What it is: A talking game with a pretty good potential for giggles

Best for: A small group of players (3 or more), any age

What you need: Nothing!

How to play: If you’re familiar with Twenty Questions, this game will be easy to learn because it’s very similar. The main difference is, in Twenty Questions, players think of nouns. In Poodle, it’s all about verbs.

To start, one player (say Dolly) thinks of a verb, like skateboarding. She keeps the verb a secret, and other players then ask Dolly questions and try to guess her verb, like in Twenty Questions. But the twist is, any time a sentence would have skateboarding in it, players replace it with poodle. (That’s where the potential for giggles comes in.)

So some sample questions might be:

• Has anyone here poodled today?
• Does it take a lot of skill to poodle?
• If I wanted to get up and poodle right now, could I?
• Do you need any equipment to poodle?
• Do you poodle outside or inside?
• Is poodling hard?
• Who’s the best poodler in our family?

Dolly can answer the questions, and provide some additional clarification or hints, also using the code word poodle. So, she could say things like, “No, you’d get in trouble if you poodled at school,” or “Yes, you need something specific to poodle,” or “No one in our family can poodle very well.”

Unlike Twenty Questions, it’s fun if Dolly says more than just yes or no (because sometimes you can’t help but laugh when you say a sentence with poodle as a verb in it). It’s fun for her to give extra hints, too. If you have a larger group, it can also be fun if more than one person is in on they clue word. That way they can both answer questions and offer opinions (since a lot of times the questions aren’t as clear-cut as they are in a game of Twenty Questions).

Our family has had a lot of fun with this game. Again, for some reason, you just can’t help but giggle when you say some of the sentences or give some of the answers. Some of the verbs we’ve played with are trick-or-treating, doing the dishes, fighting, reading, eating, and (my four-year-old’s idea) burping.

We found the game a long time ago online, and I wish I had the source for it. (If you know it or have played the game before, leave a comment!)

Variations: Some very similar games are 20 questions, no/because, and breakfast combo. Some other word-guessing games include password and three things.

What it is: A simple and kind of silly talking game

Best for: A small group, and kids older than about 5

What you need: Just your brains!

How to play: 

Leg of spider,
Tail of rat,
Turn your dog
Into a hat!

In this game, players take turns making up silly spells. The spells follow this format:

[Ingredient 1],
[Ingredient 2],
Turn your _____
Into [something silly that rhymes with ingredient 2]

The ingredients often, but not always, take the form:

[Body part] of [animal or plant]

So, some examples of spells…

Thorn of rose,
Foot of frog,
Turn your grandmother
Into a dog!

Tail of unicorn,
Eye of newt,
Turn your homework
Into a boot.

Grease of bacon,
Horn of goat,
Turn your bed
Into a boat!

There are two ways you can take turns. One player can make up a whole spell and then play passes to the next player. Or, what I personally think is more fun, four players make up a spell together. Player 1 says the first line, player 2 says the second line, and so on. Player 4 should be someone old enough to rhyme.

It can be a great game for kids to teach rhyming skills and encourage creativity.

So how about it? What spells can you guys come up with? Post in a comment below!

Disclaimer if magic runs in your family: The Game Gal is not responsible for any friends, family members, and/or pets being turned into items including but not limited to monsters, animals, and/or household objects.

What it is: It’s not the card game – it’s a quiet game of perception and memorization

Best for: Any size group, with players old enough to write

What you need:

• Paper and a writing utensil for everyone
• A tray or flat area to display items
• Items to display and memorize. It works great if there’s a theme to follow, like items from a diaper bag if it’s a baby shower, or jewelry and accessories for a princess themed party.

How to play: First, assemble your items. The number of items you have will vary depending on the age of your players and how hard you want the game to be. Let’s pretend you’re playing the game at an art themed birthday party. You might gather items such as these:

• An orange crayon
• A blue marker
• Watercolor paints
• Big paint brush
• Small paint brush
• Sheet of paper
• Pencil
• A red colored pencil
• Eraser
• A purple bottle of paint
• Pencil sharpener
• One paper towel
• A piece of green construction paper
• A yellow pipe cleaner
• Two googly eyes

Seat all your players in a room. Give each a piece of paper and something to write with. Then bring out your items. It’s handy if you have them on a tray or a table. Set a timer and give your players a set amount of time to study the objects. Depending on the age of your players and the number of your objects, this might be one minute, three minutes, or even 30 seconds.

When the timer ends, remove all the items from your players’ view. If they’re on a table or on the floor, you could throw a towel or sheet over them.

Set another timer and give your players a chance to write down as many of the items they can remember. Again, you could give them one minute, five minutes, or whatever you think is appropriate.

After everyone has had a chance to write down as many items they can remember, show the items one by one. Anyone who wrote down the displayed item gets a point. You can offer two points to players who remember something about the item, too; for example, if they wrote “orange crayon” instead of just “crayon.”

After players tally up their own points, ask things like, “Who remembered at least 10 things? Who remembered at least 12? Who remembered more than 15?” until you narrow down enough players and eventually find the player or players who remembered the most. They get a prize!

It’s a great shower or party game. Have fun!

What it is: A game to test how well husbands and wives know each other

Best for: A group of husbands and wives of any age, whether they’re newlyweds or celebrating their 50th anniversary!

What you need: 

• The free printable included with this post
• Pens or pencils

How to play: One person will need to host the game and print the file beforehand. The included printable has blue (player) pages and orange (host) pages. Print one copy of the blue pages for each player. Print one copy total of the orange pages.

After you print, cut all the pages in half. Each half-sheet represents a round. You can read through all of the rounds and choose your favorites ahead of time, or play them all!

After you’ve printed, chosen your rounds, and organized your papers, invite your players to start!

Let’s start with the husbands. Give each husband a copy of the blue (player) Round 1 half-sheet.

Make sure they label it with their name (that’s important). Have them quietly write in their answers. Don’t let the wives peek!

As the host, gather the husband’s filled-out questionnaires. Then seat the wives at the front of the room.

Using the host’s corresponding Round 1 sheet, read the first question out loud to the first wife.

She gives an answer out loud, no hints allowed. After she answers, read her husband’s answer to the corresponding question out loud. If the answers are the same, give the question a check mark and the wife gets a point.

Repeat with the second wife. After each wife has answered the first question, repeat with the other four questions.

At the end of Round 1, count up each wife’s correct answers. The wife with the most correct answers wins the round and a point for her and her husband.

Then switch spots – the wives will write the answers on a blue (player) page. You can either repeat Round 1 and ask the wives the same questions, or move on to a new round. After the wives write their answers, collect the sheets, invite the husbands to the front of the room, and use the corresponding host’s page to ask the husbands the corresponding questions out loud. Husbands get a point for each correct answer, and the husband with the most points at the end of the round wins the round and a point for him and his wife.

After you’ve played all of the rounds you wish to play, the couple who has won the most rounds wins the game!

Printable: Here’s the free printable to grab! 

Variations: Instead of declaring a winner after each round, add up all of a couple’s points, husband’s and wife’s, from all rounds. The couple with the highest overall points wins.

You can also declare a winner within each couple – whoever got the most questions right, the husband or the wife, wins (and the loser needs to pay more attention when their spouse talks).

I also have a version of the same game to play at bridal showers and one for mothers and daughters.

What it is: A get-to-know-you game, a game to get people to share facts about themselves

Best for: A shower or a class or other group get-together where players are meeting each other for the first time

What you need:

• A roll of toilet paper

How to play: To start, have everyone sit down in a circle. Hand the toilet paper roll to one player and tell them to take as much as they think they will need and keep it. If they ask, “What’s it for?” just say, “Take as much as you think you will need.” Don’t give any guidance as to how much toilet paper they should unroll.

After the first player unrolls their toilet paper, tell them to hand the toilet paper roll to the next person and pass the message down to take some toilet paper, again with no guidance on how much toilet paper to take, just “Take as much as you think you will need.” Don’t tell players what it’s for. If they ask, say a game and nothing more.

Once all of your players have a wad of toilet paper, announce how the game works: each person must go around the room and share facts about themselves, one fact per square of toilet paper they unrolled. Some players might have taken big wads, while some might have taken just a few squares. Either case, each square of toilet paper equals one fact.

You could have some questions handy to ask in case people run out of ideas. Check out the word generator or the get to know you questions post for some ideas!

It’s just a simple activity to, well, trick people into sharing lots of facts about themselves.

Variations: Instead of toilet paper, you could use a jar of small objects, like coins, M&Ms, or paper clips. Still tell players to take as many as they think they will need. The toilet paper throws in a humor factor, though.

What it is: A talking guessing game perfect for young children

Best for: A small group of children plus some adults

What you need: Nothing!

How to play: Players take turns naming three things in a category. The rest of the players then guess the category.

For example, Matt says “Tyrannosaurus, Brontosaurus, Procompsognathus.” It’s pretty each to guess that the category is dinosaurs (this is why it’s a good game for small kids).

(Yes, I know, you’re like, “A good game for small kids? What small kid is going to know Procompsognathus?” But I just saw Jurassic World so I had dinosaurs on my mind, plus I wanted to draw a compy. Cute, right?)

Here’s some more examples, ranging from easy to more difficult:

• Katerina, Prince Wednesday, Daniel (characters from Daniel Tiger)
• Daisy, rose, violet (flowers)
• Chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodle (types of cookies)
• Shoes, candy wrappers, rocks from the playground (things found in the backseat of our family van)

You can adjust the limit to 5 things instead of 3, or you can let the item-namer come up with an unlimited number of additional items, until the category is guessed.

If you want ideas of items in categories, check out the post three deep – that’s essentially all it is, groups of 3 items sorted into categories. You’ll have to figure out the category on your own, though

What it is: A reverse of the game catchphrase. Instead of one person talking while everyone else guesses, it’s the opposite; everyone talks while one person guesses. (Head on over to catchphrase if you don’t know how to play.)

Best for: 5 to 10 players

What you need: 

• A list of catchphrase words or, even better, an app or website like my word generator would be really handy.
• A chalkboard, dry erase board, or TV screen to display words on

How to play: First, your setup. You need some surface to display words on where everyone in the room can see it, except for one person who will sit with their back to the word. We’ll call that person Dave.

If you have a board to write on, have Dave sit with his back to it and have a list of words ready to write on the board.

We’ve played before with my word generator app and an Apple TV. We just Airplay the app up to the TV so it’s easy to tap and display new words. (If you have an Android you can also cast to, for example, a Google Chromecast.) Dave would sit or stand to the side of the TV, with his back to it.

As part of your set up, you can also divide your players into two teams.

Dave’s team goes first and, as said, sends Dave up to sit with his back to the TV (or board). Write or display your first word on the board or screen, say “go,” and start a 30-second or 1-minute timer. Dave’s team reads the first word, which is “monster.” Then they all try as fast as they can, with talking only and no acting, to get Dave to guess the word.

