The Fishbowl Game

The three rounds at a glance

How a turn works

One player from the first team takes the bowl, starts the timer and draws a slip. They give clues under the current round's rule until a teammate says the exact answer, then drop the slip in front of them and draw the next. When the timer ends, the slip in their hand goes back in the bowl. Their team scores one point per slip guessed. The bowl passes to a player on the other team, and turns keep alternating until the bowl is empty.

When the last slip is guessed, the round is over. Count each team's slips, then put every slip back in the bowl for the next round. A common house rule: if a round ends mid-turn, that player keeps their remaining seconds and starts the next round with them. It stops anyone feeling robbed, and the switch to a new clue rule halfway through a turn is very funny to watch.

Round one: describe it

Anything goes except the word itself, spelling, "sounds like" and rhymes. For "Eiffel Tower" you can say "the big metal landmark in Paris", and your team will get it in two seconds. This round is the slowest because nobody knows what is in the bowl yet, and that is fine, because its real job is to plant every answer in everyone's head. Encourage clue-givers to use whatever reference lands, including in-jokes, because those references come back later.

Round two: one word

One word per slip, no gestures, no sounds. The clue-giver can repeat the same word, but cannot add a second one. This is where the game gets clever: the best one-word clue is usually a callback to round one rather than a description. If someone described "Jaws" as "the shark movie your dad made you watch", the word "dad" might be all it takes now. If a team cannot get a slip, the clue-giver holds it until the timer ends, which is why passing is usually banned.

Round three: act it out

Charades rules: no words, no sounds, no mouthing, no pointing at things in the room. Because every answer has already come up twice, the acting can be lazy and still work: flap your arms once and "hot air balloon" lands. Most groups find this round goes twice as fast as round one. If you want more practice acting before a game, our charades word lists are sorted from easy to hard, and the movies for charades list doubles as a source of slips.

60 Fishbowl ideas for the slips

Use these when someone freezes at a blank slip, or mix them straight into the bowl if half the group arrives late. Every one of them is known to most adults and teenagers, and every one can be acted. Bring them in sparingly: the best slips are the ones your guests write themselves, because those carry the room's own jokes.

Famous people and characters

1. Santa Claus
2. Elvis Presley
3. Cleopatra
4. Shrek
5. Albert Einstein
6. Darth Vader
7. Taylor Swift
8. Sherlock Holmes
9. Mickey Mouse
10. Napoleon
11. The Hulk
12. Mona Lisa
13. Harry Potter
14. Beyoncé
15. The Tooth Fairy

Movies and shows

1. Titanic
2. Jaws
3. The Wizard of Oz
4. Friends
5. Jurassic Park
6. Frozen
7. The Office
8. Star Wars
9. Grease
10. Finding Nemo
11. Top Gun
12. The Simpsons
13. Home Alone
14. Ghostbusters
15. Squid Game

Things and places

1. Eiffel Tower
2. Roller coaster
3. Volcano
4. Disco ball
5. Lawn mower
6. Bubble bath
7. Statue of Liberty
8. Hot air balloon
9. Vending machine
10. Igloo
11. Trampoline
12. Lighthouse
13. Fire alarm
14. Haunted house
15. Car wash

Actions and phrases

1. Walking the dog
2. Stuck in traffic
3. Brain freeze
4. Parallel parking
5. Happy birthday
6. Making a wish
7. Losing your keys
8. Photobomb
9. Sleepwalking
10. First day of school
11. Taking a selfie
12. Missing the bus
13. Building a sandcastle
14. Stepping on a Lego
15. Spring cleaning

Optional fourth rounds

If the group is having too good a time to stop, put the slips back for a bonus round. Three variants work well. Under the sheet: the clue-giver acts while covered by a bedsheet, so only the outline reads. Sound effects only: no words, just noises, which is the round where adults lose their dignity. Freeze frame: the clue-giver strikes one pose and holds it, no movement allowed. Each adds about ten minutes, so pick one rather than all three.

Adjusting for kids, big groups and video calls

With children, let an adult read the slip to younger players, use a 90-second timer, and have the kids write characters and animals rather than films. Round two is the hardest for under-tens, so many families skip straight from describing to acting. With twenty or more people, use three or four teams, three slips each and a 45-second timer, otherwise a full round of turns takes too long and people drift to the kitchen. On a video call, have each player message their slips privately to one host who keeps the bowl, then the host sends each clue-giver their slip one at a time. It is slower, so cut to two slips each.

The three mistakes that sink a game

First, obscure slips. One player writes eight names from their favourite podcast and the bowl stalls on them for three rounds. Say the "half the room" rule out loud before anyone writes. Second, too many slips. More than about 50 and round three, which should be the best part, turns into a slog. Third, uneven teams. Split the people who know each other best across both teams, or one side will win round two on shared history alone.

Where Fishbowl fits in a party night

Fishbowl is a middle-of-the-night game: it needs people who have warmed up and it gives them a big finish. Play a seated game first, a round of Scattergories or Tapple, so everyone is talking, then bring out the bowl. If your group loves the acting round, Party Quirks takes the same skill further into improv. For a grown-up crowd later in the evening, adult charades has prompts you can drop straight into the bowl. The full running order for a night like this is in the party games night checklist, and the charades rules guide covers the standard signals if your group wants to use them in round three.