As many players as possible line up such that they can whisper to their immediate neighbors but not hear any players farther away. The player at the beginning of the line thinks of a phrase, and whispers it as quietly as possible to his neighbor. The neighbor then passes on the message to the next player to the best of his ability. The passing continues in this fashion until it reaches the player at the end of the line, who calls out the message he or she received.

If the game has been 'successful', the final message will bear little or no resemblance to the original, because of the cumulative effect of mistakes along the line. Deliberately changing the phrase is often considered cheating, but if the starting phrase is poorly chosen, there may be disappointingly little natural change.

The game has no winner: the entertainment comes from comparing the original and final messages. Intermediate messages may also be compared; some messages will be unrecognizable after only a few steps.