30+ Fun And Unique 50th Birthday Party Games

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Imagine how wonderful it would be to incorporate the golden birth anniversary celebration with interesting 50th birthday party games! If you think that people do not like games at this age, you might be wrong. People of all ages enjoy games. Every birthday party involves regular cake-cutting and balloon-bursting activities. However, adding interesting games can take the celebration to the next level. Games like charades and Bingo are evergreen options. But if you plan to include more unique games in the 50th birthday party celebration, look no further. So, gather together and read this list of interesting games you can enjoy with friends and family.

50th Birthday Party Games

Here is a list of a few games that guests of all ages can play individually or in teams. These games will surely make your party a roaring success.

1. Easy scavenger hunt

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If you do not have the space to play a full-fledged scavenger hunt, a pocket/ purse scavenger hunt is a great idea.

• Prepare a list of items that are generally present in purses or wallets. These may include baby photographs, cards, pens, coupons, bills, pennies, movie tickets, and so on.
• You can decide the particulars of the items, such as if they have to be of a specific color, or if the photograph has to be of a specific person.
• Announce the items one by one.
• The participants have the option to produce the items from their purse/wallet or borrow them from the non-participants.
• The person who comes up with the most number of items wins a prize.
• Make sure you cheer the winners loudly!

Quick tip

To make it more challenging, you can also ask for things that people keep in purses but are not common. For example, ask for a mouth freshener, perfume, or a personal diary.

2. Spinner prize wheel

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This game is straightforward and has an online version as well. You need a spinning wheel to play this game. While spinning wheels are available in the market, you can make your own and color it as per your party theme. Here’s how you play it:

• Each guest will be given one chance to spin the wheel.
• During their turn, the guest has to spin the wheel, and the item on which the arrow on the wheel stops becomes theirs.
• All the guests will take turns and then collect their gifts.
• Arrange for small prizes and one big jackpot prize.

3. 50th birthday bucket list

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Creating a bucket list for the guest of honor can be a fun activity. The activity will keep the guests engaged, and the bucket list created by loved ones will be an amazing gift for the birthday honoree. Some of the things on the list may make them laugh! Follow these simple steps to make this activity a success,

• Keep a decorated bucket, colorful cards, and pens at the entrance of the
• Ask each guest to write one suggestion for the birthday boy/girl’s bucket list and drop it in the bucket.
• If you want this to be just a fun activity, give the bucket to the guest of honor at the end of the party and ask them to read it aloud.
• You could also select the top three ideas which the birthday/girl/boy loves. The writers of these ideas should get gifts.

4. Guess my age

This is an interesting game that will make the birthday boy/girl walk down memory lane. Here is how you can play it:

• Select the photographs of the guest of honor at different ages.
• You can display the photos to the participants by arranging them on a pin-up board or showcasing them in a PowerPoint presentation.
• The participants will be shown the photos one by one, and they will have to guess the age of the guest of honor in each of these different images.
• Every participant will get a fair chance to answer, and the person who gets the most answers right bags the prize.
• Make sure you congratulate the honoree by commenting on their achievements.

5. Ring toss game

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Everyone who has ever been to fairs knows the ring toss game. It is a fun game and can be played in teams. This game requires some space, so choose a large room or play it on the lawn. You need at least two stakes, four–eight rings, and a score-sheet. Two players play at a time. Here is how you play it:

• Divide the group into two
• Toss a coin to check who will start first.
• The stakes should be arranged in a straight line, and the players can stand at a distance away from their respective stakes.
• The players from each team will take turns and attempt to toss the ring within the stake.
• The person who successfully tosses the ring into the stake gets five points, and if the ring touches the stake, assign three points.
• You can decide a target score, and the team that reaches that score first wins the game.

6. 50th birthday piñata

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Birthday piñatas are a great way to add to the decor of any party. They can be shaped like a cake, a favorite food item of the birthday boy/girl, or a tequila glass. The piñatas can also be customized to look like the birthday boy/girl! In addition to serving as a decorative item, piñatas can be used to play games. If any of your party guests are children, piñatas are a great source of entertainment. Here is how you can use piñatas to play games:

Option 1:

• Fill the piñatas with certain objects, such as varieties of candies.
• Ask the guests to find a particular type of candy.
• The person who finds that candy first wins the game.

Option 2:

• Stuff the piñata with many sealed envelopes.
• Some of these envelopes can have gift cards.
• This will surely motivate the guests to compete against one another for the maximum envelopes.

