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Warning: someone in your group is about to find out they have no idea what your favorite movie is.
The game in one breath: one person is in the hot seat and answers questions about themselves. Everyone else guesses. The hot seat reveals the truth, the room reacts, and the next person takes a turn. Below: questions that work, a way to keep score without turning friends into rivals, and what to do with wrong answers.
Every question here comes from Lolo Cards - 4,700 conversation cards for iPhone.
How do you play who knows me best?
You need three or more friends, a way to write (paper, notes app, whatever) and one rule: every question is about the person in the hot seat.
- Pick the hot seat. Everyone else gets a question about them.
- Everyone writes a guess. The hot seat writes the real answer, or just keeps it in their head and says it out loud at the reveal.
- Reveal together. Counting down from three helps, so nobody changes their answer after seeing someone else’s.
- A correct guess is a point. The hot seat explains the answer if anyone asks.
- Rotate until everybody has been in the hot seat once.
Bustle’s version of the game uses a timer: 30 seconds to write an answer, then everyone reveals at the same time, and the player with the most points wins. Thirty seconds works well for a group because it stops people from overthinking and stops the one friend who writes essays.
If you want a ready pile of questions instead of making them up, the questions to ask friends collection has sets for a best friend, a childhood friend and a night in.
Which questions go first?
Start easy. The first round should be questions everyone can answer in one line, so the room warms up and the first wrong guess lands softly. Favorites, habits and small quirks work best because they sound like facts but people still get them wrong.
These come straight from the Lolo Cards bank. Read them out as written, or flip them into “what would I say?” if you are in the hot seat yourself:
- What’s my go-to coffee order?
- What’s my comfort show, the one I rewatch when I’m tired?
- What’s the one app I use way too much?
- What’s the one topic I could rant about for way too long?
- What’s a random fact about me that most people don’t know?
You either know what your friend orders or you do not, and the room finds out in about three seconds.
Should you write your own questions?
Yes, at least a few. A fixed list is a good start, but the funniest rounds come from questions only your group would ask. Before the game, give everyone two minutes to write two questions about themselves on separate slips. Fold them, throw them in a bowl and draw one when it is that person’s turn.
Good self-written questions have a real answer that is short and checkable:
- “Which of us would I call first if my car broke down?”
- “What was the first song I ever bought?”
- “What do I always order and never regret?”
Weak ones are vague (“What am I like?”) or private in a way you did not agree to (“Who did I have a crush on in college?”). If you are writing about yourself, ask yourself one thing: would I be fine with this being read out loud to this room? If not, the slip goes back in your pocket.
How do you keep score without ruining the night?
Loosely. A tally on a napkin is enough. Some groups play for points and some play for nothing. Points give people a reason to guess boldly, and they say nothing about who is the better friend.
A few house rules that keep it friendly:
- Half points for a close answer. “Latte” for an oat milk flat white earns a half.
- The hot seat can award a bonus point for the funniest wrong guess.
- Nobody gets points taken away. Ever.
- If a question lands badly, skip it with no explanation needed.
The bonus point gives the wrong answers room to become stories. “You thought I was a morning person?” makes a better story than a perfect score.
What to do with the wrong answers
Do not move on right away. When a guess is far off, ask one follow-up: “Where did you get that idea?” Often the guess says something about the guesser, and the real answer comes with a story the group never heard.
Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center describes reciprocal self-disclosure as sharing increasingly personal things while the other person does the same, and cites a 2013 study in which pairs who took turns reported liking each other more and feeling closer than pairs where one person spoke at a time. A hot-seat game has one small thing in common with that setup: people take turns. Some groups will laugh for an hour and some will move on after ten minutes.
Ready for a deeper round?
Once the room is loose, switch from “what is my favorite” to “what do you see in me.” These are for friends who have known each other a while. Ask them one at a time and let people answer in their own words, with no scoring:
- What’s something about me that took you a while to understand?
- What’s the best piece of advice I’ve ever given you?
- What’s something you admire about how I’ve grown as a person?
- What’s your earliest memory of us together?
- What’s a secret talent or interest you keep hidden?
- What’s something you pretend not to care about but actually really do?
- What’s the weirdest dream you’ve ever had?
Pick what fits the room. A group of coworkers will stay with the weirdest dream, while old friends can go to the earliest memory. The full set is on the questions for friends page.
Finish with the lightest question you have, such as the weirdest dream.
