Practice doesn't have to feel like homework. Some of the best voice acting practice is a game: you, a mic, a clip with the sound off, and friends judging you mercilessly. Here are the voice acting games worth playing, plus a few you can run tonight with nothing but a call and a timer.

Dubbing games you can download

• The Choicer Voicer. You get a clip, a character and a line, then record your best impression while everyone else votes. It blew up on streams, and it's a great test of how fast you can find a character. Grab it from the developer's itch.io page.
• What The Dub?! It's a party game built around replacing the dialogue in old B-movies and strange training films. It tests your timing and how funny you are under pressure more than your voice.

Party games are great for loosening up. For practice that sticks, mix them with the free games below, which you control.

Games you can play tonight for free

Mute and dub

Pick a 20 second clip from a cartoon or anime, mute it, and record new lines that fit the mouth movements. Everyone does the same clip, then you play them back to back. It's exactly what fan dub directors want, so it's the most useful game on this page.

Voice roulette

One person calls out a character type (pirate, toddler, tired wizard, haunted vending machine) and a line. You have three seconds to start talking. It trains the thing auditions need most: committing to a choice fast.

Emotion dice

Write six emotions on a list and roll a die, or use a random number. Read the same line in whatever comes up. Then roll twice and blend them: "angry but trying to stay polite" is where the good stuff is.

Accent telephone

Someone says a line in an accent. The next person repeats it in their own take on that accent, and so on down the line. By the fifth person it's a completely new accent, and you learn exactly what you heard and what you made up.

Narrator swap

Read a page of a story aloud. Every time a new character speaks, the next player has to voice them, and the narrator has to keep the pace going. It's great practice for audiobooks and audio dramas.

Cold read battle

Everyone gets the same short script they've never seen, 30 seconds to read it over, then one take. There are no retakes. Vote on the best. This is the closest thing to a real audition, and the most nerve-wracking.

Turn the game into a real role

The fun version and the real version aren't far apart. Fan dubs are basically mute and dub with a director, and they cast newcomers all the time. Once you've played a few rounds, try fan dubbing for beginners, work through the voice acting challenges, or jump into open fan dub auditions.