40th Birthday Party Games: 8 Ideas for Adults and Families

The best 40th birthday party games mix nostalgia with a bit of heart: decade trivia about the years the birthday person grew up in, advice cards for the next 40 years, and a true-or-false round of “40 facts”. If kids are coming, add a game where they interview the birthday parent.

Below are eight 40th birthday games for adults, plus family-friendly options and a quick planning table.

What Makes a Good 40th Birthday Game

Forty is a birthday where the guest list gets wide: childhood friends, coworkers, neighbors, in-laws and often kids. Games need to work for people who have known the birthday person for 35 years and people who met them last spring.

The ones that land best have three things in common:

• Something for everyone to contribute. Advice, memories or guesses, rather than knowledge only close friends have.
• Short rounds. Parents with kids at the party can only play in bursts.
• Warmth under the jokes. A gentle roast is fine; a whole night of “you’re old” gags gets tired fast.

40th Birthday Games for Adults

1. Advice for the Next 40

Put a stack of cards and pens on every table with a prompt at the top. Guests fill in as many as they like during the party. Good prompts:

• The best thing I learned in my 40s was…
• Never stop doing…
• Please, finally stop…
• A book, show or song you need in your life:
• The best advice I ever ignored:
• In ten years, I hope you…

Before cake, the birthday person reads a handful aloud. The rest go in a box or album for later. Older guests usually write the best ones, so make sure grandparents get cards too.

2. Decade Trivia

Build a quiz around the decade the birthday person was a teenager. The trick is to ask about shared experiences rather than exact dates, so the answers are easy to check and hard to argue with. A few examples in the right spirit:

1. Before streaming, what did you have to do to a video rental before returning it? (Rewind it)
2. What household object could fix a tangled cassette tape? (A pencil)
3. Where did people look up a phone number before search engines? (The phone book)
4. What did you need to take a photo and see it days later? (A film camera, then the photo lab)
5. What did you use to record songs off the radio? (A tape recorder or boom box)

Add rounds on the shows, bands and fashion the birthday person loved. Ask them or a sibling for a list of favorites, then write questions from it. Split the room into teams and have each team write one answer per question.

3. 40 Facts: True or False

Write 40 statements about the birthday person, some true and some false: “She once got locked out of a hotel room in her pajamas.” “He has never seen the ocean.” Read them aloud one at a time; guests hold up a green or red card. Anyone who guesses wrong sits down. Last person standing wins.

Forty is a lot for one round, so split them into two rounds of 20, one early and one after dinner.

4. Decade Dress-Up Contest

Ask guests on the invitation to come dressed as their teenage selves. Midway through the party, hold a runway walk. Guests vote with sticky notes on categories like Most Accurate, Best Hair and Most Committed. It needs zero setup on the day and produces the best photos of the night.

5. Guess Who’s 40

Collect photos of the birthday person at 10, 20 and 30, alongside photos of their friends at the same ages. Mix them up on a board. Guests identify each person and age on an answer sheet. It is a twist on the baby photo game that suits a milestone about the passing decades.

Family-Friendly 40th Birthday Games

When kids are at the party, give them a role that puts them at the center, not on the sidelines.

6. The Kids’ Press Conference

Seat the birthday person at the front with a “press” sign. Kids take turns asking questions from cards you prepared (they can also make up their own):

• What was your favorite toy when you were my age?
• What did you get in trouble for at school?
• What was the first thing you bought with your own money?
• What is the best thing about being 40?

Adults laugh at the answers, kids feel important, and nobody has to sit through a long speech.

7. Generations Quiz

Split into two teams: under 18s and adults. Kids answer questions about the adults’ childhood (“What is a cassette?”) and adults answer questions about the kids’ world (a current game, a popular slang word, a trending dance). Whichever team scores higher picks dessert order. It is quick, loud and fair.

8. Who Knows Mom or Dad Best

A quiz about the birthday person works for teenagers as well as adults. Our printable birthday games for adults include a “Who knows the birthday girl (or boy) best?” sheet, and you can add your own questions from our birthday boy quiz guide. Let younger kids pair with a grown-up.

40th Birthday Party Games Ideas at a Glance

Game	Best for	Time	Kid-friendly
Advice for the Next 40	Any size	Ongoing	Yes, with help
Decade Trivia	10 to 40 guests	20 minutes	Teens and up
40 Facts: True or False	Any size	10 minutes per round	Yes
Decade Dress-Up	House party	15 minutes	Yes
Guess Who’s 40	15 to 50 guests	Ongoing	Teens and up
Kids’ Press Conference	Family party	10 minutes	Yes
Generations Quiz	Mixed ages	15 minutes	Yes

How to Plan the Game Schedule

1. Arrival: Set out advice cards and the Guess Who’s 40 board so early guests have something to do.
2. After everyone arrives: Run Decade Trivia or the Generations Quiz while energy is high.
3. After food: Kids’ Press Conference or the second True or False round.
4. Before cake: Read a few advice cards aloud.

Keep the whole program under an hour of structured play. People came to talk too.

If your 40th is a big bash, borrow ideas from our guide to birthday party games for large groups. For a partner-led surprise, the surprise party games guide covers games that fit around the reveal. Looking back at the last milestone? Our 30th birthday party games guide includes a predictions game you can open at 40.

Final tip: put the advice cards in a small photo album the next day and give it back to the birthday person. It turns a party game into a gift they will reread.