Couple Challenges
Small rules, silly results and a good story, one challenge at a time.
- Time
- 15 minutes to a week
- Players
- Two people
- Best for
- Weekends and slow weeknights at home
- Deck
- 100 ideas in 5 categories
How to use these couple challenges
- Pick a category from the menu under the card, or keep “All categories”.
- Read the idea on the top card. If you both like it, put it on the calendar.
- Swipe the card away, or tap “Next idea”, for another. Ideas do not repeat until you have seen the whole category.
- Tap the heart to save an idea on this device, or tap “Make a 10-idea list” for a list you can copy.
When to try a couple challenge
A challenge gives an ordinary day one small rule, and the rule is what you remember later. These fit a free hour, a slow weekend or a whole week of small surprises.
A lazy Sunday
Get moving and Creative challenges for an afternoon with nothing else on the calendar.
A weeknight in a rut
One At-home or Kitchen challenge turns the usual dinner into a plan.
A busy stretch
Kindness challenges take a minute a day and run quietly in the background of a full week.
Ways to use these challenges
One challenge a weekend
Draw a card on Saturday morning and do it before Sunday night. Most take an hour or less and use what you already have.
One each, same day
Swipe on your own and each save one challenge for the two of you. Do both on the same day: yours first, then theirs.
A week of kindness
Pick a card from Kindness challenges on Monday and keep it going until Sunday. Several are written to last seven days.
Tips for a good couple challenge
- Read the rule out loud before you start, then bend it if it stops being fun.
- Film the funny ones. A minute of video is the best souvenir of an ordinary Tuesday.
- Nobody keeps points. If a challenge has a result, it is there to laugh at together.
All 100 couple challenges by category
The complete list, grouped by category. The cards above draw from the same list, so you can read ahead here and pick there.
Kitchen challenges
Cooking with a twist: a rule, a timer or a surprise ingredient.
- Cook dinner using only five ingredients your partner picks from the kitchen.
- Make a meal where one of you gives the directions and the other does all the cooking, then swap for dessert.
- Cook a whole dinner without saying a single word: only pointing, nodding and miming.
- Recreate your usual takeout order at home and see how close you can get.
- Put together a three-course dinner from what is already in the fridge. No shopping trip allowed.
- Bake muffins where each of you secretly stirs one extra ingredient into half the batch, then guess the other’s.
- Serve a one-color dinner. Everything on the plate has to be orange, green or whatever color you pick.
- Make each other’s favorite childhood snack from memory, without asking a single question about how it was made.
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- Write a fancy restaurant menu for an ordinary weeknight dinner and serve it with a straight face.
- Assemble a fruit salad with your non-dominant hands only, using fruit you can peel or tear.
- Follow the same simple recipe in two separate bowls, side by side, and see how different the results look.
- Pack each other a surprise lunch tonight and promise not to peek until noon tomorrow.
- Cook a dish you have seen in a favorite movie or show, as close to the screen version as you can.
- Invent a brand-new sandwich together, give it a name and make it twice to get it just right.
- Turn the three oldest things in your pantry into a meal you would happily eat again.
- Make a dessert with no recipe from whatever is in the cupboard, then give it a ridiculous name.
- Close your eyes and build your partner a sandwich, describing every layer out loud as it goes on.
- Plate the same simple dish twice, each styling one like a fancy restaurant, and photograph them together.
- Set a ten-minute timer and get a full breakfast on the table before it rings, then eat it slowly.
- Scroll a world map with your eyes closed, stop anywhere, and cook one dish from the nearest country.
Creative challenges
Draw, write, build and film something silly together in an afternoon.
- Each draw a map of your neighborhood from memory, then lay them side by side and see what you remembered.
- Find thirty ordinary things around the house that look like faces and photograph every one.
- Make a four-page picture book about the day you met: one of you draws, the other writes.
- Build the tallest tower you can from things on the kitchen table, working together, in five minutes.
- Recreate a famous painting with blankets, props and each other, then take the photo.
- Film a one-minute movie trailer for your weekend, with dramatic music and a title card.
- Write a poem in turns, each adding a line after seeing only the last word of the one before.
- Design a flag for your home, with colors and symbols that mean something to you both.
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- Spend fifteen minutes each drawing the other’s dream house, then give a tour of every room.
- Turn something funny from this week into a comic strip, one of you on drawings and one on speech bubbles.
- Perform a song you both know using only pots, wooden spoons and your voices.
- Take one photo every hour for a whole day, wherever you are, and put them in a tiny album.
- Sculpt each other out of modeling clay or play dough in ten minutes, then trade sculptures.
- Write a hotel review of your own home, five stars or not, and read both reviews aloud.
- Invent a board game from paper, a coin and whatever is on the table, then play one round of it.
- Collect ten small things on a walk and arrange them into a picture on the floor.
- Invent a holiday just for the two of you, with a name, a special food and one tradition.
- Write a five-line play for two and perform it with your most dramatic voices.
- Rewrite the words of a song everyone knows so it tells the story of your morning routine.
- Learn to fold one origami animal from a video, then fold a whole family of them for the shelf.
Get moving
Walks, stretches and easy games that get you both off the couch.
