+GAMES
Song Contest
Everyone scores everyone, with points dealt from a no-repeat pool.
20 August 2026 · 4–12 PLAYERS · 2 min read
+POINTSIM SETUP
- Contestant type
- Countries or people · 6 contestants
- Scoring method
- Point pool · 12·10·8·7·6·5
- Scoring direction
- Highest wins
- Rounds
- 3 rounds
- Tie-break
- Last round
- Elimination
- Off
- Winning
- Podium: 3
How this game maps onto the settings in the PointSim app.
+SAMPLE SCORE TABLE
| # | CONTESTANTS | ROUND 1 | ROUND 2 | ROUND 3 | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Elif | 12 | 8 | 10 | 30 |
| 02 | Zeynep | 10 | 12 | 7 | 29 |
| 03 | Bora | 8 | 7 | 12 | 27 |
| 04 | Selin | 7 | 10 | 6 | 23 |
| 05 | Kaan | 6 | 5 | 8 | 19 |
| 06 | Deniz | 5 | 6 | 5 | 16 |
A sample run with the settings above — the standings are worked out with the same rule the app uses.
001
What is the game?
Everyone picks a song, the songs are played in turn and everyone scores them. It takes five minutes to set up, fills an hour of an evening, and reliably reveals something unexpected about the group’s taste in music.
What makes the format work is the scoring itself. In a system where everyone rates everything out of ten, the results bunch up: a good song gets an 8, a great song gets a 9, and the difference disappears. A no-repeat point pool fixes that — because each juror can hand out their set of scores only once, they are forced to rank.
002
Setting up a round
- Pick a theme. “Your favourite song” is too broad; something like “a song you are embarrassed by”, “a driving song” or “the nineties” makes choosing easier and keeps rounds distinct.
- Everyone picks one song. The game works far better if who picked what stays secret until the scoring is done.
- Play them in turn. Sixty to ninety seconds per song is plenty; playing them in full drags the round out.
- Score simultaneously. Everyone writes their scores down, then all are revealed at once. Announcing them in turn drags votes towards whoever is already ahead.
003
Scoring: why a pool?
In a six-contestant round each juror holds 12 · 10 · 8 · 7 · 6 · 5 and may give each score only once. They cannot vote for their own song, so in practice they spread five different scores across five songs.
- Ranking becomes compulsory. You cannot give everyone an 8 and call them all lovely.
- The extremes show. The gap between 12 and 5 creates a separation a 1-10 scale never produces.
- The result is readable. Totals do not cluster; the table shows a real order.
- The Eurovision resemblance is not a coincidence. The same structure is used for exactly this reason.
004
Setting it up in PointSim
Choose the point pool method and type in your pool values — the same score cannot be given twice in one round. Turn on “everyone scores everyone” and each contestant rates the others, with the round total built from those votes.
Switch the contestant type to countries and run it with flags; 100 are ready in the list. To play under your own names, the people type gives you 18 emoji and any name you like.
Three rounds means three themes. Nothing needs changing between them; the table re-sorts after each round and the podium opens after the last.
005
Variations
- Semi-final: switch elimination on after the first round and drop the bottom two; play the final with four songs.
- A different pool: widen it for a big group (12·10·8·7·6·5·4·3), narrow it for a small one (10·8·6).
- Single-judge format: turn “everyone scores everyone” off and let one host award the points — the setup then moves closer to the Quiz Night structure.
- Not just songs: the same setup works unchanged for a cook-off, presentations, photos or costumes.