The free hot potato word game Hot Potato

How to play Hot Potato

Hot Potato is the old pass-it-around party game, rebuilt for one phone and a word prompt. Instead of music that stops, there's a hidden timer. Instead of just passing, you have to answer first. You need three or more players and a circle to sit in.

1. 1Sit in a circle so the phone can move easily from hand to hand.
2. 2Pick a prompt mode (Mix, Categories, Letters, Word chain or Rhymes) and a fuse: Short, Normal or Long.
3. 3Under Keep score, choose 3 lives each so the game tracks who's still in (add player names if you like), or Just for fun to play with no score at all.
4. 4Tap Light the fuse. A hidden timer begins, somewhere between 10 and 60 seconds depending on the fuse, and the ticking speeds up as it goes.
5. 5Whoever holds the phone says an answer that fits the prompt out loud, then passes the phone to the next player.
6. 6When the timer goes off, the player holding the phone loses a life. Playing Just for fun? Nobody keeps score, and you go straight to the next round.
7. 7Start the next round. With 3 lives each, the last player standing wins.

One rule keeps it honest: no repeats. If a word has already been said, it doesn't count, and you have to come up with another one before you can pass.

Hot Potato prompts

These are the prompts the game uses, sorted by mode: categories to name things from, letter combos to find words with, words to rhyme with, and starting words for the word chain. Everything is family-friendly, so the whole table can play.

Prompt modes, lives and scoring

Categories is the easiest place to start. The prompt is something like “Name a fruit”, and every player has to come up with a new one: apple, mango, kiwi, and so on until someone freezes.

Letters asks for a word that contains a letter combo, such as “A word with ST in it”. Fast, toast, stop, mister. It sounds simple until the phone is in your hand and the ticking gets louder.

Word chain starts from a word the app shows you. Each new word has to begin with the last letter of the one before it, so “apple” leads to “egg”, then “goat”, then “tiger”. Rhymes gives you a word like CAT, and you go around the circle with hat, bat, mat, until the rhymes run out.

You don't know when the timer will go off, and it changes every round, so there's no safe moment to slow down. The fuse sets the range: Short is 10 to 25 seconds, Normal 20 to 45 and Long 35 to 60. Playing with 3 lives each? Every player starts with 3, and the game shows who's left. Just for fun keeps no score at all, so play as many rounds as you like.

Tips for a better round

• Think of your answer while the phone is still two seats away. You'll know the prompt before it reaches you.
• In Word chain, think about the next player. A word ending in E is easy to follow; a word ending in X is a trap.
• Pass the phone, don't throw it. Hand it over, screen up, into an open hand.
• Agree on what counts before you start. Are brand names OK? Do plurals count as new words?
• For younger players, choose Categories and let kids answer with any word that fits, even a simple one.
• Let the person who just got caught pick the next mode. It's a small consolation prize.

Ways to play Hot Potato

Where Hot Potato works best

Hot Potato needs almost no setup, which makes it a good warm-up at the start of a party or a quick break between longer games. Family gatherings, sleepovers and kids' birthday parties all fit.

In a classroom, it works as a fast vocabulary game. Letters and Rhymes get students thinking about how words are built, and Word chain rewards a big vocabulary.

It also works in the car, as long as the phone stays with the passengers and the driver stays out of it. Pass it across the back seat and keep the circle small.

Where Hot Potato comes from

In the classic party game, players sit in a circle and pass a small object, like a beanbag or a soft ball, while music plays. Whoever is holding it when the music stops is out. Its origins are unclear, but an 1888 glossary of Sheffield words in England describes a seated version where players passed a lit candle, and whoever held it when it went out had to pay a forfeit.

The word chain mode has a long tradition of its own. In English it's simply called word chain, and in Japan a version called shiritori, roughly “taking the end”, links each word to the last sound of the one before. Our Hot Potato puts those ideas together with a ticking timer on a single phone.

Questions