Despite their polished and proper reputation, the Victorians knew how to party. In 19th-century Great Britain and the United States, parlor games—group games played indoors and often in parlors—were usually at the center of these parties, which raged into the wee hours of the morning.
And, says Jenna Jones, the creator of TikTok who has researched and created hundreds of videos about the Victorian era, they would make just as fun party games today as ever. “It’s a great way to connect,” she says, especially unlike today’s gatherings, “where people just gather in their little groups. These games are a great way to break the ice and meet new people.” For modern party hosts, she says, “turning a lot of these into drinking games would be a lot of fun, because a lot of these games are very low-stakes.”
These parlor games are also a great way to inject some creativity into your hosting. “You have to be present to play,” says Adam Shefts, author of the book Games that time forgot, a detailed guide to hundreds of parlor games from the 19th and 20th centuries. “Not only that, but you have to be creative. Some of these games really make you use your imagination. That’s something that’s kind of lost today.”
Whether you’re looking to host a night of phone-free fun, throw an unforgettable party, or, let’s face it, find a socially acceptable way to flirt with a suitor, these 15 vintage parlor games are sure to get the party started.
Credits: Courtesy of Netflix
1. Are you there, Moriarty?
Also known as Moriarty, Are You There?, this two-player game returns after appearing in the Netflix series Someday. To play, two blindfolded players lie side by side, holding the other person’s hand in one hand and a rolled-up newspaper (or paper towel tube) in the other. One player asks, “Are you there, Moriarty?” When the other player responds, “Yes, sir,” both players attempt to hit each other with their “weapon” until the winner successfully scores the agreed upon number of hits. “Nothing makes me laugh more than the thought of a bunch of blindfolded Victorians hitting themselves over the head with newspapers,” says Jones. “It’s almost like Marco Polo, but outside the pool.”
This memory game was popularized by Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim, in which the titular hero plays a game while training to be a spy. To play, take a tray and place 15 unrelated small objects — like “a domino, a golf ball, a little flower,” Shefts says — and give the players two minutes to look at the tray and remember everything on it. Then cover the tray and give the players another two minutes to write down every item they can think of. The one who correctly remembers the most items wins. “It’s so comfortable,” Shefts says. “You have families working together or playing against each other, but it brings them closer together.”
This early variation on the Mafia is arguably more difficult: all but one player sits in a circle with bowed heads. The remaining player, the “selector”, selects the killer by tapping him once on the head and selects the detective by tapping him twice on the head. All players open their eyes and stand in a circle with the detective in the middle. (“Selector” does not play.) The killer must try to “kill” other players by winking at them without the detective witnessing it, and the players who are “killed” must die in a very dramatic way. The detective has three guesses; if they guess wrong, the accused dies. The game ends either when the killer has killed everyone, or the detective correctly spots the killer. The perfect game for you Traitors watch party!
In this classic game, everyone must stand still while one player, the “sculptor,” moves each of them into the pose they want. It is not allowed to laugh or move, no matter how ridiculous the pose; when the player breaks a pose or starts laughing, he becomes a sculptor.
Jones describes Fictionary as “just like Balderdash, but much easier to play.” All you need to get started is a dictionary. One player uses a dictionary to choose an obscure word and announce it. Everyone else creates their own short definition, while the dictionary holder writes down the real one. The dictionary keeper mixes up all the definitions, real and fake, and reads them out loud. Then everyone votes for what they think is the right one, getting points for either guessing correctly or writing the most popular definition. If there are no correct guesses, the dictionary holder gets a point.
That’s not Boar on the floor success, but this beef game can be just as humiliating (or fun, depending on how much you have in common with Logan Roy). The “dogs” sit in a circle, while the blindfolded “farmer” spins in the middle with a pillow. The farmer must place a pillow on the pig’s lap (without touching the pig), say, “Squeak, pig, squeal!” and try to guess who they landed on while the pig in question tries to cover up their squeal. The game continues until the farmer guesses correctly and switches places with the pig they have identified.
This game is set up similar to musical chairs, but you don’t have to play the music or remove the chairs. As Shefts explains, all but one player sits in a circle of chairs, while one, the “caller,” stands in the middle. The caller asks the seated player, “Do you love your neighbor?” If the player says yes, their neighbors on either side may remain seated. If the player says no, their neighbors must stand up and compete with the caller to take the new vacant seat. A player can also say, “Yes, except for the one born in July,” or any other criteria. Players matching either description must jump and switch places. The person who does not get a seat then becomes the caller.
This parlor game is reminiscent of some modern road games. Players have to choose a new adjective for the minister’s cat with each letter of the alphabet – so one player might say, “The minister’s cat is pleasant,” while the next player says, “The minister’s cat is worried,” and so on, before moving on to the letter B. Players are eliminated when they cannot think of an adjective fast enough or if they repeat someone else’s word. “For parties, [this game is] a nice way to break the ice and get people talking about the game throughout the night with little jokes or callbacks,” says Jones.
This is an active game that you may want to play outside (unless your living room is the size of a Victorian drawing room). You need an even number of people to play this game, so players can stand in a circle of pairs facing inward, front to back. These are geese. Two players will stand outside the circle – one is the Fox and one is the Goose. Geese can run in and around the circle; the fox can only run outside the circle. To escape the Fox, the Goose must find the pair and stand in front of them inside the circle, forcing the person on the outside of the pair (now the odd man out) to break away and run away from the Fox into the circle to find another pair who will surely join. If the Goose is tagged by the Fox as they break away from their place in the pair or on their way to safety, they become the new Fox and the game continues.
12. If you love me, darling, smile
Test your physical comedy skills in this game, where one person (“It”) must try to get everyone else in the group to smile without saying a word. The “It” player must go around the table, one at a time, and make funny faces or movements to try to get their target to smile. “This was at a time when it was inappropriate to make eye contact with someone of the opposite sex you weren’t in a relationship with,” says Shefts, “but this game allowed unwritten rules to be broken. So it’s thought to have led to many relationships because it allowed for open flirtation.”
This creative precursor to “Telephone” is as hard as you want it to be. The first player goes into the room and writes a short story (three to five sentences, depending on how challenging the group wants to be). Player 2 enters and listens carefully while Player 1 reads the story. Player 1 leaves and Player 3 enters, listening to Player 2 recite his best memory of the story. This continues until all players have heard some version of the story. Then everyone gathers and listens as the last player repeats the story from memory. Finally, Player 1 reads the original story from the page – possibly comically different from the final version. Like other Victorian memory games, Jones notes, “when you’ve had a bit to drink, it’s very funny to try and remember” complicated stories.
“This game really tickles my fancy,” says Jones. Players cross in a circle, with one player, the “kitten”, in the middle. Playing cat, the “cat” picks a player in the circle and tries to make them laugh by meowing, pawing, and otherwise acting funny like a cat. Their victim has to “pet” them and say: “Poor pussy, poor pussy”, without laughing (it won’t be easy). “Imagining your friends – or grown men from Victoria – on their hands and knees pretending to be cats is a very funny situation,” says Jones.
To play this parlor game, players stand in a circle with one person in the middle, eyes closed. Everyone else quickly passes slippers (or some other small, light object) around the circle behind them, keeping an eye on the center player. When the person in the middle opens their eyes, the passing stops immediately, and the center tries to guess who has the slipper. Another variation of this game called “Hands” can be played sitting around the table, where everyone passes a small object around and under the table from hand to hand until the guesser says “stop” and tries to guess who has the object.