Long Distance Relationship Games: 30 Things to Do on FaceTime (Verified Apps)

“How was your day?” “Fine.” Then the pause. In the same room that pause is comfortable; on FaceTime it sounds like “should we hang up?” Long-distance calls have that one specific problem: you haven't run out of things to say. You've run out of things to do together. In person you never notice it — you cook, you walk, you half-watch a show, and conversation rides along. On a call, conversation is the whole job, and making it fresh every night is work.

So this isn't a list of conversation starters. It's a list of things two people can do together from 800 miles apart: 30 games and formats, every app checked on the US App Store with a link on its card, sorted into zero prep / apps / weekend dates / days you can't talk, and fitted to three call templates — the 15 minutes of a Tuesday, the two hours of a Saturday, and the days when a call just isn't happening. It's not a ranking of 43 apps. It's built so you can decide what to do tonight in under a minute.

Three call templates

Templates exist for one reason: so the person doing the planning doesn't burn out. If every night needs a new idea, whoever finds the ideas gets tired before whoever enjoys them. Repeat the weeknight format until it's a ritual; save novelty for weekends. That's the difference between long-distance couples who last and the ones that fade around month three.

A. Zero prep, right now (1–8)

1. The telepathy game (same answer on three)

“A red fruit.” One, two, three — you both say yours at once. The oldest game there is, and the one that loses nothing over a call, because it only needs two voices. There are 200 prompts sorted by difficulty in the telepathy game rules and prompts. Keep a running streak of matches; beating the record becomes the reason for the next call.

2. Best and worst of the day

One best thing, one worst thing, each. It's far easier to answer than “what did you do?” and it gives you a sharp picture of the other person's day. Do it the same way every call and it becomes the relationship's ritual — almost every couple that has survived distance has one of these, whether or not they call it that.

3. Eat or drink the same thing

Same bag of chips, same coffee, same beer. The fact that you're eating the same thing generates conversation on its own: “does yours taste weird too?” On weekends, upgrade: same recipe, same time, show the result to the camera. That's a thirty-minute date (#19).

4. The room quiz

Point the camera at a corner of your room: “what changed since last week?” The reverse works too: “name three things on my desk.” It tests how well you remember each other's space, and it catches you up on the domestic life you don't get to see.

5. The five-minute monologue

Set a five-minute timer. One of you tells the whole week in one go; the other listens without questions or interruptions. Then swap. What sticks isn't the information, it's the feeling of being fully listened to, which is rare across distance.

6. Predict the answer

“If you won a million dollars tomorrow, what's the first thing you'd do?” Before they answer, you say out loud what you think they'll say. A point if you're right. More questions in psychology tests for two.

7. Two truths and a lie, this-week edition

Three things that happened to you this week; one is made up. Harder over distance than in person — and better — because they didn't see your week and have to rely on how well they know you.

8. Converge

One of you gives a word; on three you both say a word it makes you think of. Match and you win. Miss, and you each think of something “between” the two words and try again. Count the rounds it takes; couples with a few years behind them usually get there in under three.

B. Apps, two phones at once (9–18)

9. MindMatch two-device mode — the couple test with a simultaneous reveal

The hardest part of any game over a call is revealing at the same time. If one of you answers first, the other has already seen it. In MindMatch two-device mode you each enter the same four-digit code, the phones link, and nothing is shown until both of you have submitted. You draw the same prompt (“a cat”, “your dream house”) on your own phones, and on reveal both screens show the same score out of 100 — it compares shape, placement, orientation, stroke and rhythm, not how well you draw — the same verdict out of 69 types, and the same relationship rank, with the history saved on both phones. Keep the call open, count to three, and the reveal is exactly as loud as it would be on the same couch.

10. Tick Tock: A Tale for Two — you each see half the puzzle

It's on every list of long-distance games for a reason: what's on your screen isn't on theirs, so the call isn't an add-on, it's the game mechanic. It plays as if it were designed for a long-distance relationship.

11. The Past Within — one in the past, one in the future

The free Lite version is a separate 15–30-minute co-op puzzle — exactly one weeknight call. If it clicks, buy the full game; it's the cheapest way to find out whether you two like this kind of thing.

12. Sky: Children of the Light — fly holding hands

For the nights when winning sounds exhausting. Flying through the same landscape produces conversation by itself: “let's go see what's over there.” It's the game most often described as “we held hands inside the game” by couples an ocean apart.

