"A cat running a business meeting" becomes a drawing, the drawing becomes "a lion giving a TED talk", and three steps later the room is looking at a sandwich. The fun is the drift, and the album at the end is where everyone finds out how it happened.
What is the telephone game?
The classic game of telephone passes a whispered phrase around a circle until it comes out the other end as something else. The drawing version swaps whispers for pictures: every other step is a drawing, so the phrase drifts much further, and much more visibly, than it ever does by ear.
How to play the telephone game online
- Everyone writes a phrase, anything someone could draw.
- The phrases pass on. You get someone else's phrase and draw it on your own canvas, with the full set of drawing tools.
- The drawings pass on. You get someone's drawing, without the phrase, and write what you think it shows.
- Draw, describe, repeat. Each chain makes as many steps as there are players, up to eight, and never comes back to the person who started it.
- The album. Every chain plays back one step at a time. Tap the heart on the moments that made you laugh.
Scoring, lightly
- 50 points for every step you finish.
- 100 points for every like your drawings and captions get in the album.
The points are there to give the podium a winner, not to make anyone draw carefully. The best entries are usually the worst drawings.
Nothing breaks if someone is slow. Your drawing is sent automatically just before the clock ends, finished or not. A step missed entirely is filled in, so the chain still reaches the album.
50 telephone game phrases
Stuck for a starting phrase? These are the ones the game uses when somebody runs out of time, and they work just as well for the spoken version at a party or in class. Every one is something a person can draw, and all of them are safe for a work call.
- A cat running a business meeting
- A dinosaur learning to ride a bike
- Pizza delivery on the moon
- A shark at the dentist
- A robot watering plants
- An octopus playing drums
- A snowman on holiday
- A giraffe in a tiny car
- A superhero doing laundry
- A penguin selling ice cream
- A dragon afraid of the dark
- A dog giving a presentation
- An alien at a coffee shop
- A wizard stuck in traffic
- A whale in a bathtub
- A chicken crossing a busy road
- A cactus giving a hug
- A ghost at a birthday party
- A horse on a skateboard
- A pirate working from home
- A lion getting a haircut
- A bear baking a cake
- A monkey fixing a laptop
- A frog in a business suit
- A knight shopping for groceries
- A sleepy sun
- A volcano sneezing
- A fish riding a bicycle
- An elephant hiding behind a tree
- A cow on a trampoline
- A tiny house on a turtle
- A mermaid at the office
- An astronaut walking a dog
- A vampire at the beach
- A banana slipping on a person
- A cloud raining coffee
- A spider knitting a scarf
- A mouse lifting weights
- A pigeon stealing a sandwich
- A teapot with legs
- A goat in a meeting room
- A sloth winning a race
- A crab directing traffic
- A hamster driving a bus
- A duck wearing headphones
- A tree checking its phone
- A snail on a rocket
- A panda doing yoga
- A kangaroo at a job interview
- A lamp reading a book
Big rooms
Up to 16 people pass the chains, which keeps the album to a length people will watch. In a bigger room everyone else follows the progress and joins in for the album, liking their favourite moments.
Want something different? Try Draw & Guess for a drawing race, Caption Clash for the funny-writing part, or Emoji Decode for puzzles you type: same room, same leaderboard.
Comparing options? See games like Gartic Phone, or which games work above 20 people.