What to do with friends?
With six people, the hard part is never finding an idea. It is finding one that suits everybody, is available the same day, and still leaves the group room to talk.
This guide walks through an outing from start to finish — the main activity, splitting into teams, the twenty empty minutes nobody plans for, and what to do once the game is over. Nothing here needs booking three weeks ahead.
It is written from what we actually see on Escape Game City: groups of two to twelve people playing a game on foot across their own city, usually decided less than two hours in advance.
1. Pick an activity that survives a group
Three criteria rule out most outing ideas, and they are rarely the ones that come to mind first.
Decidable on the day
An activity that has to be booked assumes you know a week ahead who will show up. In a group of friends, you don't.
Elastic in numbers
Two people drop out, a couple joins in: the activity has to absorb that without changing format or price.
It leaves room to talk
A cinema gathers people without letting them meet. A good group outing alternates shared effort and conversation.
An outdoor escape game ticks all three
The idea: the game lives on your phone, the set is the city itself. You walk from place to place, spot a detail on a façade, enter a code, and the next step unlocks. No room, no time slot, no game master.
In practice you decide at 2 pm and you are playing at 2.20. A route usually runs between one and two hours, and nothing stops you breaking for a drink halfway — that is often the best part.
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booking2. Split into teams
Past five people a single group splits by itself: two who search, three who follow. Better to organise it than to put up with it.
Head to head
Each team plays the same game on its own and the leaderboard updates live. This is the format that works best for a birthday, or a group that already knows each other.
Co-operative
Teams move forward together and swap hints. Worth choosing when skill levels are very uneven, or when children are playing.
How it works
- 1 One person creates the session and gets a six-character code.
- 2 The others scan the QR code or type that code into the app.
- 3 The leaderboard shows on everyone's screen and updates at every completed step.
3. Fill the dead time
There is always some: the person running late, the walk over, the queue at the bar before you start. Twenty minutes nobody planned for, which often set the mood for everything after.
What works then is never an elaborate game. It is a game with no equipment, one you can drop mid-sentence when the last person finally turns up.
"Would you rather…?"
Two options, no right answer, and everyone has to pick a side. It is the highest-return format there is for a group: it needs nothing, it gets the quiet ones talking, and one well-chosen question buys ten minutes of argument.
Hundreds of ready-to-read "Would you rather?" questions — read them out loud, taking turns.
Jeu-tu-preferes.fr is run by the same team as Escape Game City (in French).
Three more that need nothing
The forbidden word
Everyone draws a common word the others have to make them say. Runs in the background for the whole walk.Neighbourhood quiz
One question about what is in front of you: the date carved on the façade, the name of the previous street. A good warm-up before a city game.The story chain
Each person has a minute to tell the time they got most lost. It always ends on a story nobody had heard.4. Stretch it past the finish
The half-hour after the last step is the most wasted part of an outing: everyone is still there, and everyone has something to tell.
The debrief
Each team explains the step it got stuck on. That is where you find out nobody solved the same puzzle the same way.Reviews and badges
Rating the game takes thirty seconds and helps its creator as much as the next players. Badges and the city passport fill up game after game.Write your own
If the group catches the bug, the logical next step is writing a game about your own neighbourhood and making the others play it. Creating one is free.Frequently asked questions
All that's left is choosing the route
One game, one phone, and the group still arguing on the pavement starts walking.