How to Make a DIY Guess Who Game

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Trend expert Shayan Faraz explains how to try this fun trend yourself

Co-authored by Annabelle Reyes Reviewed by Ashton Wu

Last Updated: January 28, 2026 Fact Checked

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Making Your Game

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Theme Ideas

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Question Ideas

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Video

If you’ve been scrolling through TikTok lately, you might have come across a few videos of people playing the classic board game Guess Who, but with a twist…they’ve swapped out the regular game characters for their own custom photos! If you’re interested in trying out this fun and unique DIY board game, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll go over how to make your own personalized Guess Who game, and we’ll also give you a few interesting ideas for themes to try out—plus tips from trend expert Shayan Faraz. Keep reading for everything you need to know!

Custom Guess Who Game: Quick Overview

Trend expert Shayan Faraz says you can find tutorials and templates online that make it easy to create a custom Guess Who game. Here’s how it works:

Purchase a regular Guess Who game.
Choose 24 photos of people or characters you want to include.
Download a custom Guess Who template on Canva or Etsy.
Input your custom photos into the template.
Print the templates out on sturdy paper and cut out each photo.
Place your smaller character photos into the slots on each game board.
Shuffle your larger character photos, and play the game!

Section 1 of 3:

Making Your Custom Guess Who Game

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Purchase a regular Guess Who game. When you make your custom Guess Who game, you’ll swap out the images that come with the board game with photos of real people you know or your favorite fictional characters. To do this, you’ll of course need to purchase the regular Guess Who game! Keep in mind that the game comes with two boards, so you’ll need to buy more copies if you plan to play with a larger group.^{[1]
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- Why is this trending? Faraz says that videos have been circulating on TikTok of “people making customized Guess Who boards to play the game with their friends and family.”^{[2]
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Meet the wikiHow Expert

Shayan Faraz (or Chum as he’s known online) is a content creator with over 35,000 followers on his TikTok page @chummertok. His videos analyze internet culture and viral trends.
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Choose the people or characters you want to include in your game. Each board comes with 24 slots for images of characters to guess from, so you’ll need to come up with 24 unique photos for your custom game. Faraz says that people commonly use printouts of their friends, family, or celebrities.^{[3]
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Shayan Faraz
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Expert Interview} You can also choose coworkers, characters from your favorite fandom, historical figures, or even just silly drawings—it’s entirely up to you!
- If you’re having trouble coming up with good ideas for a DIY Guess Who game on your own, check out our inspo section below.
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Download an Etsy or Canva template and add your photos. Since this idea has become so popular on social media, quite a few templates have popped up on sites like Etsy and Canva to make it easier. To find them, simply go to either site and search “personalized Guess Who template.” These templates will allow you to add the photos of your choice and format them to the right sizes for the character cards that will slip into the slots on your board, as well as the cards each player will draw to see what character they are.^{[4]
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- Many of these templates cost around $1-3, so they’re not too pricey!
- If you don’t want to spend the money, or you’re an extra crafty person who wants to go fully DIY, you can totally skip them and follow these steps instead:
  - Measure the character cards (both the ones that will go into the slots on the board game and the deck players will draw from).
  - Add the photos you want to use to a Word document, Google doc, or Canva project, making sure they’re the right sizes for the game.
  - Print the photos that will slip into the slots on the board (creating copies for however many boards you’re creating). You should have 24 photos for each board, and 24 photos total for the larger deck of cards.
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Check out an online tutorial if you need extra help. “Many creators have posted video tutorials of how they have customized their boards,” says Faraz. He adds that it’s particularly helpful to see “how they resized their own images according to the sizes of the Guess Who board game.”^{[5]
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Shayan Faraz
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- Faraz points to this Canva tutorial from @itsnicole, saying that it shows how she used a template to remake the pieces on her board.
- Faraz also points out this video tutorial from @itscelinemarie as a good example of how to edit photos.^{[6]
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Once you’ve added all your custom photos to your template or document, print them out on something sturdy, like cardstock or thick paper, and cut them out with sharp scissors or an exacto-knife. If your printer isn’t able to do this, you can also print your photos out on regular paper and then glue them onto pieces of cardstock to make them sturdier.^{[7]
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Place your smaller character cards into the slots on the game boards, making sure each individual board gets a photo of each of the 24 people or characters you’ve chosen.^{[8]
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Shuffle your deck of character cards, and play as normal! Shuffle your deck of larger character cards, and have each player draw a card to find out who they’ll be for the game. Then continue on and play Guess Who the same way you normally would!
- Not sure how to play Guess Who? Check out our helpful guide.

