Your TV isthe table.

Tap the meter at the top. A free throw, a mid-range and a three every turn, two laps around the room, and a swish is worth one more.

1–12 players

Egypt's fishing game. Catch table cards with a match or a sum, take the whole table with a Jack or the seven of diamonds, and clear it for a basra. The sheet decides the winner, not the pile.

2–4 players

The music plays, the room waits, and the slowest hand to tap when it stops is out. Round after round until one person is left.

3–12 players

Drop a disc, block the other one, get four in a line. Two play and the rest of the room is the queue — winner stays on, five games, twenty seconds a move.

2–12 players

Three darts each, 501 to nothing. Aim on your phone, watch it land on the TV — never quite where you meant — and the silence before a checkout dart.

1–8 players

Seven tiles each, a chain across the table, and the slap when somebody goes out. Highest double leads. Draw when you are stuck; lowest pips wins a blocked table.

2–4 players

One phone draws, the television shows it, everybody else types. First to guess scores most; the artist scores for every person who gets there.

3–12 players

Call your trump, say how many tricks you'll take, and take exactly that many. Five hands, four players, one sheet that goes below zero.

4 players

Drag, let go, and watch it roll. Three holes, a fence, a dogleg and an island in front of the cup. Fewest strokes takes the hole.

1–8 players

The one game nobody needs the rules for. Four pieces each, one die, and the noise the room makes when somebody gets knocked out one square from safety.

2–4 players

Pick a corner. The keeper picks one too. Three rounds, everybody shoots, everybody keeps, and the room finds out who always goes top left.

2–12 players

Tap when the ball reaches you. Dead on time is a smash, late is a lob, miss and the point is theirs. First to eleven; the winner stays on.

2–12 players

One counter, one die, a hundred squares. Climb the ladders, dodge the snakes, and be the first to land exactly on 100 — the 87 snake is three squares from the top and it knows it.

2–8 players

The clock starts, the digits vanish, and everybody counts in their head. Stop it at seven — the closest thumb in the room wins the round.

1–12 players

Angle, power, fire. The wind is against you, the hill is in the way, and the whole room is telling you to add more power.

2–6 players

Partnership trick-taking. Bid your team's tricks from seven, name the trump, and make your contract. First pair to thirty-one takes it; a pair that overbids goes below zero.

4 players

Match the colour or the number, dump a Draw Four on whoever is down to one card, and be the first hand empty. Three hands, thirty seconds a turn.

2–8 players

Somebody in this newsroom is planting the evidence. The fact-checker still reads it as true — because on paper, it is. The one pack where an investigation can be honest and wrong at the same time.

7–12 players

No doctor, and the town is armed. Two people can go in a single night, and one of them may well be shot by a neighbour who guessed wrong. Short, loud, and nobody is safe — including the person shooting.

6–12 players

The classic table on a stopwatch: fifteen-second nights, forty-five seconds of argument, three nights at most. A whole game of Mafia in the time it takes to make tea.

5–12 players

The city of Dorak has gone quiet. A mysterious organisation has infiltrated it, and nobody knows who belongs to it.

6–12 players

A smaller village, a heavier role table, and shorter nights. Everyone has something to do in the dark — which makes every quiet morning a lie.

6–12 players

Nine months out from anywhere, and the manifest says nine crew. Someone is jamming the comms, and the scanner cannot tell you who — only that it went dark on the night it mattered.

6–12 players

Trapped beneath Egypt's Western Desert with one hour of oxygen, uncover a forgotten king's name, recover six ritual tablets, and complete his forbidden road before the tomb becomes your grave.

1–8 players

A house that has been empty for thirty years, and a family that never left.

1–8 players

Locked in after closing. A phone that should not ring. A ledger that remembers.

2–8 players

You are the night shift at Terminal 3, Republic of Dorakia. Four travellers, four files — and everyone at the desk is holding a different page. Share what you have, ask the right question, and make the call: allow, hold, or deny.

3–12 players