How to Play Fishbowl Game – Rules and Instructions

The Fishbowl game is a great option if you are looking for a fun game to play with your family and friends during the holidays or even on the weekends. You may not have heard of it before, but Fishbowl is a memory game that is a smorgasbord of Charades, Password, and Taboo. 

The idea of the game is to guess a mystery word by using 3 different methods:

How to Play Fishbowl 

Prepare the Game

Here are the items you’ll need to play the game properly:

1. Several pens
2. Small slips of paper
3. A fishbowl-like container to hold the slips of paper
4. A timer ( a smartphone works great )

How to Play the Game – Rules and instructions

STEP #1 Writing phrases and groups

The first step of the game is more of the preparation phase where we get everything ready and divide our players into groups.

First, each person who is playing will take 3 strips of paper and write a word or well-known phrase onto the paper, then fold that paper to hide the text and place it into the bowl.

When everyone is finished writing down their phrases someone needs to take the fishbowl and give it a good shake, to mix things up.

Second, the large group of people playing are split up into two groups, Team 1 and Team 2.

The goal of the game is to guess as many phrases as possible so let’s not choose phrases that are so complicated no one will be able to guess them.

PRO TIP – Remember, people will need to act out, or try to convey the phrases to their group without saying the word itself, so choose carefully what you write and maybe mix in some easy ones with a few more challenging words.

STEP #2 Taboo round

The first round is very straight forward with the goal of guessing as many phrases as possible within 1 minute of play. Here’s how to play it out:

1. The team who starts selects 1 player to go first.
2. That player reaches into the bowl and grabs one piece of paper and reads it ( not out loud, just to himself )
3. Once he picks up the paper a timer of 1 minute starts running
4. The player then needs to get his teamates to guess what the phrase or word is without saying it directly, for example, if the word is ” Water ” he might say ” When you are thirsty this is what you drink ”
5. The player can’t use hand gestures at this step, he may only use his words.
6. If enough time has passed or the player thinks the word is too hard and his team will not be able to guess it, he can choose to pass on the word and put it back into the fish bowl and choose another one. However he could only do it once per round.
7. When the team guesses the word, they keep the paper.
8. When 1 minute passes, the other team switches and do the same thing.

The Taboo round continues until the fishbowl is empty, this means all the pieces of paper with words have been used and guessed. Once this happen each team counts their papers and each paper is equal to 1 point. After that put all the papers back into the fishbowl, and begin the next round.

Step #3 The Password Round

The second round of Fishbowl is the Password round. This round also has 1-minute turns to guess as many words as possible. Team 2 will go first on this round, since they went second during the last round.

• The first player will select a slip of paper from the fishbowl and read it to themselves. The timer will begin once the player selects the slip of paper from the bowl.
• This player will use verbal cues to get their teammates to guess what is on the paper. No hand gestures are allowed, only words, but they can’t use any of the words on the paper. The twist to this round is that only one word can be used to describe what’s on the paper. For example, if your word is “ice cream” you can say “Häagen-Dazs”. The team should try to remember the words mentioned in round 1 to use them as hints.
• A player can pass on a word if they think it is too hard, but they can only do this once per round.
• For every word guessed correctly, the team gets to keep that slip of paper.
• After 1 minute, the other team gets to go.

As before, each team gets 1-minute turns until the fishbowl is out of paper. When it’s empty, each team counts up the number of papers they have, and this is that team’s score. Both teams will place the slips of paper back into the bowl, and continue on to round 3.

Step #4 The Charade Round

The third and last round of Fishbowl is the Charades round. Each team will have 1-minute turns again to guess as many words as possible from the slips of paper. The team with the lowest score will go first in this round.

• The first player will select a slip of paper from the fishbowl and read it to themselves. The timer will begin once the player selects the slip of paper from the bowl.
• This player cannot speak or use any verbal cues during this round. They can only use physical gestures to act out the word on the paper. For example, if the word is “ice cream”, they can pretend to hold and lick an ice cream cone.
• A player can pass on a word if they think it is too hard, but they can only do this once per round.
• For every word guessed correctly, the team gets to keep that slip of paper.
• After 1 minute, the other team gets to go.

As before, each team gets 1-minute turns until the fishbowl is out of paper. When it’s empty, each team counts up the number of papers they have, and this is that team’s score.

Step #5 The Bonus Round

If you’re up to more fun and don’t want the fishbowl game to end, have another round which is very challenging and unique.

This round is basically just like the other ones, only this time the player who needs to read the phrase can only use sounds to try and get his team to guess.

For an easy example, if the word is ” Dolphin ” he may only try and do dolphin sounds to describe the word. He can’t use any words, or any charade motions.

The points are counted the same as in any other round.

The game is now finished! Tally up all of the points from all three rounds, and the team that has the most points is the winning team.

Fishbowl questions variations and ideas

If you’re looking to switch things up and, you could make the first round be more like the game Jeopardy and instead of just trying to guess one word, you can write down questions instead and have the team guess the questions.

Here are a few good ideas:

Here’s a video explanation of the game:

Why the name Fishbowl

You may be wondering why the game is called “Fishbowl”. That’s because the slips of paper with mystery words on them are placed into a fishbowl (or any fishbowl like container). It’s super easy to learn, so kids and adults can play it together! 

This is a great game for big groups, like a family get together. It can even work as a team building exercise, or a classroom icebreaker. It can be a little confusing at first, so make sure you go over the directions clearly with everyone first. Below are the fishbowl rules.

Want some more fun game ideas? Check these out:

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