- 🎯 What Is This or That?
- 🎮 How to Play
- 📋 Game Categories
- 🎉 Tips for a Great Game Night
- 💬 Why This or That Works So Well
- 🔥 Fun Variations to Try
Ever been stuck between two equally tempting choices? This or That takes that everyday dilemma and turns it into a party game that gets everyone talking, laughing, and arguing (in the best way possible). Whether you’re at a house party, on a road trip, or just killing time with friends, this game cuts straight to the fun.
The rules are dead simple: you see two options, you pick one. No overthinking, no complicated scoring. Just honest choices that reveal surprising things about the people you thought you knew.
What Is This or That?
This or That is a classic choice-based party game where players are presented with two options and must pick one. There’s no middle ground, no “both,” and no skipping. You commit to your answer and defend it if challenged. That’s where the real entertainment happens.
The game has been a staple at parties, sleepovers, and road trips for years because it requires zero setup and works with any number of players. Our online version takes that same concept and gives you hundreds of curated questions across different themes, so you never run out of material.
Unlike trivia games where someone always feels left out for not knowing the answer, This or That puts everyone on equal footing. Every question is purely about personal preference, which means every answer is valid and every debate is fair game.
How to Play
Getting started takes about five seconds. Pick a category that sounds interesting to your group, and questions will appear one at a time. Each question gives you two options separated by “or” — tap your choice and move on to the next one.
Playing solo? Use the questions as a way to figure out your own preferences. It’s surprisingly fun to discover that you’d actually rather give up pizza than tacos when forced to choose.
Playing with friends? Here’s where it gets good. Have everyone lock in their answer before revealing choices. The split decisions always lead to the best conversations. Someone picking pineapple pizza over plain cheese? That person has some explaining to do.
Playing at a party? Put the game up on a big screen and have the room split physically — left side for option A, right side for option B. It turns a simple question game into a full-room activity that gets people moving and mingling.
Game Categories
We’ve organized questions into eight distinct categories so you can match the vibe of your group:
Popular covers the classic This or That questions that everyone has an opinion on. These are the crowd-pleasers that work in any situation. Food dives into culinary preferences and eating habits — perfect for dinner party conversations or deciding where to eat.
Travel explores dream destinations and travel styles. Find out who’s a beach person versus a mountain person, or who’d rather backpack through Europe than relax on a tropical island. Movies pits genres, franchises, and cinema experiences against each other.
Music tackles everything from genre preferences to concert habits. Relationships gets into social dynamics and personal boundaries — great for getting to know people better. Hypothetical presents wild scenarios that force creative thinking. And Party brings the energy with nightlife and social situation questions.
Tips for a Great Game Night
The best This or That sessions happen when people actually commit to their answers. Set a ground rule: no “it depends” and no changing your mind once you’ve picked. The constraint is what makes it entertaining.
Give people a few seconds to argue their case after each question. The debates that follow are often funnier than the questions themselves. Someone passionately defending their choice of winter over summer can turn into a five-minute comedy routine.
Mix up the categories throughout the night. Start with Popular to warm everyone up, shift into Food or Movies for easy conversation, then bring out Hypothetical or Relationships when the group is comfortable and ready for deeper questions.
If energy starts dipping, add stakes. The person in the minority on any question has to do a silly task, take a sip of their drink, or share an embarrassing story. Small consequences make every choice feel weightier and keep attention high.
Why This or That Works So Well
There’s something fundamentally satisfying about binary choices. When you remove the option to sit on the fence, people reveal genuine preferences they might not share otherwise. It’s a shortcut to real conversation.
The game also scales effortlessly. Two people waiting for their food at a restaurant can play just as easily as twenty people at a birthday party. There’s no equipment to set up, no rules to explain, and no way to “lose.” That low barrier to entry means you can pull it out in almost any social situation.
It’s also a fantastic icebreaker. When you discover that a quiet coworker would rather fight one horse-sized duck than a hundred duck-sized horses, suddenly you have common ground for a real conversation. These small, low-stakes revelations build connections faster than small talk ever could.
Fun Variations to Try
Speed Round: Set a three-second timer for each question. No time to think means pure gut reactions, which often leads to surprising answers and plenty of laughs.
Prediction Mode: Before someone answers, the rest of the group guesses what they’ll pick. Whoever knows the answerer best gets a point. After ten rounds, crown the person who truly knows their friends.
Story Mode: After each choice, the person has to tell a short story explaining why. “I’d rather have a pet dragon because when I was seven, I tried to train my neighbor’s lizard and it actually worked for about three days.”
Elimination: Start with the whole group. Each round, anyone in the minority is out. Last person standing wins bragging rights. This works especially well with the Hypothetical category where answers tend to split evenly.
Create Your Own: Once you’ve played a few rounds, challenge players to come up with their own This or That questions on the spot. The homemade questions are almost always the most memorable ones of the night.