7. Lawn games

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If you have plenty of space in your backyard, you can opt for exciting lawn games, which will get your adrenaline buzzing. Games such as giant Jenga, horseshoes, and ladder golf can be played. In ladder golf, a player has to reach exactly 21 points to win. Here is how you can play ladder golf:

• The challenge is to toss bolas (two balls tied together with a string) on a ladder that has three rungs.
• This game is played in rounds. Each round is completed after all players have completed their turns.
• To start with, place the golf ladder on a flat surface and move back five paces.
• Take turns to toss the bolas toward the ladder. Only the bolas that wrap around any one of the ladder rungs are counted as points. During every turn, a player gets an opportunity to throw three bolas.
• The bottom rung accounts for one point, the middle rung is two points, and the top rung is three points. Calculate the points after all players are done with their turns.
• The players get a bonus point in two scenarios: a) If they land all the three bolas on the same rung in a single turn b) If they land all the three bolas on different rungs in a single turn
• One game is of exactly 21 points. The first person to reach these points wins the game. In case the score goes above 21 points, the points for that particular round are not considered.

8. Musical chairs with a twist

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Generally, everyone knows how to play musical chairs. The rules of the game are the same, except no one gets eliminated. Interesting right?

• As the name suggests, this game requires chairs and music. There should be one chair less with respect to the number of participants.
• Keep the chairs facing opposite directions.
• One person should control the music, and the guests should keep moving around the chairs in a clockwise direction.
• Once the music stops, the guests should find chairs to sit on. However, they can only sit on the chair that is beside them or in the front. They can’t go back.
• The person who does not find a chair will get no points, and the participants occupying the chairs will get 10 points each.
• The person standing also has to perform a dance before the game restarts.
• Now, in the next round, remove one more chair. So, now, two persons will not get any points.
• You can continue this process till only one chair is left. The person with the maximum points wins the game.

9. How well do you know the birthday boy/ girl? (10 questions)

This game is a perfect tribute to the guest of honor. The guests can communicate their love and connection to the birthday boy or girl, and in the process, get to know the guest of honor better.

• Prepare a list of ten interesting and funny questions for the guest of honor. The questions can be simple with one-word answers, such as favorite movie, marriage date, favorite food, biggest fear, and so on.
• Ask the guest of honor to submit the answers before the party
• Share the questions with the guests, and ask them to write down the answers to those question
• Once the time is up, read out the question aloud and ask each of them to read out their answers.
• The winner will be chosen based on the number of questions answered correctly.

10. Door prizes

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A prize before you even enter the birthday venue? Sounds cool, right? Door prizes will help in raising the excitement level of the party. You need scratch cards and gifts. If you do not have scratch cards at hand, use sealed envelopes instead. Here is how you can go about it:

• The cards should be given out randomly at the door.
• A few lucky guests will get scratch cards with the name of the gift written on it.
• Make sure the numbers of gifts match the cards that have a gift written on them.

11. Name that tune

This game is a great way to add music to the party and make the birthday boy reminisce about their favorite tunes. You don’t need much — just a phone loaded with the list of songs, a speaker, and a mike, and you are good to go.

• Make a list of songs that were famous during the guest of honor’s teenage years. You can also select the birthday boy or girl’s favorite
• Play the first two lines of each song, and ask the guests to guess the song’s name.
• The first person who guesses correctly has to sing the song.
• The person with the maximum number of correct guesses wins a prize.

Quick tip

If the guest of honor gets it right, give them a round of applause or a gift. This will make the game more competitive and thrilling.

12. Guess the price

Here’s a simple game, but you need to do some research before playing it. It can be played in two ways: guessing the price of a few household items in the current year or guessing the prices of the items 50 years ago. Decide the approach, and then keep the list of items and their actual prices with you. You could refer to the following steps:

• Divide the participants into teams using the chit system.
• Distribute paper and pens to the teams.
• Announce the names of items to the participants, and ask them to note down the price of each item.
• After the list has been read out, collect the sheets. For each item, read out the prices written by each of the teams and then announce the actual price.
• The team with maximum correct answers

13. Party Trivia

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Party Trivia game is fun and can improve knowledge too. You can create your list of questions or use the readily available trivia cards for the party. The first step is to finalize the topic for the questions. Topics such as sports, movies, and current affairs can be chosen. Try to keep the questions simple and light-hearted. Here is how you can play it:

• Divide the guests into teams with two to four players in each team.
• Appoint a quiz master for asking questions and monitoring time.
• Prepare a list of at least ten questions for about four topics each. These questions can be administered to the participants, one by one.
• Provide about 45 seconds per question, and if the team is unable to answer, the question can be passed on to another team. Every correct answer can be assigned ten points.
• After all the questions are done, the team with the maximum points wins.

14. Recalling the crazy moments

This is a very interesting game that will lift the group members’ spirits and make everyone nostalgic. You may also discover some secrets. Playing this game doesn’t require a lot of space, and you only need pens, papers, and a box to get going. Let’s check out how to play it:

• Give a paper and a pen to each of the participants.
• Ask each person to write down the craziest thing they have ever done.
• Each guest should write this anonymously.
• When everyone is done writing, ask them to fold the paper and drop it in a box.
• Read out the chits one by one, and ask the guests to guess the author of the note.
• The person who guesses the maximum right answers wins the game.

