather than any single strength.
No. The hearts you tap are saved in the browser you are using, so a list built on your laptop stays on your laptop. You can copy a share link from the shortlist page and open it on another device, which is also handy for sending a game plan to whoever is hosting.
Tell Tansy who is coming, what your crowd is good at and what screen you will be holding. She will point you to the game we would open first for that exact evening.
Each of these runs in a browser tab and costs nothing to open. They split roughly into three families: drawing-and-guessing rooms, a telephone game that mangles your sketches on purpose, and wordier tests of clue-giving and typing speed. Ranked by how reliably they produce a good night, not by how famous they are.
Open this first01One person sketches a secret word, the rest race to type it, and quicker guesses score more. Private rooms take up to twenty friends, the timer runs from fifteen seconds to four minutes, and a custom word list lets your group’s own references take over the night.
Funniest replay02Everyone writes a prompt, the next person draws it, the next describes the drawing, and so on round the group. The final replay reveals how each idea warped along the way. Nobody wins, everybody laughs, and the screenshots end up in the group chat for weeks afterwards.
Best for thinkers03Two teams face a five-by-five grid of words. Each spymaster gives a one-word clue and a number to steer teammates towards their agents, while everyone dodges the assassin card that ends the game on the spot. This is the official online version of the award-winning board game.
Fastest fingers04A ticking bomb passes round the room and you must type a word containing the letters on screen before it blows. Run out of time and you lose a life; last player standing wins. The JKLM.fun hub adds PopSauce trivia and Master of the Grid for variety.
Themed drop-in05The original Gartic drawing arena: join a room built around a theme, take turns sketching the secret word and score by guessing other players’ drawings first. Signed-in players can build their own themes and keep a list of favourite rooms, with lobbies in many languages.
Plain and simple06A free, no-frills Pictionary-style game in your browser. Players take turns drawing a word while the rest of the room guesses. Jump into Quick Play with strangers from around the world, or create a private room and share it so only your friends can join in.
Long readThe difference between a flat online game night and a brilliant one is rarely the game. It is the hosting. Here is what we have learned from running dozens of them.
Long readSome groups flinch at a blank canvas. Here is how to build a brilliant game night around words, clues and quick thinking instead, and how to tempt the doubters back to drawing later.
Read a review, tap a heart on anything that looks right, then open the room and paste the invite into your group chat. The hardest part of a game night is usually just choosing.
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