PULTEVENT
Super Bowl party games: 7 ways to play the big game from the couch
A finished basement outside Columbus, forty minutes before kickoff. Seven-layer dip on a folding table, a sectional built for eight holding fourteen, and a squares grid drawn in marker on poster board that somebody's four-year-old has already improved with a purple crayon. The host is standing on the stairs with a pen, trying to remember who paid for which box. Two cousins are arguing about whether the digits were drawn before or after Uncle Dale wrote his name in the corner.
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I've hosted plenty of game-day parties, and the trouble is never the food. It's the paperwork. Squares on poster board, prop sheets printed on the office copier, a pen that walks off by the end of the first quarter, and a pile of crumpled sheets nobody can score at midnight. Half the room drifts off to the kitchen because there's nothing to do during a long review.
With PULTEVENT the paper goes away. The host runs a console in a laptop browser, guests scan a QR code and make their picks on their own phones, no app and no sign-up, and results show up on a screen. Their phones need internet, so give out the Wi-Fi password with the first round of drinks. One honest caveat before anything else: the big TV belongs to the game. Read the section on screens below before you plan anything.
7 party games for game day, from pregame to the final whistle
1 The squares draw
Your grid stays on poster board, where people like it. What moves to the screen is the draw: the guest wheel spins out the ten digits for the rows, then the ten for the columns, one at a time, with the whole room watching.
How to run it. Fill all hundred boxes before you spin. Write each digit on the poster the moment it lands, with a witness.
Squares are pure luck, which is the point. A live draw makes the luck feel fair, and it stops the Uncle Dale argument before it starts.
2 The prop sheet
Ten questions, each with two or three answers, voted from phones before the coin toss. Heads or tails, which team scores first, will the first score be a field goal, will the winning coach get the sports drink shower and what color will it be.
How to run it. Lock the vote before kickoff and keep the screenshot of the results. After that, nobody changes a pick.
Everyone in the room has a stake in plays they would never care about otherwise, including the guests who came for the food.
3 Pregame football trivia
A short quiz answered from phones while the pregame show drones on: how many points is a safety, how long is a quarter, how many players are on the field for each side. Your own questions, written in the quiz builder.
How to run it. Mix in two or three questions about your own crowd: whose fantasy team finished last, who fell asleep in the fourth quarter last year.
It gets the casual fans involved early and sorts out, publicly, who actually knows the rules.
4 The commercial ballot
The ads are half the reason some people come. Each time a break ends, guests rate the spot they just saw from their phones. You never touch the TV; the tally lives on the laptop until you choose to show it.
How to run it. Keep it to four or five standout ads, not every spot. Name them in a word or two so people can tell them apart.
The people who don't follow the game have their own contest, and they take it very seriously.
5 Halftime Drift Arena
Halftime is long. Put Drift Arena on the second screen and up to twelve players steer cars around a 3D track from their phones. Kids first, then the adults who said they were only watching.
How to run it. Run a kids' heat first so they get the loudest cheer, then an open race for whoever wants in.
It fills the dead stretch between the second quarter and the third without anyone leaving for the yard.
6 True or false in the fourth quarter
If the game is a blowout, you need a rescue. A quick True or False round from phones keeps the room going: statements about the teams, the stadium city, the halftime act, your guests.
How to run it. Have it built and ready but hidden. If the game is close, nobody wants it, and that's fine.
A lopsided score empties a room fast. A two-minute round gives people a reason to stay for dessert.
7 The couch trophies
The team scoreboard has been adding up points all night: props, trivia, the draw. At the final whistle it runs an awards ceremony on screen, special awards first, then third, second and the winner with confetti.
How to run it. Make one special award for the worst prop sheet in the room. It gets a bigger laugh than the winner.
It gives the night an ending that isn't just the broadcast cutting to the postgame show.
Digits drawn in front of everyone
Spin the numbers for your squares grid live on screen, so no one can say the host fixed row seven.
Prop picks on phones
Coin toss, first score, the length of the anthem. Everyone locks in before kickoff and the results are counted for you.
