Hold the phone so your team cannot see it. No talking, no pointing at things in the room, no drawing the word in the air.
The Charades Clock
Four cards worth one, two and three points. Thirty seconds to mime the lot. No talking — and whatever you don't finish is gone for good.
The game
Teams & cards
How it's played
Two teams, one phone, thirty seconds a turn, and no talking at all.
The rules
Your team gets four cards, worth one, two and three points depending on how hard they are. Hold the phone so only you can see it and mime the top one — no words, no sounds, no pointing at objects in the room, no writing in the air. When your team shouts the right thing, tap the card and the next one comes up. When the clock runs out, every card you have not finished is gone — not scored, not returned, gone. Then the other team goes. First to twenty wins.
What makes it a game
The three-pointer. It is behind the others and you can see it coming, so every turn is the same decision: rush the easy ones and hope there is time, or go for the big one while everybody is fresh and risk losing three. Both are wrong sometimes. Give up on this one is there for exactly that reason — it throws the card away, which is a real cost, and sometimes it is still the right move.
Why the clock is enormous here
In the describing room on this site the timer is hidden, because there the tension is not knowing when the buzzer comes. Here it is the biggest thing on the screen, because the tension is watching it go while somebody keeps shouting "kettle?" at something that is plainly not a kettle. Same component, opposite decision — whichever one makes the room louder.
The one house rule
If the actor makes any sound at all — a word, a noise, a hum of the right tune — the card is dead and goes straight into the lost pile. Everybody in the room heard it, so it enforces itself.