• “A big hairy thing that chases kids and hides in closets!”
• “Sulley and Mike from that Pixar movie!”
• “Kids are scared this is hiding under their bed!”
• “Oscar and Elmo and Grover from Sesame Street are all…”

It will probably be pretty crazy, as you can imagine, with everyone shouting. Just like in regular catchphrase, players aren’t allowed to say any form of the word “monsters” or any word that contains “monsters” (like Monsters, Inc.).

As soon as Dave says “monster,” write or show a new word on the board or screen. Everyone keeps going until the timer runs out. Then tally up the points Dave’s team got (the number of words they guessed correctly) and let the other team have a turn.

It’ll be crazy and include a lot of shouting, but that’s all part of the fun!

For a list of word ideas to use, check out my online word generator or download the app (available for iOS or Android), or visit the catchphrase post or the printables page for some PDFs you can download.

Variations: Catchphrase, of course, is a variation. The game celebrities also has some catchphrase elements to it.

What it is: A mash-up movie guessing game that takes some creativity

Best for: Teens to adults

What you need: 

• You might find the IMDb or a list of movie titles helpful

How to play: Can you name this movie?

A snobbish phonetics professor agrees to a wager that he can take a flower girl’s innocent pet cocker spaniel and make her presentable in high society before a streetwise downtown mutt falls in love with her first.

Sound a little wacky? Well, it’s not a real movie. It’s a mash-up! A made-up summary of a combination of two movie titles that share a word…

My Fair Lady and the Tramp!

The summary combines parts of the movie My Fair Lady (1964), a movie about a phonetics professor passing off a flower girl in high society, with Lady and the Tramp (1955), a movie about an innocent pet cocker spaniel falling in love with a streetwise downtown mutt.

That’s the game! Take turns with your friends coming up with summaries of mashed-up movies and see if you can guess. See how wacky they get. Do you want some more examples?

A high school student time travels to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, where rebels are battling against a mean bully and his fleet of star ships, so they must stop the Empire from preventing his parents from meeting and falling in love.

A father and daughter attempt to defend their flock of orphaned Canada Geese from idiotic burglars during the holidays.

The Soviet Union’s best submarine captain in their newest sub violates orders and heads for the U.S., while a coal miner’s son with an interest in rocketry attempts to track down the sub and find out if the captain is trying to defect or start a war.

And then, finally, one from my brother-in-law that’s a bit of a stretch and might be a little tricky…

“Crouch, I say, crouch! Now you—hide!”

Guess all four movie titles in this post and I’ll give you a free escape room kit from my site!

Or do you have a movie title or summary to share? Post it in the comments! Maybe you can come up with a summary for one of these wacky combinations:

• The Corpse Bride of Frankenstein
• Black Beauty and the Beast
• October Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
• The Great Escape to Witch Mountain
• A Little Princess Bride
• We’re Back to the Future
• It’s a Wonderful Life is Beautiful
• Treasure Planet of the Apes
• Star Wars of the Worlds
• Shark Tale of Two Cities
• Finding Neverland Before Time
• She’s the Man for All Seasons
• The Swan Princess Bride
• Forever Young Frankenstein
• Mighty Joe Young Indiana Jones
• Jungle 2 Jungle Book
• Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey to the Center of the Earth

One last bonus, here’s a printable list of more mashed-up movie summaries with answers. You can give the list to a group and see who can get the most right. It would be a great movie night activity!

What it is: A simple on-the-go out loud trivia game to play with family members

Best for: A family! Especially young children who need a game to play to kill time

What you need: Just some general knowledge about your family!

How to play: This game just consists of asking each other trivia questions about family members. Here’s an example:

• Out of Uncle Max and Uncle John, who used to live in Canada?

And then see who can answer the question correctly. It’s works best, of course, if parents come up with the questions and the children see if they can answer them. The questions can be easy or more challenging. The questions just always take the format:

• Out of _____ and _____, who _____?

Here are some other examples of things you could ask:

• Who worked as a ___?
• Who lived ___?
• Who knows how to ___?
• Who studied ___ in school?
• Who had ___ when they were a child?
• Who grew up with ___?
• Who did ___?
• Who lives ___?

It’s a fun way to learn about family members: parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, even siblings. It’s fun to test how well you know your family. It’s simple, but engaging. When we’re around the dinner table or waiting in line, this is one of the games our kids request the most.

Best for: Teens to adults

What you need:

• Only a list of words (and I’ve got plenty for you)

How to play: You play password with two teams of two. There’s one word (the password) that one player on each team knows, and both are trying to get their teammate to guess the word first by taking turns giving one-word clues.

Here’s how it works.

Let’s say our players are Ben and Brooke (on one team) and Dan and Donna (on the other team).

Each team chooses one player to go first. We’ll say Ben and Dan. Using a word generator or paper slips or cards with words written on them, one word is chosen, the word that will be the password for both of them. We’ll say it’s “key.”

Ben and Dan both know the password, while it’s kept secret from Brooke and Donna.

Once Ben and Dan both know the password, the game can start. One of them will go first, say Ben. He gets a chance to get his teammate Brooke to guess the password. The trick is, Ben can only give a one-word clue. He might say “lock.” With her one-word clue, Brooke thinks and makes a one-word guess as to what the password might be. She might say, “door?” Because she guesses incorrectly, it’s now Dan and Donna’s turn.

Dan can now give Donna a one-word clue. He might say “metal.” Now Donna has the benefit of knowing Dan’s clue (metal) as well as Ben’s (lock). But she might still guess incorrectly and say, “safe?”

Now it’s Ben’s turn again. He thinks hard and gives the clue “unlock.” It’s Brooke’s turn to guess, and now she has three clues to work with: lock, metal, and unlock. That might be enough for her to correctly guess, “key?”

Play goes back and forth between the two teams, as many turns as it takes, until someone guesses the password. Once someone correctly guesses the password, the round is over, that team gets a point, and you start another round. Switch roles first, so Brooke and Donna are giving the clues and Ben and Dan are guessing. Every two rounds, switch which team goes first.

That’s the basic gameplay! It’s simple and might even seem boring, but it can actually get really funny. You might have seen the game played on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Depending on how you play, the game might also be a fun test as to how well two players know each other. If you are OK with using shared knowledge as clues, the more you know about your partner and the way they think, the better chance you have of figuring out their clues. For example, once when my husband and I were playing, the password was stomp. The other team had given the clue foot, and it was my turn to give my husband a clue. Our three-year-old daughter was going through a very stubborn phase where she was apt to throw mini tantrums, so I only had to say Annelise for my husband to know exactly what I was talking about.

As for what words to use, the word lists for catchphrase, either easy or medium, might work well. My online or app form word generator is a great resource. Multi-meaning words like organ and wave are always interesting, because the clue-givers can say any one-word clue they want, even if they use a different definition of the password that has previously been used. The same goes for words like coach or bruise that can be either verbs or nouns.

Rules: Like in catchphrase, rhyming words are not allowed as clues. So, for example, if the password were sassy and someone, after a few rounds, tried to use the word Lassie as a clue, that would be against the rules, because sassy and Lassie have no relation except for the fact that they rhyme (well, unless you have a pet dog named Lassie with some serious sass). The same goes for using clue words simply because they have the same first letter as the password.

There are lots of other rules that many readers have shared! Check out the comments below for some. I think when you play with your friends and family, if you are serious about the rules, clarify them all with everyone beforehand and be prepared to settle disputes if they arise.

Variations: The game is similar to catchphrase.

What it is: A silly drawing game that was actually sent in from a reader! Thanks, Jennifer!

Best for: Three to eight players (and a great game for children)

What you need:

• Paper and pens or pencils. You could get fancy with crayons, markers, or colored pencils. You could also get fancy with a pre-made printable form, like the one I provide below

How to play: The game is pretty simple. A paper is divided into thirds and different players draw a monster head, body, and feet, creating a silly monster masterpiece (or monsterpiece) that everyone can laugh at, because the results always end up being funny.

The secret is folding the paper so the current artist can’t see what the previous artists drew. So, Lucy might draw a monster head, then fold over a third of the paper, hiding the head. She would pass the paper to Bryce, who would draw a monster body, then fold the paper over, hiding the body, and pass it to Susan, who would draw the feet. Then unfold the paper for the big reveal!

On the included printable, there are two monster drawing blanks to a page. The drawing space is divided into thirds; once you draw a monster head, fold the paper down until the top edge meets the first line, covering the head. Repeat with the other two sections. The small vertical marks on the horizontal lines tell you how wide to make the monster neck and waist, so the three sections fit together well.

I hope you and your family have some fun monster-drawing silliness with this game, just in time for Halloween!

Draw a Monster Printable

Best for: Two people or a small group, probably ages 8 and up

What you need: Nothing but your brains!

How to play: The basic gameplay is simple: one player thinks of an object and the other players try to guess what it is. For this game, it’s best if there’s a pre-determined category, like food, people, animals, etc. The category that has worked the best for us is people.

But let’s play with food and say Julie thinks of banana bread.

She’s playing with Laura, who, unlike in twenty questions, makes guesses by naming a specific food. For example:

Laura: Is it an orange?

To give Laura a clue, Julie gives a statement starting “No, because…” Like this:

Julie: No, because it doesn’t grow on trees.

Laura guesses another specific food, and then another.

Laura: Is it lemonade?

Julie: No, because you don’t drink it.

Laura: Is it pizza?

Julie: No, because it’s sweeter.

Laura: Is it a strawberry?

Julie: No, because it’s manmade.

Laura: Is it a cookie?

At this point, when Laura’s guess is pretty close to Julie’s item, Laura can give a clue in the form of “No, but…”

Julie: No, but it is a baked good.

Laura keeps guessing until she gets it.

Laura: Is it…oh, I don’t know, banana bread?

Julie: Yes! Wow, good guess!

It can actually be a challenging game. It can be hard to come up with specific guesses when you know so little about the object in question. It can also be difficult to come up with clues that aren’t too easy and aren’t too hard. And it actually hasn’t worked too well with my young children. Carson, my six year old, often looses interest in guessing because it’s too hard or, when it’s his turn to give the clues, gives ones like these:

Me: Is it an eraser?

Carson: No, because it doesn’t erase things.

Me: Is it a stapler?

Carson: No, because it doesn’t staple things.

See my problem? So I would say this game is better suited for older children to adults who want a more challenging version of twenty questions with more thought involved.

Variations: This game, in addition to being like twenty questions, is also pretty similar to the game breakfast combo. (It actually started out as me trying to come up with a version of breakfast combo that my young children could play, because my husband and I play it together but it’s too difficult for them.) If you want another twenty questions variation that’s great for young kids, try poodle, which just might also get you laughing!

What it is: A people-watching game. If you’re thinking from the title that it’s a mean game, don’t worry. It’s not supposed to be at all.

Best for: One, two, or three people.

What you need:

• A place to people-watch. So a mall or airport or a big event like a sports game where there are lots of people to observe.

How to play: When you’re somewhere crowded where you want to pass the time, people watching is a great activity. It can be fun with friends, too. In this game, you look at the clothes other people are wearing and ask yourself, “Would I wear that?”

