How to use this Scattergories categories list
Quick refresher on the rules: pick a letter, pick five to ten categories from the Scattergories categories list below, set a timer (two to three minutes), and everyone writes one answer per category starting with that letter. Unique answers score a point; duplicate answers cancel out. That cancel rule is the genius bit — obvious answers are risky, so the game rewards weird thinking.
Fun fact: Scattergories descends from Stadt-Land-Fluss (“city, country, river”), the German pen-and-paper original that schoolkids have played for over a century. Same loop, same letter-race, older than the boxed game by decades.
Easy categories to warm up
Start here when the group is new or half-asleep:
- City · Country · River (the original trio)
- Animal · Fruit or vegetable · Something in the fridge
- First name · Job · Famous person
- Color · Piece of clothing · Body part
- Sport · Hobby · School subject
- Movie · Band or musician · Song title
- Brand · Something in this car · Something in a supermarket
- Drink · Dessert · Pizza topping
Travel and road trip categories
Perfect mid-drive, when everyone is already in travel mode:
- Airline · Airport code · Capital city
- Something in a suitcase · Something you always forget to pack
- Street food · National dish · Word on a menu
- Island · Mountain · Sea or lake
- Tourist attraction · Museum · Bridge
- Language · Currency · Word in another language you know
- Reason a flight gets delayed · Thing you see from the window right now
- Souvenir · Hotel amenity · Road trip snack
That last kind — categories anchored to what's around you — pairs nicely with the other zero-equipment car games that use the world outside the window as the game board.
Hard mode: categories that start arguments
For groups that have played too much. These force lateral thinking and produce the disputed answers that make the game fun:
- Excuse for being late · Bad first-date location · Terrible superpower
- Thing that is overrated · Thing you'd rescue from a fire · Guilty pleasure
- Word that sounds rude but isn't · Onomatopoeia · Palindrome (brutal)
- Villain · Fictional place · Mythical creature
- Thing in a hospital · Crime · Reason to call in sick
- Something cold · Something sticky · Something you shouldn't microwave
- Startup name that could exist · App on your phone · Password you shouldn't use
- Thing grandparents say · Wedding no-go · Chemistry element
House-rule tip: for judging borderline answers, majority vote — the writer defends the answer in one sentence, everyone else votes. Ties go to the boldest answer.
Scoring variants to keep it fresh
Three twists when standard scoring gets stale:
- Double letter: answers where the letter appears twice (“Barcelona” for B) score double.
- Themed rounds: all categories from one world — only food, only geography, only pop culture.
- Sudden death: one category, one letter, going around the circle out loud until someone blanks. Great as a tiebreaker, and it works with no paper at all — handy for mixing into a trivia night.
Play it without pen, paper or a referee
Scattergories is one of five mini-games in Gempin's Play tab — as Stadt-Land-Fluss, the German original, with fully customizable categories and rounds generated fresh every game, so nobody has to play scorekeeper. Like all the games in our road trip games for adults lineup, it works offline once you're on the road.
Gempin is heading into early access on iOS — join the waitlist to get it before your next trip.