8 long distance date night games for video calls
Long distance date night games that work over a video call. Eight games that beat 'so how was your day?', plus printable missions you both open together.
You've got a call booked for 9pm. You've been looking forward to it all day. Then it starts, and within ten minutes it's turned into a status meeting: work was fine, the flat's cold, did you eat. Forty minutes later you hang up feeling oddly further apart than before you dialled.
That's the quiet problem with long distance. It isn't the distance itself. It's that every evening together runs through the same format: a screen and "so, how was your day?" Long distance date night games fix the format. They give the call something to do besides report back, and they put a bit of surprise into a relationship that mostly runs on schedules.
The call isn't the problem. The format is.
Here's the encouraging part. In a week-long diary study of 63 dating couples, Jiang and Hancock found that long-distance couples reported more intimacy in their interactions than couples who lived close by. The driver wasn't grand gestures. Long-distance partners disclosed more about themselves, and they read each other's behaviour more generously. Distance, handled well, pushed them to say more.
That's the lever the games below pull. A status update tells your partner what happened. A good game makes you reveal something: how you think, what you'd pick for them, what you'd draw if nobody gave you the full brief. It's a small study, so don't read it as proof that distance is secretly better. Read it as proof that a call can carry real closeness, if you give it a job.
Long distance date night games that cost nothing
1. The cook-along
Pick one recipe. Both of you shop for it, prop the phone against the kettle, and cook at the same time. You'll be at different stages within five minutes and narrating each other's mistakes within ten. Then eat together on camera, at a table, not on the bed.
2. The secret delivery
Each of you orders a small surprise to the other's door without saying what it is: a dessert, a coffee, the snack they mentioned once three weeks ago. Time it to land during the call. You get the reveal live on camera, which is the closest thing to being in the room.
3. The voice-only round
Cameras off. Ask each other three questions (a favourite memory, a worst habit, something you've never admitted) and guess how the other person reacted from tone alone. It's lifted from our blindfold date guide, and it works even better over a phone line. A phone line is already a blindfold.
4. The parallel walk
Go outside at the same time, earbuds in, call running. You each get fifteen minutes to find one thing on your street the other would love, and describe it without showing it. Then flip the camera and see how close the description was. You'll end up knowing each other's neighbourhoods better than you'd expect.
5. The rabbit-hole swap
Each of you gets five minutes of screen-share to show the other the most interesting thing you found this week: a documentary clip, a strange Wikipedia page, a song, a map. No explaining in advance. The only rule is that it has to be something you genuinely wanted them to see.
6. The prediction pact
Start the same film at the same moment. Before you press play, each of you writes three predictions on paper: who's lying, who ends up together, how it ends. No sharing. At the credits, hold your papers up to the camera. Whoever got the fewest right picks next week's film.
If competitive formats land for you, most of the date night challenges for couples also survive a video call.
Printable long distance date games: the sealed-brief version
Free games have one weakness: someone still has to come up with them. Over a few months, one partner quietly becomes the entertainment director, and the other becomes the audience. That's the same imbalance that wears down planning in same-city couples, and distance makes it worse.
The fix is a game where each of you gets a brief the other hasn't seen. That's the idea behind the two printable packs we make for couples who are apart. Each comes as two PDFs, one per partner, so neither of you is running the show.
7. The Long Distance Relationship Mission Pack
Twenty missions and two copies, one for each of you. Because you each work from your own, you're both planning something for the other instead of one person carrying the evening. Open them together on your next call, and by the time you hang up there's a date lined up that neither of you fully saw coming. It's the same principle behind a mystery date: the not-knowing does the work.
8. Sketch & Reveal
You both draw the same topic, but each of you is told something slightly different about it. Draw yours without peeking, then hold both drawings up to the camera and work out what the other person was actually asked to draw. It's fast, it's ridiculous, and it needs zero artistic talent, which is a relief for everyone involved.
Both packs have a free sample on the BlindfoldDate store, so you can play a round on your next call before deciding anything.
Three rules that make a call feel like a date
Book it like a date. Not "call you later." A set time and a named game, agreed earlier in the day. Deciding what to do once you're both already on camera is how calls slide back into status updates.
Change one thing about the setting. A different room, a real glass, a shirt that isn't the one you slept in. It sounds trivial. It's the signal that this call is different from the other six this week, the same trick that makes date night ideas at home feel like an occasion instead of a default.
No second screen. The moment one of you is half-reading email, the other can tell. Laptop closed, notifications off, for the length of one game at least.
And when you're finally in the same city
The point of long distance is that it ends. When you do get a weekend together, don't spend the first evening negotiating where to go. BlindfoldDate picks a real venue near you and gives you both a challenge for the night, and neither of you sees the destination until you're on the way. After months of planning around time zones, letting something else plan the reunion is its own small gift. Here's how BlindfoldDate works if you want the details first.
Frequently asked questions
What can long distance couples do on a video call?
Anything with a shared task beats open-ended chat. Cook the same recipe at the same time, start the same film and make predictions, take a parallel walk, or play a game where each of you has a brief the other hasn't seen. The task gives the call a shape, so it doesn't drift into logistics.
How do you make a long distance date feel special?
Treat it like a date rather than a check-in. Book a time in advance, change something about your setting, close every other screen, and add one element of surprise, such as a delivery the other doesn't know about or a sealed mission you open together.
Do printable date games work if we live in different countries?
Yes. The packs are PDFs with a separate copy for each partner, so you simply send your partner their half and each of you prints or opens your own wherever you are. No account is needed to buy or download.
Are long distance date night games only for new couples?
No. Couples who've been apart for months often need them more, because the calls have settled into a routine. A game is one of the easiest ways to put something new into a relationship that runs mostly through a screen.
Ready to stop deciding and start dating?
Distance doesn't have to mean every evening is a status update. Pick one game from the list for your next call, or let the sealed-brief packs do the planning for you: grab a free sample from the BlindfoldDate store and play it tonight. And when you're finally in the same city, BlindfoldDate will pick the reunion date, so neither of you has to.
