The imposter game for kids.
The imposter game works with kids from about seven: if they can read a word and keep a secret for a minute, they can play, and they are often better at the bluffing than the adults. Here is how to set Side Eye up for a young table, the house rules that help, and what to expect at each age.
Set it up for kids
- Turn on Kids safe. In settings. Only the packs made for kids come up, and the talk drops to 45 seconds, which is as long as a seven-year-old argues before pointing.
- Pick Tap to reveal. The card shows while held by default, which is harder to peek at but hard for small hands. Tap shows the card until you tap again.
- Leave the imposter seeing the category. Knowing it is an animal is enough to bluff with at eight. The grid is for teenagers; nothing is for nobody under twelve.
- Point on three. The vote everyone points at once is the vote kids understand. Count it out loud.
The Kids pack
Ball, Kite, Teddy Bear, Bubbles, Trampoline, Ice Cream, Birthday Party: words a six-year-old can read and has an opinion about. The whole list. From about nine, Animals, Food & Drink and Around the House work for the whole family, and that is where the mixed-age game lives.
House rules that help
- Under seven: an adult holds the phone with them and reads the card in their ear. The adult is not playing, just reading.
- Let the youngest give a short sentence instead of one word. “You throw it” is a fine clue for Ball.
- A caught imposter under ten guesses from three words the table offers, rather than from nothing.
- Switch scoring off for the first few games. The reveal is the fun part; the points are for later.
- The adults play dumb as imposter at least once, so the kids get to catch a grown-up.
What to expect at each age
- Six to seven
- With help reading. They love being the imposter and cannot hide it, which is funny for everyone.
- Eight to ten
- Plays the real game. Clues are either far too obvious or completely unrelated; both are allowed.
- Eleven to thirteen
- Better at this than you. Give them the word grid and watch the adults struggle.
- Teenagers
- The full game, the Internet & Memes pack, and no help from anyone.
In a classroom
Three to twenty players, one phone at the front or the teacher’s phone with the sign on the classroom screen, no accounts and no ads. Kids safe keeps it to the kids packs. A round is five minutes, so it fits the end of a lesson, and in a second language the sixteen languages are a vocabulary drill in disguise.
Questions
What age is the imposter game for?
Playable from about seven with the Kids pack, properly fun from eight or nine, and the full game from eleven or so. Adults and kids can play the same round.
Is Side Eye safe for kids?
No ads, no accounts, no strangers and no chat in the one-phone modes. A room has a chat only among people who share the code. The two 18+ packs are never picked unless someone chooses them, and Kids safe hides them entirely.
Does it work offline?
The one-phone modes do, so it works in the car, on the plane and at the cabin with no signal.
