The trouble with big groups
From eight people on, many games break down for the same reason: waiting. In a card game with twelve players, once it's been your turn you wait eleven turns before you can do anything again. Big groups need games where everyone plays at once, cheers along in teams or argues things out together.
Then there's logistics. Physical cards and pencils often don't stretch to everyone, and not everybody can see the board. With Gather, each person's phone is their own play area, and the TV shows everyone the same thing. Anyone without the app scans the QR code and plays in the browser.
Which games fit how many
With eight people you have the widest choice, including Crazy Mau and Little Max. At nine those two drop out, while Thirty-One goes up to nine. At ten you still have Sketch Round, Quiz Night, Letter Hunt and Fib Finder. With eleven or twelve, go for Village at Night, Say It Different and Cover Word.
If there are more of you than a game allows, form pairs who share a phone. In Quiz Night and Letter Hunt that is often more fun anyway, because you can talk it over.
Village at Night: built for crowds
Village at Night is made for big groups. It plays with five to twelve people and gets better with every extra player. Everyone sees their secret role only on their own phone: Wolf, Seer, Healer, Villager and, from seven players, the Hunter. At night everyone closes their eyes, by day the TV announces what happened, and you vote.
The big advantage over the card version: the TV narrates, so nobody has to sit out as game master. Leave plenty of time, because the discussions are the heart of the game. Eliminated players see all roles but must stay quiet, and they get to watch everyone else puzzle it out.
Team games for up to twelve
Say It Different and Cover Word split the group into two teams and take up to twelve players. That solves the waiting problem: even when the other team is up, one of you is the watcher listening for forbidden words, or you quietly play along in your head.
Say It Different is loud and fast, with 60 seconds per turn. Cover Word is calmer and more tactical, and it thrives on team discussion. A format that works for big groups: Say It Different to warm up, then Cover Word once everyone has found their rhythm.
Everyone at once: drawing, guessing, fibbing
In Sketch Round, Quiz Night, Letter Hunt and Fib Finder, everyone plays at the same time, so there's hardly any downtime. In Sketch Round, everyone draws once from seven players on, which keeps the game manageable even with a full room. In Quiz Night everyone answers in parallel, and the leaderboard after every question keeps the tension up.
Letter Hunt rewards unusual answers, and in a big group challenging answers by majority vote becomes a game of its own. Fib Finder actually improves with more people, because more fake answers appear on the TV and the true one gets harder to spot.
Later in the evening
As the group shrinks towards the end, Crazy Mau and Little Max both work with up to eight. In Little Max everyone rolls secretly on their own phone, and with many players the bluffing gets especially tense, since every call has to beat the one before. Thirty-One keeps up to nine people together and plays in quick rounds until only one is left.