The goal isn’t to be mean or to judge others. It’s to think about yourself and what styles you like to wear, what you’d be willing to try, what you could or couldn’t pull off, what you think looks good on you and what doesn’t. So I guess it’s not so much of a people-watching game as an…outfit-watching game.

It might be informative, too. Maybe you might get some ideas about clothes you’ve always liked but haven’t ever tried. Maybe you just realize things about your taste that you’ve never noticed before. (For example, I realized that the harder it is to identify a color, the more I like it. Bright, obvious, bold royal blue – ew. But a shirt that’s kind of grayish-purpleish-brownish or maybe orangeish-pinkish-tanish? Love it.)

Variations: There are lots of variations to people-watching – basically sitting somewhere and watching strangers walk past. You could try to guess where they’re from or where they’re going (perfect for in an airport). You could try to invent a crazy exciting backstory for them. You could make it more of a scavenger hunt with a list of things to find. I’ve made some printables for a people-watching scavenger hunt you could play in an airport and one you could play on a date night.

What it is: A cooperative talking game where players try to say the same word at the same time.

Best for: Two players. I’ve seen it done with three, which is more difficult but could be doable.

What you need: You don’t need anything to play, other than your brains.

How to play: This is a simple game that can provide hours of fun. It’s kind of addicting, almost, once you get started.

After I learned the game, I found out it’s from the band OK Go (you know, the ones with all the awesome music videos?). (This one isn’t really official, but I think it’s my favorite…except a lot of them are kind of my favorite.) OK Go actually has a video that explains the game really well, as well as an app that lets you play even when you’re not with friends. Go check them out! So though I know this post won’t be as entertaining as OK Go’s video, I’ll go ahead and explain how to play here, too.

You start by having two people each say a word at the same time. Any word. It will be a random pair, and that’s okay.

Let’s say Adam and Liz are playing. These are the two words they say:

• Adam: See saw
• Liz: Trip

To make sure they say their words at the same, one or both of them can snap their fingers three times. After the third snap, or on an optional fourth snap, they each say their word.

After that first round, Adam and Liz go again. But this time they’re going to try to say the same word. They do this by trying to find a word that connects the first two words, or something they have in common. You could also think of it as finding the intersection between the two words. So the second round might look like this, with the players’ thought process included:

• Adam: Playground (because this is where you’d trip over a see saw)
• Liz: Fall (because if you tripped over a see saw, you would fall)

Everyone thinks a little bit differently, so it might take a while for Adam and Elizabeth to finally say the right word.

• Adam: Push (because if you fall at a playground, someone might have pushed you)
• Liz: Merry-go-round (the most likely place to fall at a playground)

It’s good for them to take time between rounds to think and come up with the right word. Otherwise, if it’s just about speed, it could get difficult.

• Adam: Exercise (because pushing a merry-go-round is essentially exercise)
• Liz: Spin (because when you push a merry-go-round, it spins)

But it can be a little bit about speed. They don’t want to sit around waiting forever.

• Adam: Treadmill (a form of exercising that involves spinning equipment)
• Liz: Dancing (because this is a way you can spin and exercise at the same time)

Finally, though, they’ll end up on the same word.

• Adam: OK Go! (because they have the best treadmill dance music video of all time)
• Liz: OK Go! (because they have the best treadmill dance music video of all time)

It’s a very rewarding feeling.

This game could be over quickly, in three or even two rounds. Or it could drag on for a while. It’s fun to see the way someone else thinks, and to laugh (or get frustrated) when you think an opposite way. It can also lead to some funny moments, too. Once my husband and I were playing and, I can’t remember what the preceding pair was, but we said Luke Skywalker and Mark Hamill at the same time. (We weren’t sure if that should count as a win.) Another time my sister and I had the words love and brown to work with, and we both came up with chocolate.

I like this game because it’s cooperative instead of competitive. It’s a great time-killer and fun to play. So thank you, OK Go!

What it is: An imagining game where players talk out loud, describing a dream cabin or house.

Best for: A small group of players. It’s ideal for playing on long car rides.

What you need: Nothing. It’s just a talking game.

How to play: My husband introduced me to this game. He said he and his family played in on car rides often. (He’s the oldest of six boys, and they took a lot of road trips.) The game starts with everyone agreeing to build an imaginary cabin. Then each player takes a turn and adds a feature to the cabin. My husband said these usually included things like these:

• Rooms full of bunk beds
• Soda machines around the house
• A movie theater in the basement with an all-you-can-eat popcorn machine
• Observatories
• Underground pools
• Slides or firemen poles leading to lower levels
• A big beautiful bay window right outside the dining area (This was the type of addition my mother-in-law would make, as opposed to the brothers, if you can’t guess.)

Kind of along the same lines as the dream homes my sisters and I would draw as kids. The features can include things inside the cabin, the structure of the cabin, and the surrounding landscape.

My husband did say that sometimes the game tended to break down, as arguments might erupt about placement or functionality of features (e.g., “You can’t put a giant trampoline that catapults into the lake! I already added the boat dock there!”). My husband said this often led to an alternate version of the game where, instead of everyone building onto one collective cabin, each person has their own. Players then still take turns adding on features, but this time to their own personal cabin. Maybe everyone can still be neighbors, at least.

Variations: Instead of a cabin, you can build anything in your mind: Dream home, hotel, mansion, space station, house boat, luxury train, submersible ship, AirBnB house, underwater home, castle, amusement park, a lunar base, tree house, campsite, beach house, airplane, cruise ship…your imagination’s the limit!

My sisters and I also did a similar activity growing up where we would draw our dream houses. I think it’s kind of neat that when my husband was ten years old growing up in Colorado, describing the indoor slides his dream cabin would have, I was ten years old in Texas, decorating my dream house with indoor slides, too.

speed!

There is a commercial game called Bananagrams that’s essentially the same thing. I learned this game as Speed Scrabble first, and I’ve also heard it called Take Two.

Best for: A small group of people, maybe 4 to 6 players.

What you need:

• Letter tiles from a Scrabble game (but you won’t need the game board)

How to play: To set up your game, have everyone sit around a table or in a circle on the floor. Turn all of your Scrabble tiles face-down in the center of the circle and mix them all up. Then have each player pull out two tiles, keeping them face-down.

Someone starts the game by saying “go.” Then everyone turns over his or her pieces.

Each player will be building their own mini Scrabble grid in front of them. So when you turn over your pieces, start spelling with them as fast as you can. Once someone successfully uses all their tiles (and for this first round, that’s just two tiles), they shout “go.” Then everyone reaches forward and grabs another tile from the pile. Now you have three tiles, and you use all of them to build another Scrabble grid. Then, just like in the last round, whoever uses all three pieces together in one unbroken grid first calls “go,” and everyone takes another tile.

Each round you’ll get one more piece, making the grid larger and more complex. You can add the tiles you draw onto your existing grid, or, at any time, you can rearrange the whole thing. To call “go” you just need to use all of your tiles, and they all need to be connected in one unbroken grid.

This short video demonstrates part of a game and should make it a little clearer:

The goal is to use all your pieces, not leaving any out. The person who completes their whole Scrabble grid first when no more pieces are left wins. So it doesn’t matter if you’re ahead or behind for most of the game – all you need to do is be the first to finish and you win.

As for rules, blank tiles are wilds; you can use them for any letter. But it has to be the same letter for the whole Scrabble board, just like in real Scrabble. (But if you do decide to start over and change everything, you can switch the letter the wild stands for.) Players can challenge others’ words if they don’t think they’re real, and at the end the winner has to go through each of their words, proving that they didn’t cheat. It’s also often fun for everyone to say all their words out loud at the end, too.

Variations: Although I haven’t played with most of them, the Wikipedia page on Scrabble variants lists some other variations of Speed Scrabble that sound like they could be fun.

By the way, this post contains affiliate links. Thanks so much for your support!

What it is: A version of the six degrees of Kevin Bacon game – you’re basically trying to find links between actors via the movies they star in.

Best for: A small group, maybe up to six players. Two players work fine, too. You could even play by yourself.

What you need: Just your brains! If you want/need to cheat, IMDb would be a good resource.

How to play: My siblings and I would play this game on car trips or to kill time. We would start with someone naming an actor or actress. For example, Kate might name Anne Hathaway.

The next player, Michelle, would name another actor that Anne Hathaway appeared in a movie with. For example, Anne Hathaway appeared in Ella Enchanted with Cary Elwes. The next player might say that Cary Elwes appeared in The Princess Bride with Billy Crystal. It can be entertaining to simply name actors and movies and come up with a big long chain. This is also how you could play competitively. If someone on their turn can’t think of an actor and/or movie that hasn’t already been said, they’re eliminated from the game. The last player left wins.

In our version of the game, though, we played cooperatively. Our goal as a group was to get back to where we started (so in this game, Anne Hathaway). The whole loop might look like this:

• Anne Hathaway appeared in Ella Enchanted with Cary Elwes.
• Cary Elwes appeared in The Princess Bride with Billy Crystal.
• Billy Crystal was in in Monsters, Inc. with John Goodman.
• John Goodman appeared in The Borrowers with…with that boy who helped the Borrowers…what was his name? [Quick IMDB check] Bradley Pierce.
• Bradley Pierce appeared in Jumangi with Robin Williams.
• Robin Williams appeared in Night at the Museum with Dick Van Dyke.
• Dick Van Dyke appeared in Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews.
• Julie Andrews appeared in The Princess Diaries with…Anne Hathaway!

It can take a while, but that’s all part of the fun. We really didn’t play that seriously. Half the time we didn’t even know the actors’ names: it was “that guy from ___, the villain, you know?” And our loops probably could have been done more efficiently, but we didn’t care if it took a while. (Also, side note, it can take a while/be harder if you’re keeping your blog family-friendly by trying to name only PG or G movies.)

There are some rules you might want to consider. Can you mention a movie or actor if they’ve been said before? (We said no.) Does voice talent in animated movies count? (We said yes.) Does it count if you don’t know the name of the actor? (We said yes, because we weren’t huge movie buffs.) Do multiple movies in a series (for example, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) count as the same movie? Do cameos count? Do TV shows count? If so, do guest stars count? Things like that.

Hope it can be an entertaining game for your and your family or friends!

Presidents’ Day is coming up! I wanted to post a Presidents’ Day game this year so I did some research into the holiday, and it was a lot more complicated than I thought! Wikipedia has the full story if you’re interested, but basically it’s not really standardized who exactly we celebrate on Presidents’ Day. The holiday is officially George Washington’s birthday (even though the holiday never falls on his actual birthday…). Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is also in February so he is often celebrated on Presidents’ Day, too, but it is sometimes used as a day to celebrate all American presidents in general. The name varies from state to state. I had no idea! Did you? How does your state celebrate Presidents’ Day?