Votes during the ads
Guests rate the commercials from the couch while the game stays on the TV. The winner goes up at the final whistle.
A halftime show of your own
Kids and bored in-laws race cars on the screen from their phones while the grown-ups refill plates.
The TV is for the game
Nobody at a game-day party wants a quiz covering the screen during a third-and-long. So plan your screens before you plan your games. The simplest setup is a second screen: a spare TV on a dresser, or a cheap projector pointed at the basement wall. The game stays on the big TV, the laptop feeds the second screen over HDMI, and guests play on their phones on their own laps.
No second screen? Then use the big TV only when the game isn't on it: during the long pregame build-up, during halftime, and after the final whistle. The phone rounds, the prop votes and the ad ballot don't need the TV at all while they run. The laptop collects the answers and you show the results when the broadcast breaks.
Running the squares without a fight
Squares work the same way almost everywhere. A ten-by-ten grid, one team across the top, the other down the side. Guests claim boxes. Once the grid is full, you draw the digits 0 through 9 for each side. At the end of each quarter, the last digit of each team's score picks the winning box.
The draw is where parties go wrong. Somebody pulls numbers out of a cup in the kitchen while half the room is in the bathroom, and by the second quarter someone decides the numbers were suspicious. Spin them on screen instead, with everyone watching, and write each one on the poster as it lands. Play for snacks, a trophy or first pick of the leftovers. Keep money out of it and you'll never have to think about the rules on that.
A prop sheet people can actually finish
Long prop sheets die by the second quarter. Ten questions is plenty, and the best ones are resolved early so people feel the payoff while they're still paying attention. The coin toss is settled in the first minute. First score and first turnover come quickly. Save one or two for the very end, like the color of the winning coach's drink shower or which player gets the most camera time on the sideline.
"Is the anthem one really a prop?"
"It's a prop. Get your phone out, Karen."
Kids at a grown-up party
Game day is a family event in a lot of houses, which means eight kids who don't care about field position and a basement that echoes. Give them the races. Drift Arena, the horse race and bowling all play from phones on a big screen, and the kids can run a whole tournament at halftime while the adults stay near the dip. A parent's phone does the job for the younger ones.
If the kids are old enough to vote, let them into the commercial ballot. Their taste in ads is ruthless and nearly always right.
Friends watching from other cities
Your brother in Denver is watching the same broadcast in his own living room. He can still play. Share the stage window in a video call and he sees the second screen: the draw, the prop results, the trophies. He answers from his phone through the same QR code as everyone in your basement. The broadcast itself stays on his TV, not in the call.
The same trick works for a small office party on the Friday before, when half the team is remote. Run the prop sheet on Friday and the awards on Monday.
Trying it before the weekend
Game day is the wrong moment to learn new software. The free 3-day demo needs no card, so set it up on a quiet evening that week, write your props and trivia, plug the laptop into the second screen and play the whole thing through with whoever is at home. After the demo, the full version is a one-time license, no subscription. The price is listed on pultevent.ru/en.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who has hosted weddings, birthdays and office parties since 2014: over 500 events, best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He made it for his own nights first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run Super Bowl party games on a screen
- 1
Earlier in the week, write ten prop questions and a short trivia round in the quiz builder.
- 2
Set up a second screen next to the game TV, or plan to use the big TV only in the breaks.
- 3
As guests arrive, put the QR code up and get everyone into the game on their phones.
- 4
Fill the squares grid on paper, then spin the digits live on screen with the whole room watching.
- 5
Close the prop vote at kickoff, run the ad ballot during breaks and the races at halftime.
- 6
At the final whistle, show the results and run the awards ceremony from the team scoreboard.
FAQ
Will this cover the game on my TV?
Does it generate the squares grid itself?
Do guests have to download an app?
Can we play for money?
Are there ready-made football questions?
Can people outside the house join?
What does it cost?
See also
Run brighter events — with PULTEVENT
All audience interactions, a second screen and timing in one app. Guests join by QR — internet is needed for you and for them.
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