How to play Empire

Learn the rules to the parlor game Empire quickly and concisely - This visually rich video has no distractions, just the rules.

The object of the game is to be the last empire remaining. Gather 10 to 20 of your friends and decide a category you want to play with: Disney Characters, for example. Then choose someone to be the moderator who will be a third party. Everyone thinks of an answer that fits the category. For example: Donald Duck.

One by one, each player secretly tells the moderator their choice in a separate room where no one can hear. The moderator writes down everyone’s answers, then writes down two to three of their own red-herring answers as well.

Everyone sits in a circle as the moderator reads out each anonymous answer in a random order. After he reads off every answer, he reads them a second time in a different order.

The oldest player starts first and play proceeds clockwise. On your turn, ask one person in the group if they are one of the answers listed off by the moderator, to which they must answer truthfully “yes” or “no”, the moderator will keep them honest. For example, “Billy, are you Donald Duck?” If you guess incorrectly, your turn is over and the next player takes a turn.

If you guess correctly, the player who was guessed joins your team. Now that empire has grown and the original member of the empire is the leader, whose answer represents the entire empire. Players on a team can work together but the leader is the spokesman. If a player guesses another player who has acquired multiple empires, everyone on that team joins the player who guessed them. This continues until everyone has been guessed and only one player remains.

As empires grow, players move around and shuffle seats so that all members of the empire sit together and keep the original turn order intact. Each empire gets one turn no matter how many players make up that empire. At no point during the game does the moderator re-read any of the answers.