Party-Pumping Games and Party Games for Banquets [2026]
At year-end and New Year parties and other banquets, you don’t just want to eat and drink—you want to liven things up with fun games too.
But when it’s time to actually play, it’s easy to wonder, “What games are good?” or “Which games can everyone enjoy together?”
So in this article, we’ll introduce fun games that will get any party going.
We’ve gathered a variety of options, from simple games you can start right away to popular board games.
Let’s have a great time together, regardless of age!
- Party games collection that get everyone excited in a big group
- Simple mini-games that liven up a party
- Party Games That Will Liven Up Your Workplace [2026]
- A fun, everyone-joins-in game that gets everyone excited!
- Office party games that get everyone excited
- Drinking party crowd-pleasers: party and banquet games
- Party games for women that are guaranteed to be a hit
- Party games to liven up your New Year’s celebration: a fun collection that will keep everyone laughing non-stop
- Simple yet exciting! Recommended games and activities for year-end parties
- Party and drinking games to liven up a company welcome party
- Punishment games that liven up drinking parties and banquets
- Ideas for team-based games to enliven a party
- [Year-end and New Year Parties] A look back at this year and a psychology test for the New Year
Party-Boosting Games for Banquets: Party Games [2026] (21–30)
Rotating Shiritori 21
It’s a shiritori game with lots of constraints: the first and last characters have to match, and the word length is capped at 21.
In this video, they’re competing to see who can finish first, but it could also be fun to complete it cooperatively with everyone helping each other.
Quiz using puzzles
How about a fresh, new kind of game that combines puzzles and quizzes? Write the quiz questions on a white jigsaw puzzle with a marker and have your guests put it together.
Once the puzzle is completed, they answer the quiz.
The team that answers first wins! Just be careful not to use too many pieces—it should be solvable in a few minutes.
It’s simple, easy to understand, and guaranteed to get everyone excited, so give it a try.
It’s sure to help everyone have a great time together!
Party Games That Liven Up Banquets [2026] (31–40)
Weight Guessing Game
How about a weight-guessing game that anyone can enjoy, regardless of age or gender? The rules are very simple: lift two items and guess which one is heavier.
The subjects can be people, everyday items like a smartphone or a roll of toilet paper, or heavier things like dumbbells.
It’s also fun to pick similar items, such as a hard baseball and a rubber baseball.
It might seem easy at first glance, but it’s surprisingly tricky.
You’ll be saying, “I didn’t realize it was this heavy!”—and the unexpected answers are sure to liven things up.
Oshibori Roulette
It’s a game that really can’t be explained any more simply: you wring out a wet hand towel in turn, and whoever can’t get any more water out loses! If the first person goes all out, it could be over right away, but to keep the mood lively, a certain kind of cooperative play is called for.
4 booty-shaking games
From BuzzFeed America, here are four party games that are sure to get everyone excited.
They range from one where you tie a tissue box filled with ping-pong balls to your backside and race to be the first to shake them all out, to another where two people move together while holding a balloon between their backsides without dropping it.
These are games that even small children can enjoy.
Carrying ping-pong balls with chopsticks
When I was in elementary school, I once took part in a competition where we sat in a large gymnasium and diligently carried beans.
It was probably on Setsubun.
This is a kind of variation on that: a game where you carry ping-pong balls with chopsticks.
They might even be lighter than beans, so I think it’s quite difficult.
Drawing Telephone Game
It’s a game of telephone where you pass a prompt to the next person to see if it stays accurate to the end, but instead of words, you use drawings.
You get to enjoy the silent back-and-forth of which parts to emphasize so they’re conveyed, and which parts to interpret.
If you set a time limit for drawing, the added pressure might lead to sketches that end up communicating nothing to anyone.
Even if the original prompt doesn’t make it to the end, it’s a game that gets lively thanks to everyone’s drawing style and the amusing ways the prompt goes off track.
