The Best Google Home Games

People use Google Home devices as a personal assistant, to control their smart devices, to get answers to questions, and for a number of other tasks. But in addition to all of its other features, the voice assistant speaker also has quite a few fun games for both adults and children.

We sat down and tried every game command currently available on Google Home. Here are our picks for the best games you can play on Google Home based on each game’s user ratings, responsiveness to commands, quality, entertainment value, and replayability. For most games, you simply have to say “Hey Google, play” and then add the name of the game that you want –Google should do the rest!

Mad Libs

Remember playing this game as a child? You arbitrarily fill in adjectives, verbs, nouns, adverbs, and other parts of speech without knowing where they’ll end up in context. Then, you create a funny story using your random words. Well, Google Home’s Mad Libs asks you to provide those same nouns and verbs, and then it reads you your story.

Mad Libs is great for kids and families. Adults can enjoy the game too, and some people even use dirty nouns and adjectives in an effort to make their story funnier. The game is responsive, it understands your commands, and it has a variety of different stories so you can replay it over and over again.

Ding Dong Coconut

In this wacky memory game, the speaker plays you sounds. It then tells you to associate a word with a sound that has nothing to do with that sound. For instance, it may play a dog barking and tell you to associate the word “ocean” with the dog barking sound. After several sounds and random word associations, the game gets pretty difficult.

Math Logic

Appropriate for older kids and adults, this math trivia game combines logic and mathematics. Some questions are more difficult than others, but many of them are designed to trick you. It’s not your normal “what is nine times eight” type of thing. For instance, it may ask you what you’d get if you add 1 Mbps plus 1 Gbps.

The game does have some issues understanding commands. On a few questions, we had to repeat our answers. But, overall the game was interesting and entertaining.

Riddle Room

Love riddles? In Riddle Room, you navigate through different rooms by solving riddles. It’s fun for kids and adults, but it appears to be more of a kid’s game. It does a good job of understanding your answers and commands, and it has a pretty decent variety of riddles. Dr. Riddle is another riddle game that works well, and the riddles are a bit more difficult than they are in Riddle Room.

Song Pop

The object of this game is to name the artist or song title after you hear a portion of a song. You can choose the genre of music you want to play (pop, rap, rock and roll, country, etc.), which makes the game more fun. Plus, the game does an excellent job of picking up your answers.

Absurd is the Word

Although the title makes this sound like a children’s game, it’s not for children. Absurd is the Word asks players to pick a category and then name items in that category. Then it asks you to make crazy “which would you rather” comparisons about your choices. For example, it may ask you which politician you’d rather marry or which movie is the sexiest. The game is very good for a laugh and it has great replay value as a party game.

Star Wars Trivia

Star Wars Trivia is exactly what it sounds like. It asks you trivia questions about the Star Wars movies. It starts with a round of trivia on A New Hope and moves through the movies from there. The questions are pretty challenging, but not impossible.

Some of the other themed trivia games on Google Home worth playing are Star Trek, Game of Thrones, The Voice, and Pokémon.

Sub War

With Sub War, you’re the captain of a submarine in the Acton Straits, and you have to fight other submarines in the water. The game tells you the location of your submarine, and you can ping the sonar to find out the locations of the other submarines. You can fire on the other subs, but you don’t have a lot of ammo. The game makes you feel like you’re a real submarine captain, and it does well in terms of understanding your commands.

21 Blackjack

If you enjoy playing cards, you might like 21 Blackjack. It feels very similar to the real Blackjack game you’d play with an actual deck of cards. The speaker shuffles the deck, deals the cards, and tells you your cards and its face-up card. Then, you can opt to hit or stay. At the end of the game, it tells you where you stand on the leader board.

Lucky Trivia

Lucky Trivia is a game show trivia game. Between one and five people can play Lucky Trivia at a time. The questions are moderate in difficulty and the game has a wide variety of questions about all sorts of topics to keep your interest. The game also has a family-friendly version: Lucky Trivia for Families.

Magic Door

Simply say, “Hey Google, open the magic door,” and Google will immediately start a “choose your own adventure” type game. This version is particularly impressive for the sheer variety it offers, with an incredible number of places to discover, and a surprisingly active community that has mapped out all the areas you can explore. It’s very family friendly and a great way to pass the time, as the game can go on for an afternoon of fun with ease.

Akinator

Akinator is a 20-questions game, but in reverse. You say, “Hey Google, let me talk to the Akinator,” and then pick a person. Akinator has 20 questions to try and figure out which person you are thinking of — and it can be pretty good at its job! You can choose from any real or popular fictional character, but you better be prepared to answer Akinator‘s questions honestly and accurately!

Mystery Sounds

This game is just what it sounds like. Mimicking the famous radio station game of yore, Google will play you a mystery sound and encourage you to guess what it is (one at a time, please). The sounds aren’t too weird, and it’s an easy way to pass the time and get your family or friends involved in a fun little challenge. You can start it at any time by saying, “Hey Google, let’s play Mystery Sounds.”