How to Play the FLAME Game: Easy & Fun for All Ages

FLAME is a game named for the acronym: Friends (Friendship), Lovers (Love), Affectionate (Affection), Marriage, and Enemies. It’s popular among young kids at sleepovers, especially pre-teens and teens beginning to explore the world of crushes! While FLAME doesn’t legitimately predict whether or not another person is destined to be with you, it can be fun to play with your friends. Keep reading for a thorough guide to playing FLAME, complete with rule variations and similar games to try as well.

Quick FLAME Rules

Write your name and someone else’s on a piece of paper.
Cross out all common letters appearing in both names.
Count up the number of remaining letters (that aren’t shared) in both names.
Count through the letters of “FLAME” up to the number of leftover letters.
Use the letter that you land on to predict the future of your relationship.

Section 1 of 5:

What is FLAME?

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FLAME is a paper-and-pencil fortune-telling game. It’s similar to MASH and other counting-out games, designed to predict how a future relationship will pan out between the player and their crush (or some other person whose name is used in gameplay). The results can be positive or negative—but, of course, it’s all a game, and doesn’t actually affect relationships in the real world.

Section 2 of 5:

How to Play FLAME

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1
Grab a sheet of paper and write your and your “flame’s” name on it. This simple game really only requires a pen (or pencil) and a piece of paper! On the paper, write your first name, as well as that of the person you’re crushing on. Use proper names instead of nicknames—though you can try nicknames later, if you want.^{[1]
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- You’ll be looking at the letters shared between your names to measure just what sort of relationships you’ll have with this person!
- You could also grab a friend (or your crush) and play the game with them, if you want.
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Cross off common letters appearing in both names. Any letters shared by both names should be crossed off or X'ed out. Do the same for repeated letters as well! Depending on how you want to play, you can cross out every occurrence of a shared letter, or only cross off a certain letter as many times as it appears in both names. Do this with all letters until there are no matching letters remaining.^{[2]
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- For example, say you’re playing with the names Samantha and Alexander.
- Since both names have the letter “A,” you should cross out the As in both names.
- You could cross out all As in both names, or cross out two As from each (since Alexander has two As, but Samantha has three).
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Count the number of leftover letters. The letters that have survived your crossing out will help form your prediction about your relationship with this person. So, count up the total number of remaining letters in both names.^{[3]
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- Using the Samantha and Alexander example, there are 10 remaining letters after all the common ones have been crossed out.
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Count through the letters of “FLAME” to find your prediction. Write down the word FLAME on your paper (to ensure your prediction is accurate). Then, move through the letters in the word “FLAME” one at a time until your count reaches the total number of leftover letters that you found between the two names above.^{[4]
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- Does the number of leftover letters exceed the number of letters in FLAME? After you’ve counted the five letters in “FLAME,” you can continue counting from 6 to 10, starting again at “F” and ending at “E” (if needed).
- If you have more than 10 leftover letters, just repeat the process. Basically, you can count the letters in FLAME over and over until you’ve reached the number of leftover letters.
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Use the ending letter to find out your future relationship with your flame. Whichever letter you end on when counting will predict the kind of relationship you can look forward to with the person whose name you used! Figure out what the future holds by matching the letter you ended on with its meaning in the FLAME acronym:
- F - Friendship
- L - Love
- A - Affection
- M - Marriage
- E - Enemies
- In the example above, there are 10 letters left over between “Samantha” and “Alexander.” When you count through the letters of "FLAME" up to 10, the 10th letter is “E”—enemies!

Section 3 of 5:

FLAME Variations

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“FLAME” can be played as “FLAMES” (with an extra letter). You might hear some people refer to this game as “FLAMES” rather than “FLAME”; that’s because there’s a version of the game with an extra letter—and an extra word in the acronym. “S” stands for “siblings” in FLAMES; understandably, some prefer not to use the “siblings” variant if they’re playing using their crush’s names.
- You can play FLAMES exactly the same way you’d play FLAME, using the rules above—just with that additional letter!
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Cross out the letters of “FLAME” as you count. For this version, start counting the letters of “FLAME” until you reach the number of leftover letters, as usual—but cross out the letter that you land on. Then, do the same thing over again, crossing out the new letter you land on, too. Keep doing this until there’s only one letter in FLAME left; that is the letter predicting your future relationship.
- Let’s use the “Alexander” and “Samantha” example. Instead of just counting through “FLAME” up to 10 and using the 10th letter (E), we’d cross it out—so the paper would look like: FLAM~~E~~.
- The next step would be to count to 10, using only FLAM. This time, the “L” would be crossed out, and we’d be left with “FAM.”
- Repeating this, we’d cross out “F” next, and finally “M,” which means the final letter is “A.” Samantha and Alexander’s relationship is “affection”!
3
Retry the game with variations of the names for a different result. No, it’s not an official rule—but if you don’t like the prediction you get using proper names, you can always replay the game using nicknames, full names (first, middle, and last), or other variations. Of course, FLAME doesn’t actually dictate your relationship with this person, but you might get a more favorable outcome with an alternate name!

