Games to Play Over FaceTime
Aux Battles works over FaceTime, Zoom or any video call: everyone joins a room from their own browser, answers the same prompt with a song, and votes on the picks. Because each person plays the track locally, nobody has to screenshare audio — which is what ruins most music games on a call.
It is built for the long-distance case specifically. Two people in different time zones get as much out of it as eight people in one room, and it gives a call a structure that is not just catching up again.
Start a Game — FreePlaying over a call
Start the call first, game second
Get everyone on FaceTime or Zoom, then share the room code in the chat or read it out. Four letters is short enough to say over a bad connection.
Do not screenshare the audio
This is the whole trick. Screenshared audio on FaceTime and Zoom is compressed, delayed, and often mono — songs sound bad and voting gets unfair. Everyone plays the track in their own browser at the same time instead.
Mute during playback
Everyone mutes while a track plays, then unmutes to react. Video calls cannot handle music and six open mics at once, and voice-activated noise suppression will chop the song up.
Use YouTube or SoundCloud rooms
Across a group on different devices and countries you cannot assume Spotify Premium. YouTube and SoundCloud play in any browser with no account and no regional gaps.
Keep it to five rounds
Video calls tire people faster than being in a room together. Five good rounds beats ten that end with two people left on the call.
Why music games survive video calls
Most party games degrade badly over a call. Anything needing physical props is out, anything with fast turn-taking suffers from latency, and anything requiring people to talk over each other collapses into apologising for interrupting.
A song battle sidesteps all three. Submissions happen in parallel so latency does not matter, playback is synchronised in each person's own browser rather than streamed through the call, and voting is silent. The call is only used for the part it is actually good at: reactions.
For long-distance friends and couples
The recurring problem with long-distance calls is that they become status updates. You cover what happened this week and then run out of things to say.
Sharing music is the oldest fix for that, and turning it into rounds with prompts gives it structure. Prompts that reach into shared history work best — "song from the year we met", "song you would put on if I was having a bad day". Those produce conversations that a normal call would not have got to.
For two players, drop the scoring and just take turns setting prompts. Competition needs a crowd; with two people the picks are the point.
Time zones and async play
If the group is spread across time zones badly enough that a live call is painful, you can run rounds asynchronously — set a prompt, let people submit over a day, then do the listening and voting together on a shorter call.
That trades the live reaction for everyone actually being able to play, which is usually the right trade for a group spanning more than six hours.
Prompts to start with
Categories that tend to land well here.
🌙 Mood
- Main Character Energy
- Villain Origin Story
- 3 AM in a Rainy City
- Sunny Day Road Trip
✍️ Lyrics
- Song About Money
- Song About Growing Up
- Song About Moving On
- Song That Tells a Full Story Start to Finish
Questions
Do I need to screenshare to play music?
No, and you should not. Each player plays the track in their own browser, so everyone hears full-quality audio instead of compressed screenshare sound. This is the main reason it works on a call when most music games do not.
Does it work on Zoom, Teams or Google Meet?
Yes. The game is independent of the call — it runs in the browser, so any video platform works. FaceTime, Zoom, Meet, Teams, Discord, a phone call.
Can two people play?
Yes, though with two the voting is less meaningful. Most pairs drop the scoring and take turns setting prompts for each other, which works better than trying to compete.
Does it work across countries?
Yes. YouTube and SoundCloud rooms avoid the regional catalogue gaps you hit with Spotify, so a group spread across countries should use those sources.
What if someone has slow internet?
Songs stream individually rather than through the call, so one person on a weak connection does not degrade it for everyone — they just buffer. Shorter tracks help.
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