It’s gloomy outside and you just got home from a long day of school. Your friends’ schedules are too tight to come to your house to hang out, but they’re down to text. But you don’t really have a lot to say, you just want to do an activity to spend a little time with them and forget about all your troubles. 

Introducing iMessage games: an innovative, nontraditional way to spend time with your friends without needing to physically be with them. Your friends can respond whenever they want, and the game still goes on. Just send them a text of the game on iMessage, with the most common platform being GamePigeon.

Learn more about how to play here. 

Many students of varying ages around the world enjoy these games for a multitude of reasons. Notably, Whitney Young Alum Jonathan Mui, who now attends the University of California, Berkeley, says that iMessage games allow him to “have fun and spend time with friends even if [they’re] 2000 miles apart :).” Current Whitney Young student Catherine Xu agrees with Mui, saying the games fuel her competitiveness and “help with bonding.” 

People enjoy playing these games so much that they want more, so much so that there is a petition on Change.org, petitioning for more iMessage games.

These games may also help enrich the brain, so it’s not all just silly fun. I’ve heard of friends improving their vocabulary due to the game “Word Hunt.” Owen Yu, another Whitney Young Alum attending Princeton University, says he’s “upgrading everyone’s vocabulary” because he plays the games so often with others. 

Personally, I am not an indulgent of iMessage games, as I perform quite poorly at them. Many of my friends who do play these games, I believe partly play them because they are also at least semi-skilled at them. Xu says that she “very much enjoy[s] Word Hunt,” and believes she is “quite good at them.” 

Do you play iMessage games and how often do you do so? Do you agree that it is a good way to spend time with friends?