Exciting Games for Birthday Party Celebrations at Home

Birthday parties are fun, but only if planned right. You don’t want your guests leaving your party disappointed or bored, or worse- both, now, do you? Come-Eat-Go is not what a party is. A birthday party is more than blowing candles, cutting up a cake, and distributing it along with some chips (or Namkeen Mixture- The Indian home staple for parties) and a glass of cool drink. You are right, this was the norm, but people have advanced with time, forget adults, kids consider this old-fashioned now, you will have to do better if you want to throw something that resembles a birthday party. You will need to do something different, something fun. And the single most impactful element that can exponentially increase the fun element of a birthday party is games.

I know you are here for the games, so here they are without any further nonsense-

Games for Kids Birthday Party

Musical Chairs

Does this need explaining? Hmmm… I’ll explain it just in case you were stranded on an island, away from civilization all these years. You will need chairs, one less than the total number of participants. Arrange the chairs to form a circle, the kids will have to walk briskly around this circle of chairs while the music is playing. The music is randomly stopped, on this cue, the kids will have to occupy a chair, and whoever fails to secure a chair is eliminated. Every time a kid is eliminated, a chair is removed, making the circle smaller. This goes on till all kids but one is eliminated, the last person standing sitting is crowned (you should have a few birthday cones lying around…) the Monarch of the Musical chairs.

Important Note: Don’t let the kids run if you don’t want them falling and hurting themself, make brisk walking a rule, and make sure there are no decorations or obstacles in the area where you are conducting this game.

Eating Contest

Kids are generally gluttonous, which is why this game makes the perfect sense at their parties. Get something like cupcakes, they are ideal because of their size and cost, and they appeal to kids too. 

While you can conduct eating contests in different ways, this is one of the easiest- every kid is given a limited amount of food (say, 1-3 cupcakes), and as soon as the contest starts whoever finishes their portion first is declared the winner. Simple isn’t it? If not Cupcakes, you can use something like fruits, or biscuits.

Important Note: Keep water handy in case anyone chokes on their food. Choose something that the kids won’t easily choke on. It should not be at the extreme of the junk food spectrum, but at the same time, the kids should like it enough to want to quickly devour it.

Trivia Night

Prepare questions based on the general age group of the kids, you can either make teams or let them compete individually depending on the number of participating kids. Get chocolates or stationery, reward the kids for every correct answer, this should keep them motivated.

Ball in the Bucket

It’s a simple game, place a bucket/jug/container at a certain distance from where the kids will have to throw a ball. I recommend using paper rolled into a ball instead of an actual ball, this will keep it from bouncing around and accidentally damaging your stuff. If this seems too simple, keep a smaller container or turn on the fan and set it at a low speed to make it harder to aim.

Play-Doh

This is more of a fun activity than a game, get non-toxic clay for the kids to play with. You could ask them to sculpt something particular or let them come up with whatever their imagination allows them to. In the end, they could get their photos clicked with their creation, and you can let them take it home as a memento. 

Hide and Seek

If your home has plenty of space to hide, then this game is a must-play. Just monitor the kids and tell them beforehand about the places they are not allowed to hide in.

Board Games

If you have enough space, you could draw up a giant Snakes and Ladders board on the ground and let the kids take the position of their pawns and move according to their dice throws. If not, you could still have them play regular board games, just take their ages into consideration before handing them board games. 5-year-olds would hardly find something like Ludo or Monopoly interesting. So yeah, plan accordingly.

Birthday Party Games for Adults

There are no restrictions to playing the games from the Kids categories, they are fun for adults too. But these games are specifically for adults.

Dumb charades

This is a fun game to play if you have enough people, decide on the topics and the allowed signs before the start of the game. Here’s a simple explanation for the uninitiated- There are two teams, one team decides on a particular topic, say a movie name, and then they tell this to one person from the opposing team (of course, without the other members of the opposing team hearing this), this person is supposed to act it out to their team, their team has to guess the movie name before the set time limit.

Drinking Contest

This is pretty self-explanatory, whoever downs the glass first wins. Decide on the drink, and start chugging, set penalties for the last place, and use big glasses for more fun.

Truth or Dare

People sit next to each other forming a circle, a bottle is kept in the center and spun when it stops spinning, the person facing the neck of the bottle is the person who will have to choose between truth or dare, and the person who spun the bottle will either ask a question or assign a dare depending on what the other person chose. Everyone takes turns to spin the bottle. To make the game more fun, make it so that a person is forced to choose an alternate option every time it is their turn, this way they won’t just keep picking the same option every single time.

Never Have I Ever

This is yet another simple drinking game. Someone has to start by saying something that they have never done in their lifetime while starting their sentence with “Never have I ever.” All those who have done the action specified in that sentence must take a drink. Everyone takes turns to say a Never have I ever sentence.

Card Games

There are so many varieties of card games that you could play. Uno is simple and fun, but it might take some time to complete a game. With playing cards, the scope of games you can play increases dramatically. Then there is Cards Against Humanity, a fun game for adults.

Darts

It is a fun game as long as your guests don’t impale each other with darts. So, make sure to not let your drunk buddies anywhere near the dartboard. Alternatively, you could find a magnetic dartboard, with this you don’t have to worry about anyone or anything getting punctured.

The games would make the party all fun, but what about the part after this? No, I’m not referring to the after-party, I’m talking about the post-party clean-up. Need help with it? Read our tips on post-party clean-up featured on Porch.

These were some games to amp up the fun factor at your party. If you think it out, you could come up with even better and more fun games than these on your own. Turn up the music, and don’t let any guest of yours walk out feeling bored or hungry.