Section 4 of 5:

FLAME Alternative (Push the Button)

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Here, we’ll show you how to play “Push the Button,” a game that’s very much like FLAME, and can be played with friends or if you want to explore a relationship with your crush! On one side of your paper, write two lists of people: one male and the other female. These lists should have an equal number of people, and can even include celebrities for a fun twist.
On the other side of your paper, write a list of simple actions. You can include as many or as few actions as you wish; some examples of actions include hugging, shaking hands, poking, and waving.
You can do this in different ways, but essentially, you'll want to fold your paper so that your lists are hidden from view. Try folding your paper in half three times; depending on where you've written your list, this kind of fold might work for you.
Now that your paper is folded so that your lists can't be seen, the blank parts of your paper should be all that is visible. On the blank side of your paper that’s currently face-up, draw a button to the best of your abilities (and label it "Button", "The Button", or "Push").
Ask a friend who’s playing with you to "push the button" and, when they do, open the paper to the side with your lists of people. Be careful not to show your friend any of your lists; keep them all secret!
Ask your friend which gender they want to choose for this round of "Push the Button": boy or girl. When they’ve picked one, ask them to choose a number next, and count down to that number on the corresponding list. Make a note of the person you land on!
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Determine the action. Now that you know the "who," you and your friend need to find out what will happen to that person. Turn to your action list and ask your friend to choose a number. Once they do, count down to that number on the list and make a note of the action you land on. Finally, string together the results to find out what your friend is doing and who they’re doing it with.
- For example, if your friend chose the name "Alex" and the action "shake hands,” then, when reading the results, you’d say, "You are going to…shake hands with Alex!"

Section 5 of 5:

Other Games Like FLAME

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MASHMASH is a bit more complex than FLAME, but definitely an old favorite! In MASH, you have to create categories like spouse, job, car, kids, house, and so on (it’s pretty flexible and open-ended; just make sure there are four options for each category). Then, draw a spiral until told to randomly stop, and count the number of lines you created. Count this number against the letters of MASH (and the options listed in each category) to determine your “future”!^{[5]
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- For instance, if you draw six lines, you’d stop at the sixth option in your MASH list and cross it out. Keep doing that until there’s only one option per category—and that’s your future!
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PANTSMuch like FLAME, PANTS is an acronym—and this one stands for Place, Animal, Name, Thing, and Score. In the game, one player must pick a random letter, and everyone else must list a place, animal, name, and thing starting with that letter as quickly as possible. Then, all players must compare answers and tally up points!
- Unique answers get 10 points.
- Anyone with the same answer for one category gets 5 points instead.
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Paper fortune tellerThis “game” is a bit like MASH (and FLAME), but with an added layer of arts and crafts—since you get to actually fold paper and decorate it to make a paper fortune teller. Label each part of the fortune teller with colors or numbers, then ask another player to choose a section. Under the folded flaps of the fortune teller, there are hidden messages (predictions) to uncover!^{[6]
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Community Q&A

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How should I feel if we ended up being enemies on Flame?

Community Answer

Remember that it is just for fun and you aren't really enemies.

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Do we write first names only, or surnames also?

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It doesn't really matter, you can have more fun with your complete name. It is up to you!

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Can I play it my own way?

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Yes, you can. Just be sure the rules make sense!

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Tips

Try it with different variations of names. You may get different results.

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This is pretty fun in a group setting, where you can giggle about it.

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Don't take the results of this game too seriously. Though thinking about a potential relationship with someone can help you understand your feelings for that person, this is only a game.

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Tips from our Readers

The advice in this section is based on the lived experiences of wikiHow readers like you. If you have a helpful tip you’d like to share on wikiHow, please submit it in the field below.

For alternative flame games, tailor your male/female name lists to the players' relationship status. Having significant others mixed in could spark jealousy if certain combos keep getting drawn!
Have fun but don't take FLAME predictions too seriously or let them damage real relationships! These games randomly match names and actions. Base connections on true feelings, not just letters.
When playing flame games, openly communicate to ensure all players are comfortable with the suggested actions and name combinations. Don't pressure anyone into uncomfortable matches.
When tallying leftover letters, remember to stop counting on the letter you land on in FLAME, don't continue crossing out all duplicates. The first match predicts your relationship.
To include last names in FLAME, stack both first and surnames vertically, then cross out duplicate letters top to bottom. Using full names provides more letters to count from.

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