Start with the occasion
Kids' birthdays. Pass the Parcel has a card for every layer of the parcel, so each child who unwraps a layer gets a small task along with the prize. If you'd rather skip the cards, the Pass the Present Poem is a single page of rhyming verses that tell the host where the parcel goes next. For older kids, the Missing Moon Crystal Escape Room turns a table into a puzzle story with ten puzzles, a final lock and hint cards for the grown-up running it. The Lost Tomb is the bigger one, an ancient Egypt escape for ages 8 to 14 with 60 puzzle cards, five number locks and easy, standard and challenge modes.
Teen and adult birthdays. The Teen Birthday Party Games are written around one birthday girl, with a quiz about her, a phone checklist and a selfie hunt. The 35th Birthday Party Games lean on nineties memories. Both come with a host guide that lays the games out as a two-hour party plan, plus award certificates and thank-you cards.
Baby and bridal showers. Left right games are the classic shower gift pass: a reader tells a story, and every "left" or "right" sends a gift around the circle. The one-page baby shower game is a single story with the rules on the same sheet. The baby shower story set has five different stories, so you can play several rounds. The bridal shower version has three wedding stories full of sound-alike traps.
Holidays and gift swaps. The Roll & Swap Dice Gift Exchange runs a white elephant swap with two ordinary dice and six piles of action cards. For a Christmas gift pass, the Christmas Left Right Gift Pass Game has an 8-scene Santa story for a long round and a 4-page version for a short one.
Halloween has two would you rather decks. The Halloween Would You Rather Cards print 70 questions four to a page and include a trick-or-treat version where players can act instead of answer. The Halloween Would You Rather Party Cards are a bigger deck of 4 × 6 cards, 100 questions plus 20 conversation challenges that get people acting and telling stories. The same full-size format comes in a Christmas deck and a Thanksgiving deck written for the table between courses. For a fall gathering, Cozy Fall Party Games collects forty games with score sheets and conversation cards for the dinner table.
Work and school. The Office Party Games are written as pages a host can read aloud, each ending with a short debrief question. Teachers have two classroom books: First Day of School Icebreakers for the first week, and Fall Classroom Games, whose bingo round gives every child a different card.
Match the game to the group
Card games scale best. Timeline Trivia Cards, the riddle cards and the would you rather decks for road trips, pet lovers, school and the holidays above work for a small table or a whole room, because one person reads a card and everyone answers. The riddle deck has easy, medium and hard levels, so kids and adults can play from the same stack.
For a room of adults who don't know each other yet, the Mix & Mingle Icebreaker Game has large print conversation cards that can be read across a table. The One Minute Challenge Party Games are the loud option: sixty 60-second challenges played solo or in teams, using things most kitchens already have. Emoji Guessing Games works for any mix of ages that can read a row of emoji, with a hint line for anyone who gets stuck.
How much setup it takes
Some games are print and play: the left right stories, the poem, the emoji puzzles and the question decks need nothing but paper and a reader. Others take some preparation. Pass the Parcel means wrapping a parcel in layers with a card in each one. The escape room has hint cards and a symbol decoder card to cut out before the players arrive. The one-minute challenges need a small pile of supplies, which each card lists.
If you're short on time, read the host guide first where a game has one. The teen birthday guide, for example, says how many copies of each sheet to print, which saves printing a stack you won't use.
Printing tips
Print at actual size rather than fit to page, so cards come out the size they were designed to be. Card decks are easier to shuffle and last longer on cardstock, and several include a card-back page for printing double-sided. The full-size holiday would you rather decks also come one card to a page, for a 4 × 6 photo printer or a print shop. Guest sheets, quizzes and score sheets are fine on plain printer paper. If you're printing for a big group, the black-and-white ink-saver files use less ink where a game has them.