- Walk as far as you can in thirty minutes, then find a completely different way home.
- Stretch together for ten minutes every morning for a week, before either of you checks a phone.
- Make up a thirty-second dance routine together, practice it, and film it once.
- Follow a beginner partner yoga video and hold the wobbliest pose long enough for a photo.
- Take a walk where a coin flip decides every turn, and see where you are after half an hour.
- Keep a balloon off the floor together for a hundred taps, taking turns on every tap.
- Reach ten thousand steps together in one day, every single step side by side.
- Bring out a long jump rope and see how many jumps you can manage with both of you inside it.
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- Go on a photo hunt around the block: something round, something blue and something older than you both.
- Try a sport neither of you has ever played, like badminton or frisbee golf, at a free park.
- Take a fifteen-minute walk after dinner every evening for seven days in a row, whatever the weather.
- Ride bikes or walk to a place you would usually drive to, and take the slow way back.
- Tie your ankles together with a soft scarf and walk a slow three-legged lap of the yard or hallway.
- Build an obstacle course of cushions and chairs, then talk each other through it with eyes closed.
- Stand face to face and mirror each other’s every move for two whole minutes.
- Dance through one whole album in the living room without sitting down once.
- Chalk a hopscotch court on the sidewalk and play until you both remember how it goes.
- Toss a ball or frisbee back and forth and count how many catches the two of you make in a row.
- Pick a ten-minute workout for your partner, do it with them, and let them pick the next one.
- Go for a walk where you can only talk about things you can see right now.
At-home challenges
Small house rules that turn an ordinary evening into something new.
- Leave both phones in another room from dinner until bedtime and see what the evening turns into.
- Rearrange one room together in under an hour without buying a single thing.
- Hold a whole conversation using only questions for five minutes. Any answer starts over.
- Speak only in rhymes all the way through dinner, however bad the rhymes get.
- Swap your usual sides of the couch, the bed and the table for one whole day.
- Trade your usual chores for a day and do them exactly the way the other one does.
- Fold a paper airplane from one sheet each and keep improving them until one reaches the end of the hallway.
- Clear out one drawer each in fifteen minutes, then show off your before and after.
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- Read a children’s book aloud, one page each, giving every character a different voice.
- Watch a movie in a language neither of you speaks, with no subtitles, and narrate the plot as you go.
- Get through a whole evening without saying the word “I”. Every slip earns a laugh, not a penalty.
- Build a domino run through the house from books, cards and anything else that topples.
- Hide a small object somewhere in plain sight and give only “warmer” and “colder” hints until it is found.
- Spend one hour on something your partner loves and you have never tried with them.
- Turn the living room into a café for an evening, with a sign, a menu and one of you as the waiter.
- Build a house of cards together and see how many floors it gets before it falls.
- Watch the first ten minutes of five different movies and only finish the one you both want to see.
- Sit in silence for one minute, each writing down every sound you hear, then compare lists.
- Play charades using only movies and songs from the year you met.
- Spend one evening speaking only in whispers, as if the whole house were a library.
Kindness challenges
Small acts for each other, some for one evening and some for a whole week.
- Leave a sticky note for your partner somewhere new every day for a week.
- Do one small, quiet favor for each other every day for seven days, then guess them all on day eight.
- Make your partner’s morning drink exactly the way they like it, every morning for a week.
- Write down ten small things your partner did this month that you noticed, and hand over the list.
- Take over one task your partner dislikes for a whole week, without being asked twice.
- Send your partner a short voice note every day for five days about one thing you like about them.
- Plan a surprise evening around your partner’s favorite things, using only what is already at home.
- Hide a small note in your partner’s bag or coat pocket for them to find later in the day.
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- Before sleep, thank each other for one specific thing from the day, every night for ten nights.
- Give your partner a whole hour off: you handle everything, and they choose what to do with it.
- Ask your partner for three small wishes for this week and quietly make all three happen.
- Write a kind note together and leave it, unsigned, on a neighbor’s door.
- Write your partner a letter to open on a day they need a lift, and tell them where it is.
- Each day for a week, ask about one thing in your partner’s day and remember to follow up the next.
- Clean your partner’s bike, car or shoes as a quiet surprise, and say nothing until they notice.
- Compliment your partner in front of someone else, and make it specific.
- Fill a jar with twenty tiny favors your partner can cash in, like a dish washed or a back rub.
- Give your partner one evening where you say yes to whatever they choose to do.
- Swap one complaint a day for a thank-you, every day for a whole week.
- Take a photo of your partner doing something they love, print it and give it to them.
Frequently asked questions
How many couple challenges are there?
There are 100 challenges, 20 in each of five categories: kitchen challenges, creative challenges, get moving, at-home challenges, and kindness challenges. The cards and the list on this page use the same set.
Do these challenges cost money?
Almost never. They are built around your kitchen, your home and your neighborhood, and none of them needs a shopping trip.
Can we do couple challenges long distance?
Many work on a video call: the creative ones, the voice notes, and kitchen challenges if you both cook at the same time. For games on two phones, see long distance games.
How is a challenge different from a dare?
A dare takes a minute in the middle of a game. A challenge fills an evening, a day or a whole week. For quick ones, play truth or dare.