Andrea, a blogger, recounts the joyous celebration of her 50th birthday party and the entertaining activities she organized, “I had my 50th birthday party with over 60 of my family and friends gathering together for a fun night. The ice breaker game was so good and everyone got to know each other. Everyone had name tags saying their name and what people could talk to them about (i).”

15. Word party games

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Word party Games are not only enjoyable to play, but also help build vocabulary. Additionally, they don’t require too much physical exertion, so guests of all ages can participate. Solving a good crossword puzzle or playing a word quiz can employ everyone’s gray cells without much exertion and in limited space.

16. Raise a roast

Roasting can be a lot of fun when done with the right spirit and in a lighthearted way. 50th birthday is a great occasion to roast the birthday boy or girl as there must be lots of instances that you have a humorous take on. It is also a cool way to celebrate the birthday person’s life and accomplishments in a lighthearted way.

• Ask your guests to give short speeches about the birthday person that can make everyone laugh.
• The guests can either choose to speak on anything or pick a topic from a pre-arranged list of topics that they can talk on.
• After every funny instance they share, they can raise a toast.

17. Guess who?

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This game can create a lot of confusion, creating fun memories that everyone will cherish for years to come. Ensure that the guests do cheat in any way as they might be tempted to do it out of frustration. It is a great way to know about the things that a birthday person loves.

• Prepare a list of the guest of honor’s favorite things.
• Write them on sticky notes and paste each of the notes on the forehead of your guests.
• The guests with the sticky note cannot see what is written on their note. So, they will have to ask another person about it.
• The other person has to explain the thing written on the sticky note without naming it directly.
• They can describe in any way they want except revealing it straight away.

18. Birthday bingo

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Bingo is a game of luck and can be played by anyone, anywhere. Only in this one there is a twist. You need to prepare personalized cards that contain facts or figures related to the birthday person.

• Distribute the personalized bingo cards amongst your guests.
• Now share a random fact or trivia about the birthday person.
• The guests whose bingo cards have these mentioned in their card can strike it off.
• Guests who strike off all the rows first win.

19. Name the celebrity

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If your guest of honor is a movie buff then they might enjoy this game. Prepare trivia questions based on their actors. To make it more interesting, ensure that you pick actors that are known but not extremely famous. If the birthday person makes a right guess then they get to have a piece of cake.

• Prepare a list of descriptions pertaining to old actors that the birthday person loved in their youth.
• You may sing songs or even describe their role in a movie as a hint for your guests.
• People who guess right, get a small gift.

20. Story telling competition

This game can be a lot of fun because it has a lot of scope for creativity and even absurdity. The guests have to come up with a real scenario and add a fake twist to it to make it interesting.

• Ask the guests to sit in a circle.
• Each guest has to share a funny memory that they have of the birthday person.
• To make matters interesting, they can add a funny detail of their choice.
• The other guests have to guess if what they are saying is true or false.

21. Birthday quiz

Play a quiz with questions related to the birthday person. The guest who gets maximum right answers knows the birthday person the most. Ensure the questions are fun and exciting to answer.

• Prepare a list of questions related to the guest of honor.
• Have the guests volunteer for the quiz.
• Like a typical quiz master, as the volunteer to sit opposite you and ask them the questions.
• Allow them three wrong answers after which another person gets a chance to play.
• Winner gets a winning card and a photo with the birthday boy/girl.

22. Birthday charades

This classic game can be enjoyed by all your guests. It can be played with a birthday twist by keeping words that are related to the birthday person. For instance, if New York is your birthday person’s favorite city, you can ask a guest to act it out. Do not forget to capture this game on video.

• Hand a piece of paper with a word written on it to each of the guests.
• When their turn comes, they have to come up next to the host and enact the word or others to guess.
• Each player gets five minutes to act out the word.
• After the word is guessed correctly, the host will then explain the significance of the word.

23. Karaoke

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The birthday person must be having some old favorite songs that they listen to even today. On their birthday, play those songs and sing along with them. Have all your guests participate in this game even if they do not sing well. It will be fun to sing and dance with your dear ones.

• Prepare a list of favorite songs of the birthday person.
• Preferable pick duets to make the game fun.
• Divide your guests in pairs.
• On their turn, each pair has to sing a song as accurately as they can.
• Let the birthday person decide which pair sang the best.

24. Photo story

Here is a game that can refresh the guest of honor’s memory and also give guests a glimpse into their life. This will require you to collect as many pictures as you can to make the game fun and interesting.

• Divide your guests into groups.
• Hand over a fixed number of photos to them.
• These photos are all of the birthday person.
• Using these photos the teams have to create a story that can relate to the images.
• After each team, the birthday person reveals the real story behind the pictures.
• The guest of honor gets to decide which team had the most creative and fun story.