Well, before I did all that research, I made a version of Who am I? for Presidents’ Day (you can head over to that post for instructions). The Presidents’ Day version has cards with names of American presidents on them and, I admit, would be pretty dang challenging for most people. I’d probably be awful at it. But if you’re a U.S. History class or if you and your friends are history buffs, you’d probably be great at it!

Presidents’ Day “Who Am I?” game

But after doing my research on Wikipedia, I felt bad for not keeping with the roots of the holiday and celebrating George Washington (and Abraham Lincoln) in particular. So I made another game, a matching game.

At a recent birthday dinner for two of my friends, a third friend put this game together. She made a list of  little-known facts about each birthday girl and read them all out loud in no particular order. We all had to write down which friend we thought the fact was about. It was a lot of fun when we played that way, all sitting around the table at our restaurant and laughing as we got to know the birthday girls in new ways.

This Presidents’ Day version may not produce as many giggles, but it’ll definitely keep you thinking! I don’t think it will be easy. (It definitely wouldn’t be for me!) To play, print out the printable. Read the facts out loud to your group. An answer sheet is included for players to write their answers on. There’s also a key so you can read the correct answers at the end of the game. The player with the most right answers wins! I think this would be a great game to play in school as you’re learning about the presidents of the United States, especially Washington and Lincoln. There are 32 facts, 16 about each president. If some of them are too hard or if there are too many for your age group, just leave some off and have students make their own answer sheet.

Presidents’ Day game: Name that president

To complete your Presidents’ Day celebrations, don’t forget to check out my Presidents’ Day pictionary list.

Happy Presidents’ Day and happy playing!

What it is: A talking and guessing game for a large group of people. You’re assigned a character or person and you have to ask questions to other players until you figure out who you are.

Best for: A medium to large group of people, maybe 10 to 20.

What you need:

• You’ll need names of characters or people written on cards. These can be themed, like all Star Wars names or all Disney princesses. The broader the theme, the more difficult it will be. You can make your own cards (3×5 cards work great) or I provide some free printable cards at the bottom of the post.

How to play: Before you start, tape a different card on each player’s forehead with masking tape. Do it carefully so they can’t see the name. Once all of the players have a card taped to their forehead, announce the start of the game.

Players are free to mingle throughout the room, talking to each other and trying to figure out which character they have taped on their forehead. They’re allowed to ask yes or no questions, but that’s all. Once they guess correctly, they can remove the card and go stand to the side until everyone guesses their card. (Or they can continue to mingle, answering others’ questions to help them guess.)

Encourage players to move around and mingle and talk to more than one person. It can be a good way to get a variety of clues, and it makes the game more of an icebreaker. Also, sometimes some players may not be familiar with all of the names on the cards, so you might have to talk to multiple people to get enough clues to guess who you are.

If you want an example, let’s say you’re playing in a group where everyone has a Disney character taped to their forehead. Here are some of the questions you might ask and the answers you might receive:

Am I a hero? Yes…

Am I American? Not applicable.

Not applicable? Well, you speak Standard American English, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re American (especially in animated movies, right?).

Am I a person? Yes.

Am I from the past or the future? Present…maybe sort of past?

Am I a boy? Yes.

Am I CGI or animated? CGI.

Am I Woody? No.

Buzz Lightyear? No.

Am I the main character? Yes.

Do I have super powers? Um…no, I would say no.

Am I a grown man? Yes.

Do I play sports? No.

Do I save a girl? Yes.

Do I have a co-star? Yes, several.

Do I have a sidekick? Not really.

Do I sing any songs? No.

Thank heavens.

I’m good, right? At heart…

Am I not good on the surface? You could say that.

Do I have a love interest? No.

Um…give me a hint. Maybe you’re bad guy…but that does not mean you are bad guy…

Have you guessed it by now? (Side note: it’s one of my favorite Disney movies.) Leave a comment if you have!

Printables: I made a couple printables to get you started if you want to play this game. There’s a list of female and male Disney characters. (I broke it out by gender in case you have an all-girls sleepover party or something, or if you want to match gender to players.) I only used animated Disney movies, I included Pixar, and, though I didn’t include every movie or every character, there are definitely some obscure ones in there. Each card has the name of the character as well as the movie to make identifying the character easier. If there are some that you think are too difficult or that your group won’t be familiar with, just leave them out.

There are six cards to each 8.5×11 page. Just print and cut along the dotted lines. I would recommend printing on cardstock. Or, you could cut out the cards and mount them on 3×5 notecards.

Female Disney Character Cards

Male Disney Character Cards

If you play, let me know how it goes! Or let me know if you have any requests of character lists you would like to use. Happy playing!

What it is: A variation of twenty questions. It’s a little more complicated than twenty questions and involves more thought for both the guesser and the one answering the questions. So if you like twenty questions but it’s getting a little old, this’ll probably be the perfect game for you to try.

Best for: Two players.

What you need: Nothing! Those games are the best.

How to play: Just like twenty questions, this game starts with one player (we’ll call him Josh) thinking of an item to guess. Unlike twenty questions, it’s best if this item is pretty specific. So some good examples might be things like this:

• Your iPhone
• A garbage sack
• The shirt I’m wearing
• A Garmin GPS

Some not-so-good examples:

• Clouds
• Rocks
• A house

Does that make sense?

So, let’s say Josh is playing and he’s thinking of an item, and he comes up with his iPhone. Then the person he’s playing with, Paige, gets to start guessing, with the goal, of course, of guessing that the item is Josh’s iPhone.

In twenty questions, Paige would ask yes or no questions and try to deduce what the item would be from the provided clues. In breakfast combo, Paige just goes ahead and starts guessing things. They can start out random. It’s also good if these guesses are more specific rather than broad. So…

Paige: Is it a fireplace?

Because this is the first guess, this is what Josh says:

Josh: It’s more like a fireplace than anything you’ve guessed so far.

Then Paige gets to guess something else.

Paige: Is it a turtle?

Now Josh needs to decide if the item, his iPhone, is more similar to a turtle or a fireplace. Say he decides it’s more like a fireplace.

Josh: It’s more like a fireplace than a turtle, but, like a turtle…

And then Josh would fill in a clue, something that his iPhone and a turtle have in common. It could be anything he comes up with, like:

Josh: It’s more like a fireplace than a turtle, but, like a turtle, I’ve seen it.

So then Paige gets to guess something else.

Paige: Is it a campfire?

Josh answers the same way he did before.

Josh: It’s more like a fireplace than a campfire, but, like a campfire, it needs to be started.

Paige guesses again:

Paige: Is it a Sega Genesis game system?

In this case, Josh would probably decide that his iPhone is more like a Sega Genesis than anything else that Paige has guessed. So he says:

Josh: It’s more like a Sega Genesis than anything you’ve guessed so far.

(Here you can add a slight variation. Josh can either say the above sentence and leave it at that, or he could provide a reason, e.g., “It’s more like a Sega Genesis than anything you’ve guessed so far because it’s manmade.” The second option makes it easier for the guesser.)

Play goes on like that, with Paige guessing specific objects and Josh responding. If the item Paige just guessed is closest to the item Josh has in mind, Josh says, “It’s more like [current guess] than anything you’ve said so far.” If the item Paige just guessed isn’t as close to the item as something else she’s previously said, Josh says, “It’s more like [previous guess] than [current guess], but, like [current guess], [something current guess and item have in common].

As you might guess, it’s often just as challenging for Josh to come up with answers as it is for Paige to guess. It’s fun because it does provide some new variety to the classic game of twenty questions. It’s a great game to play in the car (which is where Paige and Josh play it most).

Variations: As stated, breakfast combo is a variation of twenty questions. It’s also very similar to no, because. For another, more creative/silly variation of 20 questions, try poodle!

What it is: This or that is a simple talking game where players choose which of two items they prefer.

Best for: A small group, maybe even two players only.

What you need: You don’t need anything! You can use a pre-made list of items, like the one I provide below, but it’s not necessary.

How to play: Basically players take turns asking and answering questions in the form of “this or that?” Examples:

• Mountains or beach?
• Sandals or tennis shoes?
• Cats or dogs?
• Digital watch or analog?

Players ask these short questions, and then indicate their preference. It’s easy, simple, and a great way for players to get to know each other. It’s fun to compare likes and dislikes, too. “What?? Cats? Ew! I’m totally a dog person.”

Variations: This game is kind of similar to would you rather, but instead of choosing between two usually undesirable things, this game is more about choosing between two good things.

Printables: And here’s the free printable! It’s a list of “this or that” scenarios to get you started. You don’t need a list like this to play, though; half the fun is players thinking up their own questions.

This or That

Fun fact: Way back when my husband and I were freshmen in college, we played an extensive round of this game on our second date. What a great way for us to get to know each other! So not only am I promising you a great game here with This or That, I’m promising you relationship success, as well!*

*Kidding. Please don’t hate me if this game hasn’t led you to marriage or a significant other.

What it is: A Thanksgiving tradition my mother-in-law always does. It’s a talking reflection activity, a great way to develop grateful hearts because it goes beyond the typical “Name one thing you’re grateful for this year.”

Best for: A group of people, any size, at a Thanksgiving dinner.

What you need:

• Slips of paper with different items you can be grateful for written down on them. I provide a free printable below. When my mother-in-law does it, they’re always cute crafty papers punched out the shape of leaves or shaped to look like little pilgrim boats or something. Mine are a kind of cheap imitation, but if you print them on cardstock and cut them out I think they might look okay. Feel free to use some of my word ideas and make your own cards as cute or as plain as you would like them to be.

How to play: The tradition is pretty simple. At Thanksgiving dinner, each guest will be given one card with different items you can be grateful for written on them. These can include things like family, home, food, sunshine and some that are more specific (like a random act of kindness). After everyone has eaten, go around the table and have each guest tell a story or explain the time they were most grateful for the item on their card.

My mother-in-law usually preassigns the cards by setting them at place settings. You could also have guests randomly draw a card. But I like having them at the place setting at the beginning of the meal because it gives everyone a chance to think (this is one of those things that you need to think about). One thing to be aware of, some of the topics could be sensitive or difficult for some guests, so allowing trading is always a fine idea.

The stories can be longer or shorter; they might just be a few words. But I’ve found that it’s really a great activity that leaves everyone feeling grateful for the blessings we do have, because a lot of times the time when we were most grateful for something is the time we didn’t have it. There’s something about hearing others’ stories or grateful experiences that is very powerful. I love Thanksgiving at my in-law’s because we do this each time.

If you want an example, say I were given the card food. I might tell about the time when I had finished labor and delivery with my first child, and I was amazed and happy and exhausted and I hadn’t eaten in twelve hours. And then my new son and I made it to our recovery room and he was all swaddled and clean and my husband was there, and I got to order lunch! And the hospital food tasted so good, and I don’t think I had ever been more grateful just to have food to eat. The experiences can be as simple as that.

Printables: Here is the printable I made! I’d recommend printing on cardstock. Feel free to pick and choose. The items should be pretty universal, except for the last three pages. Those pages are specific to the Latter-day Saint or Mormon culture (the church I belong to). Feel free to use or not use those pages as you see fit.

