The Game Gal

Family-friendly games for you and yours

About Me

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Hi! My name is Paige, and I like games – outdoor games, group games, family games, just fun games. Because, hey, who doesn’t enjoy having fun and laughing with family and friends? I grew up in a big family (the oldest of six kids), we had lots of cousins, and playing games was always a big part of my childhood and family reunions. I was also very involved in a youth group during high school, where we often played fun group games to get to know each other and have a good time.

Over the years I’ve played dozens of games, and eventually I started keeping a list. That list on a Word doc on my computer eventually turned into this website, where I thought that maybe I could share some of these games with others.

Another reason I started this website is to help families have more wholesome, quality family time, because I especially believe that quality family time is essential to having a happy family. Read about more ways to strengthen families.

About escape rooms, I started playing them several years ago and fell in love with them. They’re just so fun! Around the same time, my parents were in charge of a large group of young single adults at church. My mom asked me to help her write an at-home escape room for an activity for them. I had so much fun that I decided to write another…and another…and now I sell these play-at-home escape room kits on my website.

So, whether with escape rooms or games, if you’re planning a family reunion, throwing a party, entertaining bored kids, or just getting together with any group of people looking for some fun, I hope you can find the right game here.

If you have ideas for new games, comments, or suggestions, I’d love to hear them! You can contact me here.

As for just a little bit more about me (if you’re curious), I’m married to the best husband and dad in the world, who proofreads all my posts, is the webmaster and designer behind this site, and is my best friend and companion. We have three kids, and they keep us both busy and happy. My faith and religion are very important to my life. I graduated from Brigham Young University, where I studied English linguistics and editing. Afterwards I worked for a bit as a technical writer at an awesome educational children’s software company. Now I am a full-time mom. I’ve struggled with postpartum depression over the last few years, which has been at times very difficult. I’m grateful to friends, family, creative outlets like this blog, and mostly my husband for helping me through this tough trial. I often wish my life had more ice cream in it (can’t ever get enough ice cream), but I am very blessed and grateful for my life.

Comments

  1. So happy to have found your blog. You saved me with classroom parties this year. I’m excited to try some games at home with my family as well. Thank you for taking the time to share all of your great ideas!

  2. Dear Paige, I just wanted to say THANK YOU for all of these wonderful games! Your site is so cheerful and easy to navigate! I just became a mentor to an amazing 4th grade girl and I’m looking for fun activities we can do together. As I’m reading through your games I am really excited to share them with her during our meetings and also with my two boys (2nd and 4th grade) at home! I am also a substitute teacher and I am excited to have a new resource (back-up-plan) for those days when we have extra classroom time and not enough “work” to do! 🙂 Many blessings and thanks to you!!! Amanda

  3. This is a great site! I work with children at a church and am always looking for fun, simple, engaging game ideas. Yours is the best site I’ve seen! Thank you, congratulations, and keep it up the good work 🙂

  4. Greetings from Quebec, Canada! I’m really happy I came across your page- great ideas and a sense of family here. You should have a donations page! Keep up the great work!!!

  7. Thank you for the free word-lists! You saved me a lot of time!
    Having my son’s Birthday, this’ll be used for a Pictionary game for the parents!

  8. Game words: First love you game “Game Words”. I work at a drug detox and use the app to play game and relive stress. The patients always thank me for doing my group with your app. I noticed 2 weeks ago that when i tried using your app on my Iphone 6, when I try to change the difficulty level or the game i want to play it won’t let me. I think this started when one of the updates happened. I have tried to delete the game and reinstall it on my phone but nothing seems to fix this issue. I didn’t know if you were aware of this problem.I was wondering if you could look into this problem for me. Thank you for your great game and time with this.
    Joseph

  9. Your blog is a blessing! I’m teaching English in China and have used and modified several of your games to use in my adult classes 🙂 I look forward to your upcoming ideas. Warmth, Michael

  10. Hello Paige,
    Greetings from France, somewhere near a wood in Paris
    What a nice blog! I found you today, and I will try out your action Charades in my English class tomorrow (adults, first time! Up till now I’ve been teaching kids)

  13. Paige, as an English teacher I’ve found this website absolutely marvellous! Thank you so much for all the material and ideas. I’ll even play some of these games at home with my family. I’m sharing the site with all my colleagues. Have a great New Year!

  14. Hello Paige,
    I surprised a group of teenage robotics club members with your Science Lab Escape Room game this evening. Great job on the game. The kids really enjoyed it. Totally worth the $25. The clues were great, the graphics were great, the theme was great and you tied the whole game together nicely. Nice touch having the clues on the web sites. Very well written and thought out. Instructions were clear and easy to understand. I give you 5 stars!

