Guide
How to Play Games on a Video Call: FaceTime, WhatsApp, Meet and Zoom
How to keep a FaceTime, WhatsApp or Meet call running in a corner while you play a two-player game in your browser, on iPhone, Android and laptop. No screen sharing needed.
Games to play over FaceTime and video calls
A video call with nothing to do runs out of steam after the day has been recapped. A game keeps you both on the line and gives you something to react to. Everything below runs in the browser next to the call: one of you starts a room, drops the link in the chat, and the other is playing a few seconds later. You don't share a screen and neither of you installs anything. It works over FaceTime, WhatsApp, Zoom, Meet, Discord or a plain phone call on speaker.
The best games to play on a video call
1. How Well Do You Know Me
Made for calls. You each answer a question about yourself and guess the other's answer, then both flip over together, and you get to watch their face when you get it wrong. Ten questions take five minutes and usually start a longer conversation.
About 5 min a game · How to play How Well Do You Know Me
2. In Sync
This or that, picked at the same moment. One tap a round, so your eyes stay on the call and not on the board. You score together, so nobody sulks.
About 2 min a game · How to play In Sync
3. Word Duel
You both chase the same secret word at the same time, so there is no waiting for a turn and plenty of groaning out loud. The other person's colours show up as they guess, without the letters.
About 5 min a game · How to play Word Duel
4. Connect 4
Quick turns and one obvious moment of disaster per game, which is what you want when you can hear each other. Best of five fits neatly inside a call.
About 4 min a game · How to play Connect 4
5. Battleship
Calling a shot and hearing the reaction is the whole game, and it needs a voice on the other end to be any good. The longest pick here, so save it for an evening call.
About 10 min a game · How to play Battleship
6. Dice Duel
A Yahtzee-style dice game with enough luck that the better player doesn't always win, and enough waiting between rolls to keep talking.
About 10 min a game · How to play Dice Duel
How to play a game during a FaceTime call
Start the call first. On an iPhone, swipe up to go to the home screen and FaceTime shrinks to a small picture-in-picture window that stays on top. Open Safari, go to longdistancegames.com, pick a game and start a room. Send the link in Messages, and the other person taps it.
On Android, WhatsApp, Meet and most other video apps do the same thing when you press home. On a laptop, put the call on one half of the screen and the game on the other.
If picture-in-picture won't play along, a voice call on speaker works just as well. The games don't need you to see each other, only to hear each other.
Why you don't need to share your screen
Screen sharing means one person plays and the other watches a blurry copy a second late. Here you each have the real board on your own device, and moves show up on both as they happen. It also means it works on calls that can't share a screen at all, like a normal phone call.
Games with secrets stay secret. Your Battleship fleet and your Word Duel guesses never leave the server until the rules say so, which is not something a shared screen can promise.
Picking a game for the call you're on
Ten minutes before someone has to leave: In Sync, Tic-Tac-Toe or one round of Word Duel. A proper evening call: How Well Do You Know Me first, then something competitive like Connect 4 or Battleship once you're warmed up. A call with a bad connection: anything turn-based, since a move is a few bytes and will get through when the video won't.
Questions
- What games can you play over FaceTime?
- Any game that runs in a browser next to the call. On this site that means How Well Do You Know Me, In Sync, Word Duel, Connect 4, Battleship, Checkers, Reversi, Dots and Boxes, Dice Duel and Tic-Tac-Toe. One of you starts a room and sends the link.
- Does FaceTime keep running while I play?
- Yes. Go to the home screen and FaceTime carries on in a small window while you open the game in Safari. Most Android video apps behave the same way.
- Do we need to share a screen or use SharePlay?
- No. You each open the same room on your own device and the moves sync live, so there is nothing to share and it works on any kind of call.
- Does it work on Zoom, WhatsApp or Google Meet?
- Yes. The game is a web page, so it doesn't care which app the call is in. Paste the room link into that app's chat.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all of it. There are no ads, no accounts and nothing to buy.