Sportsup vs Picolo: which party game fits you?

Picolo is a pass-the-phone party game published by the French studio Marmelapp. Players enter a few names, share one phone, and follow on-screen cards with dares, challenges and opinion questions. In keeping with the drinking-game format, whoever loses or declines a card takes a drink.

It is a big, polished app. Picolo is free to download with a limited starter mode, and on the US App Store it carries roughly a 4.7-out-of-5 rating from around 45,000 ratings, which tells you something about the quality. It runs on iOS and Android, is rated 18+, and supports 14 languages including Swedish.

If your crew just wants fast, broad party dares with no particular theme, Picolo is a solid pick. That is exactly what it is built for: lighthearted challenges and opinion cards for a general party crowd.

The biggest difference is the content. Picolo is built on randomized dares and opinion cards. Sportsup is dedicated sports trivia: questions cover football, hockey, MMA, esports, golf and the Olympics, and answers are multiple choice with three options on a 1/X/2 slip.

There is also a real game mechanic. In Sportsup, right answers score points, and only wrong answers earn a penalty your group defines (a sip, a push-up, a dare, whatever you like). That means knowledge actually gets rewarded, unlike a card that simply tells you to drink. The penalty does not require alcohol, and there is a drink-free option.

Every answer also has a written explanation and a source link. Thousands of fact-checked questions sit behind it, so it is not guesswork. If you want to start narrow, there is a pure football quiz covering the Premier League, internationals and big European nights.

Picolo monetizes through paid content packs and a premium subscription, with a one-time Premium purchase also offered. So much of the content sits behind payment beyond the free starter mode, which is a common and perfectly reasonable model.

Sportsup does it differently. There are no accounts, no tracking and no ads. Some packs are free, others are one-time in-app purchases, nothing auto-renews and there is no subscription. You never log in, and the app works offline after the first load.

And because Sportsup is made in Sweden, its sports culture is native rather than translated, while the English edition is written for an international audience with Premier League and NHL examples. Both apps offer Swedish, but Picolo is a broad, translated format whereas Sportsup is built around real sports knowledge. For more options in the space, see our Picolo alternatives guide.

Pick Picolo if: your crew wants broad, mixed party challenges and dares with no sports theme, you prefer randomized cards over knowledge questions, and you want a big app with many languages and modes to unlock.

Pick Sportsup if: you are sports fans who want to test real knowledge, you like that right answers score and only wrong answers earn a penalty, and you want fact-checked questions with an explanation and a source. Sportsup also fits if you prefer no accounts, no tracking and no ads, plus one-time purchases over a subscription.

Honestly, they are not mutually exclusive. Plenty of groups keep Picolo for general pre-parties and Sportsup for nights when the sport takes center stage. If you want a wider look, see our roundup of the best drinking game apps.