How to play the dubbing game

PartyDub is a dub game for two to ten people: everyone re-voices the same clip at the same time, alone, and then the room votes on whose version is best. A round takes about five to ten minutes.

New to the genre? What a dubbing game is, and how the free ones compare.

A round, step by step

1. 1

   Start a room and share the code

   The host creates a room and reads out the six-character code. Everyone else types it in — no account, no install, no app. Two people is enough to play; four to eight is where it gets loud.

2. 2

   Pick a clip worth dubbing

   The host picks a short video from their own device and marks where the lines are — a minute on the timeline, and the marks are yours to keep. Or open a scene from the public library, already marked, and skip that step entirely. Supporters can have the lines found for them instead.

3. 3

   Get cast, and find out nothing else

   Players are split into teams, one person per character. You learn which character you got and that is all — you do not hear anybody else's take while you work.

4. 4

   Record your lines, badly, on purpose

   Your lines come one at a time with the original timing. Redo any of them as often as you like. Nobody can hear you, which is exactly why people commit to the accent.

5. 5

   Watch every version back and vote

   Each team's dub plays for the whole room, and nobody has heard any of them yet. Then you vote — for anyone except yourself.

What makes a clip play well

Most of whether a round lands is decided before anybody records, and it is decided by the clip. The rules are short:

• Thirty to ninety seconds. Long enough for a scene to turn, short enough that everybody is still performing at the end of it.
• Two to four speakers. One speaker is a monologue and nobody has anything to react to. Six is a crowd, and half the room gets three words.
• Arguments beat explanations. A clip where two people talk over each other is far better to dub than one where somebody calmly describes something.
• Faces help. Voice acting to a visible mouth is easier and funnier than dubbing a voiceover with nothing on screen to hit.

Playing with memes

Short meme clips are some of the best material there is for a dub game — the timing is already tight, everybody knows the shape of the thing, and a wrong voice on a familiar face is most of the joke. The rule is the same one that applies to everything else you bring: it has to be yours to use. Your own footage, your own recordings, anything openly licensed, or anything you hold the rights to.

PartyDub never supplies the material for a round you host: it is an engine you point at your own clip — which is also why the video never reaches our servers. The public library is the other way in: scenes people chose to publish, ready to play. See the acceptable use policy for where the line sits.

Being better at the voice acting

Nobody here is a voice actor, and the game is much better for it. Three things separate a take people vote for from one they politely sit through:

• Commit in the first second. A confident wrong choice beats a careful impression every time. The worst take in any round is the hesitant one.
• Match the rhythm, not the words. Landing on the same beats as the original is what makes a dub feel like a dub. What you actually say matters far less.
• Use the retakes. You can redo any line as many times as you want, and nobody hears the discarded ones. There is no reason to keep a first attempt.