13. AnimalTower Battle — a three-minute round while you talk

14. Words With Friends — the game that keeps going when you hang up

If words aren't your thing, Chess.com does the same job (daily-move games, free), and UNO! has a friends room for a quick live round. A small wager helps: “loser picks Saturday's movie” turns a random match into part of the date.

15. Draw-and-guess — Gartic.io and Draw With Buddies

Draw With Buddies is the friendlier alternative if you'd rather add each other as friends than share a room code. Either way, the back-and-forth of draw → guess is the conversation.

16. Paired / Couple Tree — a question a day

Couple Tree (answer together, grow a forest) and SumOne (a character that grows with each day's answers) do the same job with a cuter wrapper. Pick one; don't install all three.

17. Heads Up! and Psych! — party games that survive a call

Heads Up! ($1.99) works over FaceTime out of the box: hold the phone to your forehead, your partner gives clues through the call. Psych! (free, same makers) has a “what would they say?” mode that's basically #6 with a scoreboard. And if you want a rude one, Evil Apples is the Cards Against Humanity clone with private games — skip it if one of you finds that kind of humor tiring rather than funny.

18. Watch together

SharePlay on FaceTime, a watch-party feature, or just “press play on three.” Laughing in the same second changes the whole call. Start with something under twenty minutes; a full movie on the first try usually ends as two quiet people looking at different screens. And yes, Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes ($9.99) still counts as “together”: one phone has the bomb, the other has the free web manual, and it works over a call exactly as it does in a room.

C. Weekend dates (19–23)

19. Cook the same recipe

Same recipe, same time, phone propped on the counter. The point is the failure: whoever burns it has more to say than whoever nails it. Pick the recipe the day before and shop separately — the “did you get the paprika?” text the night before is part of the date.

20. Street-view walk of each other's town

Share the map on screen and walk their commute. “That's the coffee place I always stop at.” “That's the bar where I met Sam.” Small details, but the next time you visit, the city is already half-familiar.

21. Same book, a chapter a week

Buy the same book (ebook, so you have it the same day) and read one chapter a week. Six months later you share an entire book, and every Sunday has a standing conversation.

22. Plan the next visit together

A shared list in your maps app; you take turns adding places. Long-distance calls hold up best when they point at the next time you'll see each other. With a date and a list on the table, distance feels like an interval, not a condition.

23. One question before hanging up

Right before goodbye, one question (“what's your favorite memory from being little?”). Don't answer it now — answer it on the next call. The topic carries over, and the next call starts with something already on the table.

D. Days you can't talk (24–30)

24. The photo chain

Send one photo from your day; they reply with a photo that connects to it (same color, same object, same joke). No time, no typing, and it survives the busiest week.

25. One song each on a shared playlist

One song a week, each. Six months in, that's fifty songs that are literally the soundtrack of the relationship. Rule: no explaining why you added it until the next call.

26. Daily-question apps

Paired, Couple Tree and SumOne from #16 were built for exactly this. Three minutes before bed, one question each. Near-zero cost, surprisingly large effect.

27. Send the MindMatch share card

The card MindMatch makes at the end (verdict title, score, your two drawings overlaid) shares with one tap. Post it in the chat on Saturday, and on Tuesday, when you scroll past it, you have a conversation without looking for one.

28. A letter a month

Paper, stamp, the whole thing. The most analog item on the list and the one with the biggest effect. The classic move: read it aloud on the call the day it arrives.

29. A shared countdown to the next visit

Between (anniversary countdowns, shared album and calendar, free calls) puts the days until you meet on both home screens. Watching the number drop is all it takes for “have you looked at flights yet?” to come up.

30. One photo at a fixed time

Nine o'clock every night, one photo, whatever it is. No call needed; the habit itself carries the relationship through finals week and quarter-end.

A one-month plan

Miss a day in week two and nothing breaks; what matters is that the weeknight format never changes. When the month ends, swap only the weekend column and keep the rest.

Why doing things together beats talking

Self-expansion theory (Aron and colleagues, 2000) found that couples who share novel, engaging activities report higher relationship quality than couples who share merely pleasant, familiar ones. Distance deletes that part by default — no spontaneous weekend trip, no new restaurant — so novelty has to be placed inside the call on purpose. The other piece is ritual: a shared activity at a fixed time in a fixed form lowers the anxiety of the weeks apart. Best-and-worst every night, the nine o'clock photo — nothing spectacular, but it's what nearly every couple that has spent a year or two apart and stayed together has in common.

And the silence isn't the end of the conversation; it's being together. With a half-finished drawing or a wobbling tower on the screen, silence means “thinking” or “still drawing,” and it stops being frightening. The thirty items above are tools for exactly that.

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