What it is: A group game where one player, the murderer, squeezes people’s hands to “kill” them, trying to kill as many as he can before his identity is discovered. So, whereas the other murder game is all about your eyes, in this one you use your hands.

Best for: A group of about 10, though a little more or less is fine.

What you need: 

• A way to pick a murderer: either a deck of cards or slips of blank paper (or something else you come up with).

How to play: This is another fun variation on the murder game theme (in time for Halloween!). To start, you need to choose a murderer. If you have a deck of cards, pull out one card for each player. Make them all non-face cards, except for one. Shuffle and have each player pick a card, face down. Whichever player draws the face card will be the Murderer. You can do the same thing with slips of paper. Just draw an X on one and fold them all up.

So now one player should be the Murderer, but only he or she knows. To everyone else it’s a secret. Now have all your players sit in a circle on the ground, cross-legged. Then players all hold hands to form a circle, but it’s important that players hide their hands, to the best of their ability, behind backs or under legs. You don’t want your hands just sitting on laps where everyone can see them.

Then announce the start of the game, at which point the Murderer can start in with the dirty work, mua-ha-ha.

The Murderer “kills” people by squeezing the hands of the players next to him. So let’s say Aaron is the Murderer. To his left is Kate, and to his right is Juliet. Aaron, after waiting several seconds, might start by squeezing Kate’s hand three times. Then Kate would “pass” the squeeze to the player on her other side by squeezing his hand two times. That player would pass it on by squeezing only one time. And the player who receives one squeeze…is dead.

Which brings us to: optional dramatic deaths. The game gets extra fun if, whenever you “die,” you die a dramatic death: fall on the floor, gasp, shout out your famous last words, etc. Adds in an element of humor and drama. At the minimum, just announce you’re dead and leave the circle.

That’s basically the only game play. The Murderer squeezes hands of the people next to him, both to his right and to his left, and the squeezes get passed around the circle, going both directions, and any player who receives only one hand squeeze dies and leaves the circle. So the circle keeps getting smaller and smaller. The Murderer can kill as quickly or as slowly as he wants.

As for the other players, their objective is to guess who the Murderer is before they all end up dead. Players do this with a simple accusation: “Kate, are you the Murderer?” Since Kate’s not the Murderer in this game, she shakes her head no, and then the player who made the false accusation has to leave the circle. Figuring out the Murderer is trickier than you might think, because players have no idea where the hand-squeezes originate from, and when you watch a player die on the other side of the circle, you might not even know from which direction the killing strike came.

The game ends when someone correctly accuses Aaron as the Murderer, or when Aaron kills everyone else. Whew!

Variations: Have you tried the winks version of murder? There’s also mafia, a game with a similar theme.

What it is: A group game best played late at night, often at sleepovers. Players try to discover the identity of a secret “mafia” amongst the group before they’re all eliminated.

Best for: Teens or older in a group of at least 8.

What you need:

• Traditionally you play with a deck of cards, though you could accomplish the same thing with some slips of paper and a pen. And that’s it!

How to play: This game is a little involved (though probably not the most complex game I’ve posted), so I’ll do my best to explain it.

First of all, choose one player to be the narrator. This player will volunteer to sit the game out and be the moderator, running the game so everyone else can play.

After you pick a narrator, you start by handing out parts. In this game, each player is given a role to play. Let’s run over the roles real quick.

• Mafia member: A player who tries to kill all other players and eliminate them from the game before his or her identity is discovered.
• Detective: A player who has a special skill in guessing who the mafia is and tries to protect the citizens.
• Citizen: Anyone else; players who just play the game, hope not to die, and try to help discover who the mafia is.

Games with large groups will often have two detectives and two mafia members.

So at the beginning of the game, you’ll have players draw cards to determine who are mafia, who are the detectives, and who are the citizens. You can accomplish this by pulling out cards from your card deck. Assign the different roles to cards: so Kings could be detectives, Jacks would be mafia, and anything else would mark a citizen. If you have a smaller group, put one detective card and one mafia card in your deck. If you have a larger group, try two of each.

Once players have picked their roles, it’s important they keep them a secret. No one should know who had what role. But tell players to hang onto their cards and keep them hidden; eventually during the game, everyone will end up revealing his or her card.

So now that you have your players and you have your roles, the game can start. The narrator starts the game, usually by telling a story, if you’re really into the game like that. The story is about the players and a scenario they’re in and might start out something like this:

“It was a dark and stormy night, and the members of the Jones family were gathered together on a camping trip. That night as everyone gathered around to roast hot dogs and tell ghost stories, the clouds gathered and lighting flashed ahead. Spirits were high around the campfire, though, but no one knew that someone in the party had evil intentions…”

Each round the story is different and it doesn’t really matter; it’s just part of setting the mood for this kind of creepy game. (That’s why it’s good to pick a narrator who can pull off this mood-setting story-telling role.)

So let’s set up a sample game. Say James is the narrator and is starting the game. He starts telling his story, setting the scene, and ends the first segment with the end of a day, saying something like

“…so everyone finished eating their hot dogs and returned to their tents to sleep.”

At that point, all of the players close their eyes and keep them closed until otherwise instructed by James, the narrator.

Then James will say something like:

“But late that night, two members of the mafia woke up with a dark and evil plan. Mafia members only, open your eyes and look at me.”

Then the two players who drew Mafia cards open their eyes and silently nod to James to show who they are. Let’s call the mafia Steve and Marco.

So Steve and Marco open their eyes. James will go on:

“Now the two mafia members will silently agree on one person to kill tonight.”

Then Steve and Marco point, shake their heads, and nod until they agree on one person to “kill.” Let’s call her Lara. After they have, James resumes narrating:

“Now mafia, close your eyes. Detectives only, open your eyes.”

The detectives open their eyes — we’ll call them Katie and Chloe. The detectives then silently point, shake their heads, and nod until they agree on one person to accuse as a member of the mafia. Say they point to Joe. Once they do, the narrator silently shakes his head, indicating that Joe is not a member of the mafia. Katie and Chloe close their eyes and James resumes narrating.

“The next day dawns cool and misty, and everyone wakes up and opens their eyes…”

(everyone opens their eyes)

“…to find that last night, there was a MURDER.” Duh-duh-duh.

Then James can explain that as everyone wakes up, they find that Lara has been murdered in the night. He can go into as much gruesome detail as he wants in describing the murder; it just depends on the narrator and how into the game he or she is. At the least, he needs to announce that Lara died. Lara can also dramatically act out the death if she so chooses.

At this point, all the players get a chance to discuss out loud who they think the mafia members might be. Then they can accuse one player of being a mafia member. If they’re right, that mafia member is eliminated and the citizens and detectives are one step closer to winning the game. If they’re wrong (say if they think Joe is a member of the mafia), Joe is eliminated and the mafia is one step closer.

The discussion period is where the bulk of the game takes place, and where things can get pretty heated. (Also, this often argumentative phase of the game is why I think many people either love or hate this game.)

So how does the discussion phase look? Anyone can talk, anyone can voice an opinion, and everyone must come to an agreement (or at least a majority vote) about who to accuse. The one rule is, no one is allowed to say what their role is. James, the narrator, plays the role of mediator, keeping people focused and reigning in any too-heated discussions.

As for the two mafia members, they’ll want to protect themselves, of course. The trick is, they don’t know who the detectives are, and if the detectives are onto them or not.

After everyone agrees on who to accuse, that person must reveal their card and their role and then exit the game. Then the narrator starts another nighttime phase of the game, where everyone closes his or her eyes, the Mafia gets another chance to kill someone, and the detectives get another guess at who the mafia are.

Say during the next round, the detectives guess that Steve is a member of the mafia. The narrator nods his head yes. Now the detectives are at an advantage: they know a member of the mafia. But during the next discussion round, they have to carefully use this knowledge. They can’t outright say they’re detectives, you see. They can’t state that they know Steve is a mafia member. But they can persuade and lead the discussion, hoping to sway the citizens their way.

If anyone speaks out too vocally against a member of the mafia during one round, the mafia always has the option of killing them during the next night phase of the game, so the detectives will want to be careful. But the mafia members can’t make the murder too obvious or everyone else will be onto them… See how it’s a game of mind tricks, deceptions, and secrets? It often evolves into backstabbing and throwing people under the bus, which is all part of the fun.

One last thing: what happens to the players who die? They become “ghosts” and can stay in the room, watch the game, and even keep their eyes open during the nighttime phase, but they’re not allowed to make a sound. If they don’t have that much will power, kick them out of the room.

The game ends when either the mafia are both killed, or when they’ve killed both the detectives (or is it when they’ve killed everyone? Maybe you could play either way). What a creepy game for your Halloween party this year!

Variations: Along with the murder theme, there’s a murder: winks version game and a hand-squeezing version that are both a lot of fun.

Best for: Any number of players. It’s a great two-player game.

What you need: Nothing! Aren’t those games the best? It can be nice if you have a pre-made list of “would you rather” scenarios. Guess what? I made one! You can download it for free below.

How to play: Basically players take turns asking each other questions starting with “Would you rather…” and ending with two different scenarios. Like, “Would you rather have to wear ski goggles for the rest of your life…

…or have to wear a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mask?”

(p.s. is Donatello your favorite?)

As demonstrated, the questions are usually a little wacky/silly/absurd. (In some variations, they’re also gross/weird, but I don’t like those questions as much.)

Some other examples of would you rather questions:

• Would you rather live to be 90 with great health or live an extra ten years past 90 with not-so-great health?
• Would you rather live off of bread only or live off of anything but carbs?
• Would you rather be respected but feared or laughed at and loved?

The questions can be thoughtful, silly, or completely hypothetical. It’s fun for players to think up their own questions, too.

Once someone asks a question, everyone else must answer the question. Then another player gets to ask a question.

Another variation for a large group is to have one player draw a question (like from the list I made below) and answer it alone. Then another player draws another question and answers it for themselves, and so on. This could work well if you have so many people, it’s hard to have everyone answer each question.

Printables: Here’s the list of Would you rather questions I came up with. It’s two pages long, so not a ton, but definitely enough to get you started or get you thinking of ideas. Once you get playing with a good group, the ideas usually start coming to players. It’s a fun talking game to play.

Would you rather

What it is: A very flexible game with lots of adaptations.

Best for: A group of about 4 to 10.

What you need: You’ll need a list of categories (I’ve provided one below) and possibly a timer and pens and paper.

How to play: Basically the challenge is to try and think of as many items in a category as you can. An example category would be fast food.

And items in the category? Chicken nuggets, tacos, hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, McDonald’s apple pies, chicken sandwiches, and on and on. How many things can you think of?

Variations: There are many different ways you could set up your game. Here’s a few to get you started.

