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New Year's Eve is the hardest night of the year for party games. The room is loud, people arrive across a four-hour window, half the group does not know the other half, and everything has to pause for the countdown.

These ten are chosen for exactly those conditions.

Before midnight, while people are arriving

The requirement here is that someone can join halfway through without an explanation.

Charades. Teams re-form constantly, latecomers slot straight in, and it works at any volume because it is mimed.

Heads Up. The loudest game on the list, which on this night is a feature. One phone, everyone shouting.

Categories. Name a category, go round the room. Ends when someone stalls. Takes ten seconds to explain.

Peak of the night

Never Have I Ever. The best big-group game there is, because everyone answers at once and nobody waits for a turn. Scales to twenty people without slowing down.

Most Likely To. Best in a room where people know each other. Read the statement, count to three, everyone points.

Paranoia. Whisper a question, they answer with a name out loud, coin flip decides whether the room finds out what was asked. Excellent at about eleven o'clock.

After midnight, when the group has thinned

Truth or Dare. Needs a bit of trust in the room, which is why it works late and not early.

Would You Rather. For the people sitting down.

21 Questions. For the two or three still going at two in the morning.

The one to plan for

Predictions for the year. Everyone writes one prediction about someone else in the room. Read them out, keep them, open them next New Year's. Costs nothing, takes ten minutes, and it is the only thing on this list anyone will remember in twelve months.

Running the night

Do not start a game before ten. Early NYE is for arriving and eating. A game launched at eight dies and poisons the idea for later.

Nothing that needs the whole room. People drift. Games that need all fourteen participants fail; games that work with whoever is standing there succeed.

Stop everything twenty minutes before midnight. Trying to squeeze a round in at 11:50 means it gets abandoned mid-way, which is worse than not starting.

Have one after midnight. The half hour after the countdown is famously flat. That is the single best moment to start something.

Start one on the night

Everything here runs free in the browser, no download, no signup — useful when nobody wants to install an app at a party:

• Never Have I Ever — the big-group one
• Most Likely To — for a room who know each other
• Charades — for people arriving at different times
• Heads Up — the loud one
• Paranoia — for late in the evening