18 Mobile & Phone Games for Long Distance Couples (iPhone & Android)

There is a version of long distance where the only thing on your phone that connects you is a text thread, and it slowly turns into a logistics feed. Games fix that, and the ones that live on your phone have an advantage the browser ones don’t: they are already there, in your pocket, waiting, with a little notification when it’s your turn. If the thread itself is where you want to play, with nothing to install, our games to play over text long distance are built for that.

That last part matters more than it sounds. The best mobile games for couples long distance are usually turn-based, because a turn-based game does not care that you are eight hours apart. You play your move before bed, they play theirs over breakfast, and the game becomes a quiet thread running under the whole day. Here are 18 worth installing, grouped by how you want to play. If you would rather not install anything at all, our free online games for long distance couples all run in a browser tab instead.

What to look for in a long distance game app

Four things, and only one of them is “is it fun.” Asynchronous turns beat live play, because matching free hours across time zones is the actual hard part. It should be cross-platform, since plenty of couples are one iPhone and one Android. It should be free to start, because nobody wants to negotiate a purchase before a first game. And it should be quick to pick up, so it fits in the gaps of a day rather than demanding an evening.

Turn-based games that survive a time-zone gap

Start here. These are the games for long distance couples on phone screens that keep a thread going without either of you needing to be awake at the same time.

• Words With Friends 2: best for a slow daily ritual. The classic async word game, and the in-game chat quietly becomes its own little conversation.
• Chess.com: best for a long, thoughtful game. Use the “daily” format where each side gets hours or days per move. A game can run for a week in the background.
• Draw Something: best for laughing at each other. You draw, they guess, and the terrible drawings age better than the good ones.
• Ludo King: best for a light, lucky game. Simple board game, enormous player base, plays fine in short bursts.
• Trivia Crack: best for competitive streaks. Turn-based trivia duels, easy to keep a rivalry going for months.
• 8 Ball Pool: best for a quick five-minute match between things.
• Scrabble GO: best if you want the official word game rather than its cousin.
• Backgammon or Checkers apps: best for an old-fashioned two-player standby, and there are many free versions.

Live co-op for when you are both actually free

Save these for a scheduled night. Playing something together in real time gets closest to the feeling of sharing a couch, especially with a call open alongside.

• Sky: Children of the Light: best for a genuinely romantic evening. A gentle, gorgeous co-op world built around holding hands with another player and exploring. It has a real following among long distance couples, and it is free to start.
• Minecraft: best for building something that lasts. A shared world you both return to becomes a place that is yours, which is a rare thing at a distance.
• Among Us: best for chaotic laughs, ideally with friends dialled in too.
• Stardew Valley: best for a cozy long-haul project. Co-op farming, low stress, and it rewards showing up together regularly.
• Call of Duty Mobile or a similar shooter: best if you are both competitive and want something with adrenaline in it.

Party games to play alongside a video call

These need you both present, and they work best with the call already running so you can see the reactions. For games that need only the call and no install at all, our FaceTime games for couples cover that.

• Heads Up!: best for a fast, silly round. One of you holds the phone to your forehead while the other acts it out on camera.
• Psych!: best for bluffing. You invent fake answers and try to fool each other, which gets funnier the better you know someone.
• Rave: best for a synced movie night. Not a game exactly, but it keeps a show playing in step for both of you with chat alongside.

Couple-specific apps, not just games

A few app games for couples long distance are built for the relationship itself rather than for winning. They tend to do more for closeness than another round of pool. For the non-game side, from home-screen widgets to shared calendars, see our apps for long distance couples.

• Paired: best for a daily question habit. It sends you both a prompt and reveals your answers to each other.
• Gottman Card Decks: best for research-backed prompts, and it is free. Decks of questions and ideas from the Gottman Institute’s relationship research.
• Love Nudge: best if you both know your love languages and want small nudges to act on them.

And one that needs no install at all: melt, the free couples game you play in a browser runs in a browser on either phone, with no download and no account. You each answer privately and only the things you both said yes to are revealed, which is a different kind of game: less competing, more finding out something new about each other. Our free long distance questions generator works the same way, one tap for a fresh prompt.

iPhone to Android, and a note on availability

If one of you is on iOS and the other on Android, check cross-platform support before you both get attached to something. Most of the big turn-based titles above are fine across both, which is why they dominate any list of android games for long distance couples as well as iPhone ones. The genuine exceptions are platform-exclusive titles and anything tied to a single console ecosystem. Worth saying plainly: app stores change. Titles get pulled, prices shift, and features move behind subscriptions, so treat any list like this as a starting point and check the store before planning a whole evening around one.

Making it a habit instead of a one-off

Pick two, not ten. One turn-based game as the everyday background thread, one live game for a standing weekly night, and you have covered both halves of what distance takes from you: the small daily contact and the shared occasion. Do not let it become another obligation, though. The point was never to win at pool. It is that a notification saying it is your turn is a small, regular reminder that someone is thinking about you. When a game naturally turns into a real conversation, follow it there with our long distance relationship questions, and for the wider set of things to do together across the miles, our long distance relationship games roundup covers text, call, and all-day play too. And when the distance closes for a weekend, our games for couples at home online are built for the same couch, and on a plain phone call with no screen to share, our phone games for couples long distance are the list.