Like the game Scattergories (commission link), you can name as many items in a category that start with the same letter. Choose a letter from the alphabet, draw a category, set a timer, and go! For example, if the category were male names and the letter were C, you could write any of these:

• Carson
• Caleb
• Cole
• Christian
• Connor
• Carter
• Cameron

You can play on teams, individually, or as a whole group. At the end of the game, everyone takes turns reading all their answers aloud, where questionable answers can be submitted to the group to see if they’ll be allowed or not. (For example: “Camille? That’s a girl’s name!” “But I totally knew a guy named Camille once!” “OK, fine, we’ll allow it.”) If you’re playing against each other, the person who writes down the most names wins. (One variation is to have everyone cross off any name that someone else wrote down, too. That way the person with the most unique answers wins.)

You could also play the above version, but without the restriction of a letter of the alphabet. Any boy name, for example, would work for the above example. Then follow the same rules for the rest of the game.

Another variation which works really well for car rides or killing time can be played one word at a time. In this variation, you pick a category and then take turns saying something from that category, one player at a time. The first person who can’t think of a word that hasn’t already been said is out of the game, and you start a new round with a new category. (The game first letter, last letter is an even more challenging variation of this.)

You could of course use your list of categories to play the pool game categories or a similar game.

What other rules or variations can you come up with?

Printables: Here’s the list of categories! It’s a few pages long, so hopefully it gives you lots of categories to choose from for all of your game-playing needs.

Categories

What it is: An easy time-killing game where players test their psychic abilities…or at least pretend to have them.

Best for: A group of about 6 or more. I think the bigger the group, the easier it might be.

What you need: Nothing!

How to play: Psychic is pretty simple. Everyone plays together as a team. Players count from one to as high as they can by saying numbers out loud, one player at a time. If two players say one number at the same time, everyone has to start over at 1. The catch is, there’s no order in which players speak.

Here’s an example. Say Adam, Bridget, Caleb, Dan, Ethan, and a bunch of their friends are playing. Everyone’s sitting in random order around a circle. In fact, they don’t even have to be sitting in a circle.

When they’re ready to play, someone will say “go.” Then Adam says 1 out loud. Dan, across the circle, says 2. His friend next to him says 3. Bridget, three people down, says 4. Adam says 5. Someone else says 6. But then by chance both Caleb and Ethan say 7 at the same time. That means the whole group has to start over at 1. Pauses are allowed, but if two people speak at once, you have to start over. The goal is to see how high you can count to as a group.

I don’t think we’ve ever gotten higher than like 15 or so, the times I’ve played it. My husband played it in a really big group once and got into the 30s.

It’s a great game for killing time because you don’t need anything to play with. But if you did have a large group and wanted to organize a big game, I think it would be a fun challenge for everyone.

Oh, and I just couldn’t resist writing a post about fake psychic abilities without throwing this in:

A little bit ago I created a date night scavenger hunt kit for a fundraiser. Even though they’re not exactly games, I thought I’d post some of the activities here. They all come with printables. You can do all the activities in one night and make a scavenger hunt of it, or each could even be its own date.

What it is: A fun date night activity for two; something that makes a trip to a mall or other public place more exciting.

Oh, wait. Also. The kangaroo really doesn’t have much to do with people watching, I admit. But isn’t he cute? Just think of him in a zoo, watching people himself. See, it totally ties in.

Best for: A couple on a date…or really any small group of people, maybe 4 max. It could even be done solo.

What you need: A public place where you’ll be able to see lots of people, preferably going and coming so you get a good variety. Shopping malls are ideal. Large stores in general could work, or even just walking down streets downtown. You’ll also need a list of things to find (like my printable included below). Optional: a quarter.

How to play: Go with your significant other to the aforementioned public place, have a seat or stroll around, and people watch! It’s fun to do this as a kind of scavenger hunt, like the printable. Just look for each item on the list, check off the ones you find, and play until you’ve either found them all or run out of time. The printable includes an extra bonus activity to do with a quarter; just follow the instructions.

This can be a fun activity because you get to talk, but it’s not necessarily competitive. Just be sure to be polite about those people you’re spotting and try not to stare, point, or let them see you talking about them in secretive whispers.

Printables: Here’s the printable that goes with the activity. If you print it at actual size (which I recommend), it’s a little smaller than an 8.5 x by 11 page, so you can trim it down.

Remember to check out the other date night activities in this series!

What it is: A really easy, adaptable game for all sorts of circumstances. Mostly it’s fun to ask get to know you questions (especially quirky or unusual ones) to family and friends.

Best for: 6 to 9 players.

What you need: Mostly just questions to ask! I’ve provided a free printable list of some below. You could also think of your own. Or I know there’s many commercial sets of conversation-starter type questions you can buy. Optional: Paper and pens.

How to play: The ways to play with get-to-know-you questions are endless. The easiest way is to just take turns asking questions to each other and answering them. You can all sit in a circle and take turns picking a question, reading it aloud, and then each giving an answer in turn. You could also take turns asking specific questions to specific people only. I’ve even used questions like this as journal-writing prompts for myself when I didn’t know what else to write about. If you have a creative set of questions, the good uses for them go on and on.

One of the favorite ways I like to play this game with my friends and family is to answer questions and then guess who gave which answer. This can be done a few different ways. One way that works well with a big group (like from 20 to 30) is to use paper and pens and have everyone write down his or her answer to a question. Then gather up the questions, have someone read them out loud, and together as a group discuss who you think gave which answer (this can be done informally, hopefully with a good amount of laughter). With a big group like this, the best way to do it is to ask several questions at a time, maybe 5 to 10. You could even just hand out a survey with the questions already written down. Then have each player fill out the survey, gather them up, read all the answers out loud, and guess together as a group who filled out that survey. You could even eliminate the guessing part and just read aloud the answers for fun. This could be a great icebreaker game.

Another way to play that’s better with a smaller group (perhaps about 8 people) is to take turns and keep score. It might look like this: Adam is playing with his family. He picks a question, he asks it aloud, everyone write down his or her answer, and then Adam’s brother Stuart collects the cards and reads them to Adam out loud. After Adam has heard all the answers, he has to correctly match each answer with each player. He gets a point for each one he matches correctly. Whoever gets the most points after everyone gets a turn wins. We played this way with my husband’s family last Christmas, and it was sooo fun. We all laughed harder than we had in months! It’s a good way to get more competitive and encourage creativity (since you’re trying to avoid making it obvious which answers are yours). You could even do more than one question at a time.

Variations: What other ways do you like to play with get-to-know-you questions? They’re great discussion starters or time fillers. My husband and I love to ask them to each other in car trips or on out-for-ice-cream dates.

Printables: If you want to print out some questions you can use, I’ve made some free printables for you! Just cut along the lines and you’ll have strips of questions you can fold up and put in a bowl or have people draw. You could also just read them aloud or use the list for ideas. The second list has some simpler questions that might be better suited for young children. So enjoy!

Get to know you questions

Simple get to know you questions

HEY! Wait! I just had an idea! Does anyone want to play? What if I pick a few questions now and we all answer them? Everyone loves to answer fun questions about themselves, right? Well, let’s play! Join in with a comment if you like with the answers to the questions below! I’d love to hear your answers.

1. If money didn’t matter, what food or snack would you buy at the movie theater? Those nachos with the fake cheese! Mmm, fake cheese…usually so gross, but somehow when it’s at a movie theater or baseball game on nachos, so good. A close runner-up to the nachos is good old-fashioned movie popcorn.
2. If you had a month of free time to learn a new hobby, what would it be? Dancing! I’ve always wished I could dance.
3. What’s your favorite way to eat a potato? Twice-baked all the way!

What it is: A simple, flexible time-killing activity for anyone who loves music and guessing games.

Best for: 2 to 8 players.

What you need: Nothing!

How to play: This is just a simple guessing game involving singing, but singing a song only one word at a time. One person, like Lucy, starts out by thinking up a song. Then Lucy starts singing the song out loud, but only the first word.

So let’s say Lucy chooses the song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” She would start singing the first note: “Take…” Then there are several different ways you can play. You can have other players guess what song Lucy is singing by adding what they think is the next word. Ryan, for example, might think Lucy is singing “Take on Me” (he’s an eighties fan). So Ryan would start singing “on…” Lucy could either shake her head no and let other players continue to guess, or, for a more fluid game, the song could change and now all the other players have to guess what Ryan is singing. The song might change several times as players take turns adding notes and words to what they think the song is. You can have play go in a circle, or just have players sing out in any order when they think they know the next word.

Variations: Another similar game you can play is when one person says a word (like take, for example), and the next player has to think of a song with that word in it. You can play with song titles or song lyrics in general. We played this a lot as just kind of a time-killer, not keeping score or having much structure, but just shouting out words and singing songs as they occurred to us.

Some more similar games are Name that tune and What’s the name of that song?

So if you like music and have friends who know a lot of songs, they can be some fun games to play to pass the time or try to stump each other.

Best for: As little as 2 or as many as a carful of people.

What you need: A journey in a car. A long road trip on roads you don’t drive every day works best. Then just a car and people to play! Optional: Paper and pen, or a way to keep score. (It was paper and pen when I grew up, but today it would totally be my iPhone.)

How to play: This game involves spotting and guessing the numbers on those road signs that say how many miles to a certain city, the green ones, you know? Like this:

The point of the game is to correctly guess the next mile number for a certain city, usually your destination.

So say your car is taking a trip to Dallas. Once you’ve seen one sign that says how many miles are left to Dallas (like Dallas: 215), everyone would take a guess as to the number that will be on the next sign that says how many miles to Dallas. Logically, this could be any number lower than 215. You can use your experience or knowledge or just luck to try to figure out exactly how many miles away the next sign will be placed. But I can tell you from playing this game as a kid, it’s not always what you think! It’s not like there’s always a pattern or a rule, especially as cities and landscapes vary (and this all just makes the game more fun).

So everyone puts in a guess for the number on the next mile sign – you can write them down or just have everyone remember. Let’s say a hypothetical car of people make these guesses:

• Jamie – 200
• Louis – 154
• Ann – 194
• Jeff – 172

Then everyone can go about other activities, but make sure at least one person is keeping a lookout for the next sign. Once it’s spotted (Dallas: 160), figure out who won that round. For us, the winner was simply the person who had the closest guess, whether it’s lower or higher. In the above example, this would mean Louis wins. I know a lot of times people play number guessing games like this and make a rule that the winner is the closest number that didn’t go under or something like that, but we liked to keep it simple. You can certainly play with rules as complicated as you like.

So Louis would win that round. You can keep a running score pad of who wins each round, or just play for fun and not keep score. But that round would be followed by another, and another, until you reach your destination. Even when you’re driving in the middle of nowhere, you can still play. The signs just might be really far apart, but that’s okay. Closer to cities, the signs might be only a couple of miles apart, and it’s always fun when that throws everyone for a loop. You can guess but you never know for sure, which is why it’s fun. The game is a good way, too, of tracking the distance until you reach your destination, maybe cutting down on the “Are we there yet?” questions.

Another thing: Our family road trips were often so long that we couldn’t play with our final destination right away. So we’d choose bigger cities on the way to play with until we were close enough to use the final destination. (For example, Dallas, then Oklahoma City, then Wichita…) Just make sure everyone agrees on the next city as you guess.