25. Guess the movie

Once again everyone gets transported to the old era and gets a chance to enjoy music that the birthday boy/girl enjoyed in their youth. You have to select songs that were popular or those that were the birthday person’s favorite.

• Divide your guests into groups.
• Play a tune or a random part of a song.
• The teams have to guess the movie the song belongs to.
• The team that guesses most of the songs correctly wins.

26. Jigsaw puzzle race

Won’t it be great to relive some cherished memories through images. For this game, you will have to create a puzzle out of an image of the birthday person. These images have to be of an important occasion so the guests get backstory and learn more about the birthday boy/girl.

• Divide your guests into groups.
• Give each group a puzzle that they need to complete within a certain time frame.
• Once completed, the guest of honor narrates the story behind the picture.
• Team that completes the puzzle first wins.

27. Minute to win it

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This is a fun game that is sure to be a hit with the guests. However, when you arrange for the games, you have to ensure that guests of all age groups will be able to complete the set challenges.

• Prepare a set of quick challenges that need to be finished within a minute or 60 seconds.
• Have the players volunteer to play against each other in a round.
• Winner of a round goes ahead to play the next round of games with other players.
• The final winner gets a prize.

28. Balloon game

This game can be played dry and wet. Go for the wet option if you have a pool party. If not, then play the game without filling the balloon with water. To make it interesting, divide the pair in such a way that it has an older player and a younger player.

• Divide your guests into pairs of two.
• Each pair will be given a balloon either filled with water or air.
• On go, the pairs have to move from one point to the finishing line while tossing the balloon at each other.
• If the balloon falls to the ground, the pair has to start again.
• The pair that reached first to the finish line wins.

29. DIY competition

Here is a game for your guests to exhibit their creativity. And if someone is not creative then everyone can have a fun time discovering unintentional masterpieces. If there are children at the party ensure they play this game under the guidance of an adult to better understand the game.

• Buy creative supplies such as papers, colors, beads, strings, and items used for creative purposes.
• Divide your guests into groups or pairs depending on the number of attendees.
• Hand the groups the creative DIY supplies and ask them to use the items to create anything of their choice.
• Set a time within which they need to create a new item that can be gifted to the birthday person.

30. Life in short

Here is a game that focuses on the guests. In this game, the guests will share information about themselves and the other guests will get to know them better. The birthday person too can participate in this game.

• Keep a white board, a maker, and a whiteboard eraser ready.
• Have the guests sit in a circle.
• Each guest gets a chance to write five words on the white board.
• These are words that describe their life.
• These words can also be used to weave a story of their life.

31. Birthday wishes

This game is not to win a prize but to share good wishes with the birthday person. Arrange for a tree cut out and some papers cut in the shape of an apple. After the game is complete the tree should look full of apples that the birthday person will enjoy picking one at a time.

• Hand an apple-shaped paper to each of the guests.
• Ask them to write an anonymous message they wish to share with the birthday person.
• Each person can write up to three messages.
• Each message should contain a memory that only they and the guest of honor are aware of.
• The papers should be stuck on the tree cut out.
• The birthday person then picks out each single message and reads it out aloud.
• They have to guess the writer of the message.

Infographic: Unique 50th Birthday Party Games

As your close one celebrates their 50th birthday, organize a fun party with some exciting games to let your guests display their playful side and have some joyous memories to cherish. You can use the out-of-the-box 50th birthday party games in this infographic to plan a happening party.

Illustration: Momjunction Design Team

It’s party time! Get ready to celebrate your birthday in style. Explore some delightful and creative birthday bash ideas for the 30th, 40th, 50th and 60th milestones in this impressive video.

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JoAnn MooreMaster Wedding Planner

JoAnn is a Master Wedding Planner, a Certified Professional Wedding Consultant, a Certified Green Wedding Planner, and a Certified Sandals Specialist. She has also authored a book titled “Laughing All the Way to the Altar.” Her weddings have been featured in Bride’s Magazine, Premier Bride Magazine, The Knot Wedding Magazine, and The Reign Magazine. She has been honored with Wedding...more

Shikha ThakurMBA

Shikha is a writer-turned-editor at MomJunction, with over seven years of experience in the field of content. Having done a certification in Relationship Coaching, her core interest lies in writing articles that guide couples through their courtship to marriage and parenthood. She also specializes in baby names. A postgraduate in Human Resources from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, she likes understanding...more

Akshay NairMA

Akshay is an associate editor and former journalist with more than four years of experience. A post graduate in Mass Communication and Journalism, he has strong professional and academic background in the field of content writing and editing. He is also a Certified Relationship Workshop Facilitator for Life Coaches. Akshay interned and worked with various newspapers and the Public Relations...more