Bollywood Games for Adults: 8 a Grown Room Will Actually Play
Bollywood games for adults fail at the same moment every time. Somebody suggests charades, and the room goes quiet, because the first person up has to perform in front of eleven people who have known them for twenty years. The game is not the problem. The opening ask is.
The eight games below are ordered by how exposed a player is, starting with the ones where nobody has to be looked at. Five run in a browser, so you can have the material ready before anybody decides they are not playing.
What makes a Bollywood game work for adults?
A Bollywood game works for adults when the first round asks almost nothing of the person playing it.
Children will do anything in front of a room. Adults turn up with a reputation and would rather keep it. An evening that opens with a mime has asked the hardest thing it will ask all night, in the first ten minutes.
The fix is order. Put the games a player can sit still through at the front and the ones that need nerve at the back. By the time charades arrives the room is loud and nobody is keeping score of who looked silly.
Bollywood games for adults who are not standing up
Three of these can be played from a sofa by somebody who has agreed to nothing.
1. Desi Showdown
Desi Showdown asks you to name the answer most people gave rather than the answer that is correct. It opens an evening well because being unremarkable is the entire skill, so there is nothing to be caught out on. Ask a room for a Bollywood film about college and four people arrive at 3 Idiots (2009) without consulting each other. Start a round while people are still holding plates.
2. Filmy Tilt
Filmy Tilt puts a film title on one player's forehead and lets everybody else describe it while that player guesses. The person on the spot does the least work, which makes it the round to hand somebody who just said they are not playing. One phone goes round the circle. Om Shanti Om (2007) lasts about six seconds, because somebody always starts with the hair.
3. The nostalgia round
A nostalgia round is the same describing game played on objects instead of films: an old ad, a TV show, a school snack. It belongs in an adult evening because the material only exists if you were there, which quietly makes the oldest person in the room the most useful one. Getting a room to Vicco Turmeric without saying cream, haldi or cosmetic is a fair test of anybody over thirty. The deck handles the banned words.
Bollywood games for adults who will talk but not perform
Three for the middle stretch, when the room will speak up but not get up.
4. Guess Karo
Guess Karo gives you one word to describe while three obvious words are banned. It moves the difficulty off film knowledge and onto vocabulary, so the person who has seen everything gets no head start. Try getting a room to Special 26 (2013) without saying raid, police or fake. Sixty seconds is longer than it sounds.
5. The recasting round
A recasting round is naming a well-known film and asking the room to cast it entirely with people who are in the room. It suits adults because it is gossip with a rulebook. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) is the one to open with. Casting the father takes four seconds. The argument about it takes ten minutes.
6. Bollywood Pictionary
Bollywood Pictionary is a film title drawn rather than acted, with a team guessing against a clock. Drawing is the gentlest way to be watched, because the room looks at the paper instead of at you. The generator picks the film. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) comes out as three stick figures and a bull every time, and works every time.
Bollywood games for adults once the room has warmed up
The last two need nerve, which is the only reason they are last.
7. Dumb Charades (damsharas)
Dumb Charades (damsharas) is a film title acted out in silence while your team shouts guesses. It is the best game on this list and the worst opener, and both come from the same fact: it puts one person alone in front of everybody. An hour in, that has stopped being a problem. Let the charades title generator deal the films, so nobody spends the night refereeing a list they wrote themselves. Masaan (2015) and Bareilly Ki Barfi (2017) are the two I would hold back for the last half hour.
8. Antakshari
Antakshari is one team ending a song on a letter and the next team starting a song with that letter. It goes last because singing in front of people is the highest ask in the room, whatever its reputation as an icebreaker suggests. Put one person on each side who grew up with the radio on, or it becomes two people performing at each other. A round that lands on Rang De Basanti (2006) will run long.
How many of these does one evening actually need?
Four, taken one from each group with the fourth chosen on the night.
Each of these runs about twenty minutes before a room wants something different, and the changeover eats another ten. Four fills an evening and still leaves space for people to talk, which is what most of them came for. Do not pick the fourth in advance. A room tells you what it wants by the second round.
Bollywood games for adults: questions people ask
What are the best Bollywood games for adults?
The four that hold a grown room are Desi Showdown, Filmy Tilt, Guess Karo and Dumb Charades (damsharas), played in that order. Between them they cover a room that has not committed, a room that is talking and a room finally willing to get up. None needs anything bought or printed, because the material can come from a generator rather than a box.
What Bollywood games work for adults who refuse to perform?
Desi Showdown, Filmy Tilt and a recasting round ask a player to speak and nothing more. All three keep the attention on the answer rather than on the person giving it, which is the specific thing a reluctant adult is avoiding. Leave charades and antakshari until those same people have already won something.
How do you get a room of adults to start playing at all?
Start the game before you announce it. Ask one survey question out loud while people are still eating and let the answers become a round, rather than asking a seated room whether they feel like playing. Then take the first turn yourself. Nobody wants to be the first person up, and the fastest way to remove that problem is to be it.
Is Dumb Charades (damsharas) the same game people mean by charades?
Yes. Dumb Charades (damsharas) is the same game, and damsharas is the phonetic spelling people type after only ever hearing the name said out loud. Dumb Charades also gets typed as dumsharaz and dumb sharades. None of those changes a rule of play, and none is worth correcting anybody over at a party.
Do Bollywood games for adults need drinking to work?
No, and the ones on this list are ordered so that they do not. Drinking usually does the job a sensible running order should be doing, which is lowering how exposed the first few players feel. Get the order right and a dry room plays as hard as a wet one.
What works when the room is mixed ages?
Put everybody on teams and lead with the games where knowledge is shared rather than tested. A nostalgia round splits a mixed room badly, so it is the one to cut. Charades, Pictionary and Filmy Tilt all reward nerve over memory, so a teenager and a grandparent can carry the same round.
Start the first round
Pick two teams, say the turn length out loud before anybody plays, and open with something nobody has to stand up for. By the time the room is ready for charades, the films are already waiting.
