Game Timer

A game timer is a single, visible countdown that calls time for a turn, a guess, or an answer, so the game keeps moving and nobody has to be the timekeeper. It is the referee a party or classroom game needs: everyone watches the same clock, the buzzer ends the turn, and there is no arguing about whether time was up — the screen already said so.

It runs entirely in your browser on a big display you can read from across a room, with a sound and a spoken alert when time runs out. Cast it to a TV or throw it on the classroom projector and the whole group plays to the same countdown.

Most party games are a single timed turn: a minute to draw in Pictionary, a minute to act out a clue in charades, a turn to talk in Catch Phrase before the buzzer. Quiz games are answer clocks — the 30-second Final Jeopardy think time, the Family Feud Fast Money round. Both are just a countdown set to the right length, one tap from starting.

A few games are not a plain countdown at all. Red Light Green Light alternates "go" and "freeze," so its timer switches between green and red on its own. Whatever the shape, the presets below load the length each game is normally played to, and any of them opens in the editor when you want to change it.

The point of putting the timer on a screen is that everyone can see it. A phone face-down on the table only the timekeeper can read causes exactly the disputes a game timer removes — was that ten seconds or twenty? On a shared display the countdown is public, the pressure is real, and the end of the turn is not a judgment call.

It also frees up a player. Instead of one person watching a stopwatch instead of playing, the timer runs itself and announces the buzzer out loud, so everyone is in the game and the clock is nobody’s job.

The presets cover the games people search for most, each loaded with the turn length it is usually played to — a minute for Pictionary and charades, 30 seconds for Final Jeopardy, the 20- and 25-second Fast Money turns of Family Feud. Start one as-is, or open it in the editor to change the time or, for a per-player turn timer, set the number of rounds.

Playing something that is not here — a house rule, a quiz round, a classroom challenge? Press “Build Your Game Timer” to set any length down to the second. The duration lives in the URL, so a timer you use every game night is always one click away.