Section 2 of 3:

Custom Guess Who Theme Ideas

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When it comes to choosing your 24 characters, the sky’s the limit. You can get as creative as you want with it, and honestly, the more wild and out-there you go, the more hilarious the game becomes! Here are a few fun ideas to try out:
- Extended Family: You need to choose 24 photos for a DIY Guess Who game, so this one requires a pretty big family. If you don’t have quite enough people, you can always add pets or super close family friends into the mix! Check out this viral TikTok by @kators88 for reference.
- Coworkers: Guess Who coworker edition can be a super fun way to bond with your team, and it’s also an entertaining activity for a one-on-one hangout with your work bestie. Based on this TikTok by @areyougamestudios of this version of the game, you can expect lots of laughs!
- Pop stars: If you and your friend group are big music lovers, this is the one for you! Just choose 24 pop divas (Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Chappel Roan, Ariana Grande, etc) to be the characters you’ll be guessing from.
- Iconic characters: Choose 24 of the most well-known, iconic characters from across pop culture (Marvel or DC superheroes, Disney characters, video game characters, etc.)
- Historical Figures: Pick 24 important figures from history, like world leaders, famous scientists, influential activists, etc. This idea gives history buffs the chance to really show off their skills!
- Literary Heroines: Another great option for the brainiacs, this idea involves picking 24 iconic female characters from books. You can go classic (Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet, etc), or modern (Katniss Everdeen, Daenerys Targaryen, etc).
- Individual Fandoms: Choose 24 characters from any fandom you’d like! Here are some popular ones that would make great Guess Who games.
  - Harry Potter Characters
  - Disney Characters
  - Marvel Characters
  - Twilight Characters
  - Hunger Games Characters
  - Percy Jackson Characters
  - Grey’s Anatomy Characters
  - Game of Thrones Characters
  - Glee Characters
  - Anime Characters
  - The Vampire Diaries Characters
    - This Tiktok by @connercrowley shows a great example of this one!

Section 3 of 3:

Unique Guess Who Question Ideas

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To make your Guess Who game a little bit more interesting, you might want to make a rule that questions about appearances are off-bounds. (For example, if you’re playing Disney Princess Guess Who, and you ask if the other player’s character has red hair, this would make it pretty easy to guess that they’re Ariel). Here are a few interesting, unique, and funny example questions that aren’t about appearance to keep your game fresh and make it last a little longer:
- Would your person be an athlete in high school?
- Would your person have a complicated coffee order?
- Does your person seem like a good cook?
- Would your person wear socks and sandals in public?
- Does your person have “Main Character Syndrome”?
- Would your person cut their own bangs after a break-up?
- Does your person have Taylor Swift on their playlist?
- Would your person have a Tinder profile?
- Does your person seem like a vegetarian?
- Has your person ever done a juice cleanse?
- Does your character seem like they’d have a library card?
- Would your character run for president?
- Would your character have a super niche hobby?
- Does your person look like they’d be mean to waiters?
- Would your person thrift all their clothes?
- Would you get along with your person as a friend?
- Would you date your person romantically?
- Would your character date Timotheé Chalamet?
- Does your person seem like they’ve heard of Coachella?
- Would you describe your person as Brat (in the sense of Charli XCX’s album Brat)?