  15. I love this website! I work in the UK, using play and creativity to help families and communities. I also just love playing games with my own family. There are quite a lot of games here that I haven’t heard of before, which is really fun, and there’s a such a strong sense of fun in the way you write about them. Thanks 🙂

  16. Hi Paige!
    I just discovered your website today and it is AWESOME! I’m a Speech-Language Pathologist who works with kids all day, and many of your games will be perfect for me to work on speech sounds and language at a conversational level. Thanks for taking the time to develop your Word doc into a blog that can help families and professionals alike! 🙂

  17. hi! I found your website last night and was hoping to purchase one of the escape room packages for two birthday parties this month – one party is a group of 10 year olds and the other party is a group of 8 year olds. What do you recommend?

  19. Hi there, just wondering what escape room game you’d recommend for an 11 year old girls party. Would the science one be ok or too tricky?

  20. Hey Paige!! I’m 9 and I wanted to ask you if you have made a game where a computer guess the picture you have drawn to a real life picture like if you watch Denis on YouTube he played a game like that and he mostly drew cats cuz he has a stuff animal called: Sir meows alot. Denis is so funny and I have a list of my favorite youtubers so you can check them out!!😀😀

  22. you are the best for creating this website/app. You did an amazing Job! I’m wondering if there is a way to embed your word generator into other sites?

  24. thank you soooo much for this website
    i was looking for words and cards to play pictionary since i don’t have the game
    i was soo excited and happy when i found you word generator because i didn’t have to print anything

    xoxo
    your fan raya

  25. Thankyou so much, I have a 4 year old granddaughter who I miss so much due to this corona virus, I have read and made up 3 of your games that I can play with her through the glass screen door tomorrow.I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks again. Stay safe.

  26. Thank you for this site! We are using it on zoom family game night to play Pictionary with three families who can’t hang out together during quarantine. Do you think we can make up an ‘escape room’ for youth groups to do on Zoom? They could use the break out rooms and race to break out?

    1. Oh fun! A Zoom family game night sounds like a great break. I think you could totally make up an escape room! If you want to write your own, I have some tips. You could also buy one of my pre-made kits. I think Science Lab Breakout would be the best to do over Zoom. I’m actually working on a kit made specifically to play over Zoom. I hope to release it soon!

  27. The word generator is fantastic. We used it to play charades with my grandmother over zoom. The kids had blast. They took turns acting things out for over an hour!

  28. Hi there! I’m 12 years old and I am soon to be laying foundations for a website of my own, based on fictional stories. Your website looks great! It looks very professional and sleek. Do you have any tips for how I can make my website look professional?
    Thanks for the help!

    1. Hi Leesha! Thank you! Congratulations on starting your own website. For website design, I would keep it simple. You can look for inspiration from other websites you like. But mostly, I would say just focus on good content. That’s more important than anything. My website definitely didn’t start out looking professional and sleek. It was very, very simple when I first got it going. But I just focused on writing posts and putting out content and eventually it grew. So just practice and experiment and you’ll do great. Starting at 12, you’re already getting a huge head start! Send me a link when it’s ready!

  29. Hi,
    I am looking for Password PLUS words and topics that go with word groups. Do you have any ideas where I can find them?
    Thanks!!!

    1. I’m unfamiliar with that game. How do you play? I might have a word list already made that could be repurposed for it. I have lists of words in my word generator in different categories.

  30. Hello again,
    Thank you for your reply. I saw your word generator. That is a great resource. Password PLUS uses words that lead to a topic. Like sport, ball, hit, bat = baseball. Contestants try to guess the words then guess the topic that goes with them. So I need a word list and the topic that goes with it. I think I can useTaboo words as the topic and the forbidden words as the word list. If you think of anything else let me know. I like your website. Thank you.

  31. Hello! Ive just found this website. Thank you for your ideas! I want to ask. Can I make my own list of words with a timer? like charades?

  32. Hey @TheGameGal , stumbled upon your website a couple moments ago and i am already in love with it . I am 12 years old and was looking for virtual games for my bestie’s b’day party …. got everything
    thanks

  34. Hi Paige, An adult student of mine here in Bogotá, Colombia just brought your site to my attention. He was turned on to it from a tutor he uses through Cambly. So your work really gets around and many teachers find it useful! My students here are techy adults, but I can still see many of the games and activities you’ve created being very helpful. Thanks for your hard working putting this out into the world!

    (And just for the record, the ice cream here in Colombia generally is not very good. They literally put cheese on it sometimes!)

    1. Oh thank you so much for the kind words! So neat to know that people throughout the world are using the resources I’ve gathered. 🙂 (And I hope you get to eat some actually delicious ice cream before too long!)

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