Rules: One rule we had was that everyone had to put in their guess for the next sign before too much time passed. For example, after passing a Dallas: 215 sign and then gathering up the next round of guesses, there were always some of us who liked to delay as long as possible, realizing that the more miles we drove, the better idea we’d have of the next number on the sign. But this was considered cheating, so guesses for the next sign had to be in before a specified time (like a minute). Otherwise your guess is invalid. However, if you wanted to do away with this rule, you definitely could: Then each person can kind of gamble as to how long they want to wait to guess. Wait too long and you might risk passing a sign without guessing at all. But wait long enough and you could have a big advantage over the other players. Come to think of it, I think we played that way sometimes, too. Either way is fun.

Also, when making guesses, no duplicate numbers: if you want to guess 160 but someone already guessed it, too bad. You have to choose a different number. (It was legal to guess just one number lower or higher, which was often a good strategy.) Guesses are first-come, first-serve, which was why we always said our guesses out loud at least, even if we didn’t write them on paper.

Variations: If you’re hardcore, you could keep score by not just writing down the winner of each round, but the number of miles by which each guess was off. Then at the end you total up each person’s miles, and the person with the lowest score wins. For example, take the above list of guesses again:

• Jamie – 200
• Louis – 154
• Ann – 194
• Jeff – 172

If the right answer was 160, that means each person would be assigned a number of how far they missed the mark:

• Jamie – 40 (200 minus 160)
• Louis – 6 (160 minus 154)
• Ann – 34
• Jeff – 12

Those numbers would be the scores you write down for each player for that round. To be honest, that’s way too much math for my taste ;-), but if you like a more competitive game and your addition and subtraction, it might be a fun way to play.

However you play, happy road tripping!

Best for: One person or a smaller group, maybe during a time when you need to be quiet.

What you need: Everyone needs paper and a pen or pencil. Optional: colored pencils, crayons, markers, or other supplies for making your dream house pretty.

How to play: Really, it’s a simple activity. You just draw your dream house! And when you’re a kid (or an adult), you can let your imagination run wild, which is where the fun comes in. I thought the best way to show this activity would be an example, so imagine how happy I was when, during the move my family recently completed, I was going through a box of old memories and found this:

I wish I had dated it! My best guess is that I drew it when I was 7 or 8? But this is exactly what I’m talking about! Usually my sisters and I drew kind of a floor plan layout like this, and of course our houses were always ginormous and held all sorts of cool extras. Which seemed to mostly be themed rooms: a party room, a toy room, a ferris wheel room, a rock climbing room, a pet room, a maze room, a museum room, a candy room, of course…oh, and a manatee room. (My sisters and I were in love with manatees. We thought they were the coolest things ever.) There also has to be a mini airport, of course, and indoor swimming pool. Anyway, I’m so glad I found this priceless drawing. Maybe I can convince my husband to build this floor plan for us one day.

And as a bonus, here’s another, more recent example. I think I drew this shortly after my husband and I were married; I was babysitting some younger cousins and wanted to show them one of my favorite drawing activities. So, since I was older this one is of course more realistic…(uh, kind of…)

Notice I kept the indoor swimming pool (this time with a dolphin) and now have a private helicopter pad instead of a mini airport. And complete with home theater, exercise room, large kitchen, hot tob, play room, and star-gazing deck, this dream home is perfect. Oh, and slides to reach the lower levels. Who hasn’t wanted a house with slides at one point?

Anyway, this second drawing shows another way you can draw your dream home: as a cut-away side view instead of a bird’s-eye view. And you can use words to label rooms (like in the first drawing), or you can just draw (like in the second). Either way, whatever you want to draw, go for it! Draw your dream home. Adding as many details as possible is always fun.

Variations: We often played this with sidewalk chalk, too, except it was more of a “draw your dream room.” Each of us would take one large square of the driveway (the squares formed by the seams in the concrete) and pretend it was our room, drawing in beds, dressers, rugs, and usually bean bag chairs and lava lamps (things we always wanted but never had), all from a bird’s-eye view. Then you can play house in your new room. My husband also played a similar game in talking version called build a cabin in your mind.

Best for: A group of about 10.

What you need: You’ll need paper and pens for everyone to write with. The paper doesn’t need to be big; in fact, index cards would be perfect.

How to play: To start, pass around pens and cards to everyone in the circle. This is a great, easy game for groups because you don’t need a certain number of players and no one has to sit out; everyone can play right away. Once everyone has a card and pen, tell everyone to write a question that begins with “What if…” at the top of the card. For example, “What if people had platypuses for pets instead of dogs?”

These questions can be as serious or as silly as you want them to be. In our games, they usually end up both ridiculously silly and about people in the room, like “What if Joe wore only corduroy clothing all the time?” At any rate, don’t be afraid to let your creativity show!

Then collect all of the cards, shuffle them up, and deal them back out to everyone randomly. If someone gets their own card by chance, you can let them switch for another one.

Once everyone has a card with a question that they didn’t write, tell everyone to then write an answer to the question, starting with the word “Then…” Again, these can be as silly or as serious as you want. If you got the question “What if we all had platypuses for pets instead of dogs?” you might write: “Then we’d all have to live next to rivers and streams.” Or you might write “Then Lassie would have turned out a whole lot differently.” The point of the game is to be kind of silly, so don’t be afraid to. Also don’t worry if you think you’re not terribly witty (as I always do in games like this), because it really won’t matter in the end. You’ll still be funny even if you’re not witty. I love games like that.

Then for the last part of the game, everyone goes around the circle and reads their cards, but here’s the catch: you’ll answer each question with a mis-matched answer. So here’s how it works. Say Mike’s playing and he was holding the platypus question. He’d read the question out loud: “What if we all had platypuses for pets instead of dogs?” But then the person to the right of Mike, we’ll call her Kim, would read her answer for her question, which might be: “Then the world would be a much better place.” Then Kim would read the question on the card she’s holding, “What if there were a Chick-fil-A on every corner?” and the next person in the circle would respond with their answer to their question. You’d go all around the circle until you got back to Mike’s answer: “Then Lassie would have turned out a whole lot differently.”

Usually hearing a question with the wrong answer is pretty funny, either because it makes absolutely no sense or it’s surprisingly true. So as you go around the circle, you’ll all probably laugh and joke (especially if  some of the questions are about people in the room) and claim the questions. A lot of silliness, but a lot of fun, too. Then if you like it, play another round!

Variations: This game reminds me a lot of paper telephone, probably because both games invariably tend to be about people in the room in ridiculous situations. So silly. But so fun.

What it is: A really simple hide-and-seek type game. It’s a good kind of quiet, not-too-disruptive game for little kids. We used to play in primary (Sunday church class for little kids).

Best for: 5 to 10 players.

What you need: You’ll need something to hide, but this can be anything: a toy or stuffed animal, a piece of paper, a trinket. For a harder game, pick a smaller item. For an easier game (or for really young kids), pick a bigger item.

You’ll also need somewhere to play. This game is ideal indoors, like in a living room where there are lots of places to hide the object. You could also play in another enclosed area, even a backyard.

How to play: Let’s say you’re playing with a small group of young kids, and the object you’re hiding is a bouncy ball. First, choose someone, like Joe, to leave the room. Then choose another person in the room, like Kylie, to hide the bouncy ball. Make sure everyone sees where it’s hidden.

Then call Joe back into the room. He tries to find the bouncy ball, and everyone else gives him hints. The hints work like this: as Joe gets closer to the bouncy ball, everyone says, “warmer…” As he gets further away, everyone says, “colder…” You can use other temperature-describing words, too, like lukewarm, ice cold, burning hot, etc. The closer Joe gets, the hotter the temperature gets. The further he gets, the colder it gets. (The clues can also get more frantic as Joe gets closer and is about to find it: “You’re cool…getting warmer…warmer…okay, really warm! Ooh, hot! Hot, hot! Ooh, on fire! You’ve got it!”

Then once Joe successfully finds the object, it can be his turn to hide it while someone else leaves the room.

Strategies: It’s pretty fun to hide the object in creative places you wouldn’t expect. Ooh, the best is somehow on a ceiling fan because then someone could be in the middle of the room getting clues, “hot! hot!” and there won’t be anything nearby, haha!

Variations: There are tons of variations to this game. If you’re playing with a pretty small group, you could even have all the players leave the room while one person (like the adult) hides the object and gives the clues. And, though hot and cold words make good clues, you could use other clues, too. When we played in primary, the teacher would use the game as a way to get us to practice our primary songs. One person would leave, and the rest of us would sing to let him know if he was close or far. When we sang loud, he was close. When we sang quietly, he was far. (Our teacher helped us know when to sing loud or soft.) You could do the same thing with music played on speakers, if you wanted.

When my sisters and I were really little, we loooved playing this game with our uncle Jason, but we called it “where’s rabby?” because the hidden object was a little stuffed toy rabbit. My sisters and I would leave the room, my uncle would hide the rabbit, and we’d have a ball coming in and trying to find it with the help of his clues.

Best for: Smaller groups, maybe 3 to 6 people.

What you need: Nothing! But a word list might be helpful.

How to play: This game is really simple, and you could make up more complicated rules if you wanted to. But basically someone says a word, any word, and another player has to respond immediately with the very first word that pops into his or her head (no thinking allowed). So a sample game between Mack and Jane might go like this:

MACK: Apples.

JANE: Caramel.

MACK: Christmas.

JANE: Lights.

M: Spider.

J: Eww.

M: Groundhog.

J: Bill Murray.

M: Slow.

J: Snail.

It’s supposed to be very fast, with only a fraction of a second between Mack’s prompt and Jane’s response. It’s best if Mack responds quickly, too; that gets Jane in the habit of responding quickly. The fun of the game comes in learning possibly interesting things about your friends or family (“Crush.” “Andrew–I mean,…uh…” “What?!”), or in laughing at the interesting, creative, or (il)logical associations our minds come up with. Your game might be interrupted with questions, explanations, or laughter, and that’s all part of the fun.

To help in thinking up quick prompts, feel free to use my online word generator.

Best for: Group of 3 to 8ish.

What you need: Nothing!

How to play: Have all your players sit in a circle, or establish a clear playing order. Then proceed to tell a story, with each person saying one sentence at a time. Here’s the catch: each sentence must start with either “fortunately” or “unfortunately,” always alternating. So here’s how a sample game might go. The first player, Rachel, starts out the story by saying a simple statement of fact, like

One day I got a new puppy.

(The story can be in first person, but it doesn’t have to be.) The next player, Brad, would then add a sentence onto the story, but he has to start the sentence with “unfortunately,” like

Unfortunately, he ran away.

Then it’s Katie’s turn, but she has to start a sentence with “fortunately:”

Fortunately, he came back the next day with a 100 dollar bill.

