Category bomb: rules, tips and category ideas for the pass-the-phone party game

How to play, step by step

1. 1Sit in a circle and add names. Add everyone’s name in the order you sit, so the phone travels round in a fixed direction.
2. 2Light the fuse. Tap Light the fuse. A category appears and the bomb starts ticking.
3. 3Answer and pass. Say something that fits the category out loud, then hand the phone to the next player.
4. 4Keep it going. No repeats and no stalling. If you can’t think of an answer, you keep holding the phone.
5. 5Boom. When the bomb goes off, tap the name of whoever is holding the phone. They get a bomb.
6. 6Count the bombs. After the last round (8 by default) the player with the fewest bombs wins.

How the hidden fuse works

The fuse length is secret and random. It is drawn from a bell curve centred in the range you set, 5 to 30 seconds by default, so most fuses land around the middle. About seven in ten fall between roughly 11 and 24 seconds, but very short and very long fuses still turn up regularly.

The ticking never speeds up as the end gets near, so there is no way to tell when it is about to blow. Once lit, the bomb can’t be stopped and the category can’t be swapped.

Settings you can change

The defaults suit most groups, but each one can be changed:

You can add rounds after the last one to keep the game going, and a rematch keeps the same players.

Category ideas

The game shuffles 219 categories, each picked to have plenty of answers so a round can go round the table several times. They fall into ten groups:

• Food and drink: pizza toppings, ice cream flavours, pasta shapes, things in a fridge.
• Animals and nature: dog breeds, sea creatures, dinosaurs, gemstones.
• Places: capital cities, islands, things at an airport, holiday destinations.
• People and jobs: jobs, superheroes, fairy tale characters, things parents say.
• Entertainment: board games, animated films, Disney characters, Halloween costumes.
• Sport and hobbies: Olympic sports, football clubs, winter sports, things you collect.
• Things and stuff: things with wheels, things that are round, things that float, things you lose all the time.
• Words and language: words with double letters, compliments, excuses for being late.
• School and science: planets and moons, chemical elements, inventions, mythical creatures.
• Everyday life: household chores, things you find under the sofa, gifts nobody wants.

Categories come from a shuffled deck, so you won’t see the same one twice until the whole deck has been used.

Tips for a better game

A few house rules keep things fair and fast:

• Agree how strict you are before you start. Decide whether an answer that only nearly fits counts, and who settles arguments.
• Passed means held. The phone only counts as passed once the next player has it in their hand.
• No repeats in a round. If someone repeats an answer, they have to try again.
• For younger players, widen the fuse range so rounds last longer and there is more time to think.
• For big groups, play fewer rounds so the game doesn’t drag, or shorten the fuse so every round is tense.

Variants

Teams: sit alternating between two teams and add team names instead of player names. The team holding the phone at the boom gets the bomb.

Letter challenge: answers must also start with a letter you agree on before lighting the fuse.

Quick decider: set the game to three rounds to settle who does the washing-up.

Frequently asked questions