Planning a family music game night

Who is it for?

Top Tracks works well across generations: the person who grew up with Motown and the person who grew up with streaming both have something to bring. Younger children can join in too, playing as guests with a grown-up hosting.

A few things are worth knowing before you start. Players don’t need an account — they join as a guest with a nickname. Accounts, which are only needed for buying things and for stats, leagues and crews, are for people aged 13 or over. There is no chat between players and no public profiles, and nicknames are only shown to the people you are playing with. Even so, a made-up nickname beats a child’s real full name.

Switch on Kids playing

When you set up the game, switch on Kids playing. It sets the game up in one go:

• Family mode — hides tracks marked as explicit from search, and applies a stricter word filter to names, notes and custom cards.
• Easy difficulty — anything goes, so a child can play their favourite song again even if it has been played already. (On the usual Hard setting, nothing anyone has picked this game is allowed.)
• Initials on share cards — pictures shared after the game use initials instead of names.

Family mode is a filter, not a guarantee. It works from how tracks are labelled and from a word list, so it can’t judge what a song is about. With young children in the room, it is still worth a grown-up keeping an ear out, and the host can always tapNext to move a turn along. The family music game page has a short summary of the set-up.

Setting up the room

For a family night, the TV is your friend. Open Top Tracks on a laptop or smart TV browser, tap Show the big screen and pair it with the code. Everyone can then see the card, whose turn it is and the Big Reveal without crowding round one phone.

Then switch on Preview mode. The TV plays a 30-second preview of each pick from Apple Music, so children don’t need a music app or an account with a streaming service. They just search for the song on the phone or tablet they are using, lock it in and wait for it to play. Typed-in tracks and songs without a preview are still played from the picker’s own app, so a grown-up may need to help with those.

Not every child needs their own device. Little ones can share a phone or tablet with a grown-up, which also solves the problem of a five-year-old typing song titles.

Keeping it fun for mixed ages

The biggest risk at a family music night is that one generation dominates. A few approaches help:

• Play in teams. Choose Teams and mix the ages, or let the host arrange them. Teammates suggest tracks privately and the team captain locks one in, so a child and a grandparent can argue it out together. Uneven teams are scaled so every track counts the same. The team game page explains how teams work.
• Choose the level with care. Warm-up is decades only, which is the simplest to explain but favours whoever has lived through the most decades. Party adds genres such as Disco, Love song and Musicals, which younger players often find easier.
• Be nice about off-category picks. Leave Off-category tracks on “Be nice”, so a song that doesn’t quite fit means picking again rather than scoring nothing.
• Talk about the scoring. Scores are 3, 2 or 1 heart, so even a track somebody didn’t love still gets a heart. It is worth saying before the first round that a 1 means “not for me”, not “bad”.

Scores stay secret until the Big Reveal, which helps younger players too: nobody can see they are behind halfway through and lose heart.

Keep games short

Attention spans vary, so plan for short games rather than one long one. A free game is two rounds, which is about right for a first go with children. A useful rough guide is three minutes per player per round, and the lobby shows an estimate before you start, so you can see whether a game will finish before bedtime.

Other ways to keep things brisk: tell players they can tap Done once the room has heard enough of a track, and consider a relaxed pick timer (two minutes) if choosing takes a while. Anyone without a track when time is up sits the round out, so avoid the shorter timers with little ones.

If you would rather drop the competition altogether, the full game includesThe Chain Game: no cards, no scores and no winner. Each player adds a song that links to the one before, and the chain becomes a playlist.

Family traditions

Music nights work well as a regular thing — at Christmas, on birthdays or when relatives visit. Some simple ideas:

• Let the youngest player choose the first level, and the winner choose the next.
• Take the Winner’s Pick seriously. The winner chooses one track, played in full, and everyone else listens without complaint. Children love enforcing this rule on adults.
• Keep the playlist. Every track from the night lands on one playlist page, which makes a nice record of who brought what.

For setting up the TV and speakers in more detail, see ourguide to hosting a music party night. If some of the family are far away, read playing music games over a video call. Every rule is in the in-gameHow to play guide.