For road trips, waiting rooms and parties

20 Questions

In 20 questions, one player thinks of something and everyone else gets twenty yes-or-no questions to work out what it is. The game needs no equipment, but it stalls when the thinker cannot come up with a good answer. This page lists ready-made answers by category: animals, objects, foods, places, jobs, nature, vehicles, parts of the body and sports, each marked easy, medium or hard.

A good answer is a common noun that everyone in the group knows, with a few features that are hard to ask about directly. A penguin falls quickly once someone asks whether it is a bird. A zipper or a belly button takes longer, because the obvious questions about size and use point in the wrong direction. We left out named people and brands so the list works for any group.

60 things to guess

How to play 20 questions

The thinker picks an answer and says only its category, or nothing at all for a harder game. Players take turns asking questions that can be answered yes or no, and the thinker keeps count out loud. A wrong guess at the answer counts as a question. If nobody gets it within twenty, the thinker wins and goes again; otherwise the player who guessed it thinks of the next one.

On a car trip, let the person in the front seat keep count on their fingers. For teams, split the room in two and let each side confer before asking, which makes for a slower and more strategic round.

Tips for asking better questions

  • Start with questions that cut the possibilities in half, like whether it is alive or bigger than a loaf of bread, before asking about anything specific.
  • Pick from the hard answers when playing with adults, since an easy animal can be solved well inside ten questions.
  • Write the answer down before the round starts, so nobody can quietly change it when the guessers get close.
  • Keep a written list of questions already asked on long rounds, because players lose track of them after the first ten.

How this page was checked

A second solver read every question before it went up, cutting repeats, anything unbalanced or intrusive, and anything that would not suit a classroom or an office. Our editorial standards.

Drafted for this page
87
Read by a second reviewer
60
Cut after testing
5
Edited by the second solver
1
Cut as repeats of other pages
1
Original to this site
60

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