The next player would say an “unfortunately” sentence, like “Unfortunately, the 100 dollar bill was a counterfeit and the cops nabbed me for it when I tried to use it to buy a pet canary.” As you can imagine, the game usually gets pretty silly pretty fast. And the stories tend to drag on without any clear ending, so just break it up when you want to start a new one. It’s a lot of fun, though, and good for car rides or killing time. Write your stories down or just tell them out loud; either way, have fun!

Variations: As said, this game is pretty similar to tell a story.

Example: If you want an example game, maybe you could watch the TV show I Shouldn’t Be Alive; sometimes I think those episodes tend to play out like a version of this game. (The man was starving in the jungle…fortunately, he found some berries…unfortunately, they were poisionous. But fortunately, he hunted a rabbit to eat…but unfortunately, he had no fire to cook it…)

Okay, for real, here’s a sample game from me and my husband. Oh, which reminds me of something else: if you’re playing with only two people (or any even number), it means the same people will always be saying “unfortunately” or “fortunately” sentences. Which could be boring or could be fun. But you could just switch it up halfway through if you want. For now, you can guess who had the “fortunately” sentences in this example, me or my husband:

One day a man was flying on an airplane. Unfortunately, the airplane was out of peanuts. Fortunately, the man was allergic to peanuts and so he was happy about that. Unfortunately, the man was also allergic to chocolate chip cookies, and the airplane wasn’t out of those. Fortunately, the man was the pilot, and so he wasn’t offered any of the cookies. Unfortunately, the pilot was so distracted by the conversation about the cookies he was allergic to that he didn’t see the huge thundercloud. Fortunately, the plane’s autopilot took control and did a barrel roll around the thundercloud. Unfortunately…

Well, you get the idea.

Best for: A group of about 6 to 12 people.

What you need: Nothing!

How to play: The basic game play consists of players telling three facts about themselves. Two of the facts must be true, but the third one should be a lie. Then the other players have to guess which one is the lie.

So here’s how you could set up the game. Have all of your players sit in a circle and choose someone to start, say Mark. Mark would then think of two true facts about himself and one lie, then say them aloud in any order, trying to conceal the lie as a truth. For example, Mark might say, “I can finish a whole large pizza in one sitting…

“…I’ve had my picture in the newspaper…”

“…and I’ve been skydiving.”

Then the rest of the players would be able to think, consult, and decide together which fact about Mark is false. If you want an easy, no-score game, just have the players discuss and guess, and then have Mark reveal the lie. If you really want to keep score, you could let all of the players guess individually. Whoever is right gets a point; whoever is wrong doesn’t. You could also give Mark a point for every person he fooled. Whether you’re keeping score or not, after Mark reveals the lie, then the next player in the circle takes a turn.

Strategies: When you’re giving your three facts, since you’re trying to fool the other players, it’s good to disguise the lie as a truth; that is, something that people would believe you’ve done. Alternatively, you could try to disguise your truths as lies (so say things you’ve done that are kind of unbelievable, kind of like Mark did). Also, I’ve seen people play where they name very common things as their truths and lie, making it pretty difficult to guess. But either way, you’re trying to say things about yourself that others don’t know, making this a good get-to-know-you game.

Variations: If you wanted, instead of having players reveal their lie right away, you could have everyone in the circle say their truths and lie, and then go back around the circle a second time and let people reveal what was true and false.

What it is: A talking, guessing game, similar to green glass doors, but players think of their own rules rather than following the secret green glass door rule.

Best for: 2 to 8 players.

What you need: Nothing!

How to play: Similar to green glass doors, players try to discover what can be taken on a hypothetical picnic. One player starts by thinking of a rule for things that can go on the picnic; the other players try to guess the rule.

Say Julie and Todd are playing. Julie starts by thinking of a rule of things that can and can’t go on the picnic. The rule can be as complex or as simple as she likes. It can have to do with any attribute (color, shape, size, even the number of letters used to spell the name of the object). Here are some example rules Julie could choose:

• Only yellow things can go on the picnic (bananas, the sun, dandelions, etc.).
• Only things you can eat can go on the picnic (apples, oranges, pancakes).
• Only things bigger than a person can go on the picnic (elephants, houses, the moon).
• Only things that are spelled with five letters can go on the picnic (apple, grass, honey).

The rules could be even more complicated and relate to the person trying to go on the picnic, like these rules:

• I can only bring items on the picnic that start with the same letter as my first name (so Julie could bring jam to the picnic, but Todd couldn’t, though he could bring a truck).
• I can only bring items on the picnic that start with the same letter as the first name of the person sitting to my right (yeah, that one can get really complicated to figure out).

The player thinking of the rule can use his or her imagination and come up with something as complicated or as sneaky as they want; the point of the game is to keep the other players from guessing the rule.

Let’s say Julie picks the rule that only yellow things can go on the picnic. Once she has the rule, she starts the game by declaring something she’s bringing on the picnic. For example, she’d say:

“I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing bananas, and I can go.”

Then it’s Todd’s turn to guess something that he can bring on the picnic. He might say, “I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing apples?” Then Julie would shake her head sadly and say, “You can’t go.”

Play would continue, with Julie and Todd taking turns. Julie would usually say things that she could bring to the picnic, but she could give Todd some examples of things she can’t bring, too. Todd keeps guessing until he’s figured out the rule. Then it can be Todd’s turn to think of a new rule for Julie to guess.

It’s a great, entertaining game for long car trips or killing time. Since the rule changes with each round, it doesn’t get boring easily. And the level of difficulty can be easily adapted—just choose easier rules for younger kids and harder rules for older kids.

Variations: This game is a more adaptable variation of green glass doors.

What it is: A simple, silly talking game with no winners or losers. Great for kids.

Best for: Group of 6 to 12.

What you need: Just people to play.

How to play: Sit all of your players in a line. The player at one end of the line (we’ll call her Janna) thinks of a phrase or saying. It can be something made-up; in fact, it’s often funnier if it is. Something like, for example, “The cow ate the apple pie.” It can be as silly as Janna wants, about people in the room or about something random.

Once Janna thinks of her phrase, she whispers it quietly in the ear of the player next to her, Robby. Robby listens carefully, and then once Janna finishes whispering her phrase, he leans over and whispers it in the ear of the player next to him. The game continues like this, with the phrase being passed all the way down the line of players.

Now if Robby doesn’t clearly hear the phrase Janna whispers or it doesn’t make much sense to him, he CAN’T ask Janna to repeat it – that’s a rule. Each player is only allowed to say the phrase once. So if Robby didn’t hear right, he just has to guess the best he can at what the phrase might be and whisper it to the next player.

That’s where the fun of the game comes in, because by the time the phrase reaches the end of the line, it’s usually so different from the original as to be silly. Once the last player (we’ll call him Benny) has the phrase whispered in his ear, he repeats it out loud to the other players, and then everyone laughs at the absurd differences in the sentences; perhaps as what started as “The cow ate the apple pie” ends as “Now Nate learns to fly.”

To play another round, have Janna move to the end of the line and let Robby start the next phrase.

Variations: Telephone is a good simple game, but there are some more involved – and fun – variations involving charades and drawing/writing.

What it is: A big-group indoor memory and guessing game. Entertaining and great for teens or adults.

Best for: A big group of at least 10 people.

What you need: A slip of paper for each person to write on, pens to write with, and a hat or bowl to collect your slips of paper.

How to play: First, pass out the pens and paper and have everyone secretly write a name on their slip. It can be any name – usually a celebrity or famous character, but it could be a made-up name too. Mostly, it should be a name that other players wouldn’t immediately associate with you (this is an important part of the strategy of winning the game).

Players fold up their slips of paper and put them all in a bowl or hat. Then one player (who, to avoid giving him or her an unfair advantage, shouldn’t be particularly good at identifying the others’ handwriting) goes through and reads all the names out loud, probably a couple of times, just to make sure that everyone knows all of the names. Players should listen carefully when the names are read aloud, because that’s the last time they’ll hear them.

Then the game can start. At first, it’s every man for himself, and the object for each player is to form the biggest “corporation” by pulling other players onto their team. Players take turns guessing which name another player wrote. If the guess is correct, the guesser gets that player on his or her corporation. If the guess is incorrect, the guessed player gets a turn to guess somebody else’s name.

So let’s set up a sample game to illustrate. Alyssa, Jared, and Savannah are three players playing with their friends. The players just heard all of the written-down names read aloud, including the names Socrates, Grace Kelly, and Bob.

Alyssa is selected to start. She starts by guessing which name one of the other players wrote on their slip of paper. So she would say something like, “Jared, are you Grace Kelly?” If Jared didn’t write Grace Kelly on his paper, he would say, “nope,” and then it would be Jared’s turn to guess. He might say, “Savannah, are you Bob?” Say Savannah did write down the name Bob on her paper. She says yes, and then she joins Jared’s “corporation,” or becomes part of his team. For the rest of the game, Jared and Savannah will work together  – they can confer and help each other, but ultimately Jared is the boss of the corporation (and the winner of the game if his corporation wins).

So after Savannah joins Jared’s corporation, Jared (and now Savannah) would get another chance to guess. After conferring with Savannah, Jared might say, “Alyssa, are you Socrates?”

Also, if sometime later in the game, Alyssa guessed Jared’s name, that means that Alyssa gets Jared and Savannah on her corporation.

So you can see that memory is a very important skill. First, it’s important for players to remember the names that were read off at the beginning. (There’s usually always one name, something common or nondescript, that manages to slip everyone’s memory until the end. The player who wrote down that name is lucky and has a good shot of winning.) It’s also important for players to remember who guessed what. Also, the bigger a corporation gets, the better they usually get, because there are more people conferring and helping each other guess.

It’s fun to watch the dynamics of the game, and each round will be different: sometimes it might be one giant corporation against another, or other times it might be one pretty big corporation against a lot of mom-and-pop businesses (one- or two-group teams who have managed to avoiding getting guessed out by the larger corporations). In the end, there will be one giant corporation with one player at the head, and that player is the winner.

Strategies: Mind games can play an important role in strategy. For example, if Jared wrote down the name Socrates, he might want to guess, when it’s his turn, “Jeremiah, did you write down Socrates?” Jared would know the answer would be no, of course, but it might confuse the other players. (“His name must not be Socrates because he asked Jeremiah if that was his name…”)

A lot of mind-reading and interpretation will probably happen as players try to guess which name was written down by who. So one of the best things you can do to win is write down a name that no one will associate with you (but not so obviously opposite as to attract attention).

What it is: A casual, often unorganized talking and guessing game.

Best for: 2 players or however many more you want.

What you need: Nothing!

How to play: The basic game is simple: players take turns quoting movies while other players try to guess which movie is being quoted. Example: Cody might say, “That wimpy deer?!” Everyone else would guess, “The Sandlot!”

So the details of how you play are up to you. You can be strict and say that only the person who guessed the movie correctly gets to say the next movie line. You could even keep score. Or, you could just play casually and have players quote movies as they think of them. It’s a great time killer game.

Variations: A fun (and natural) variation for a larger group of players would be for someone to quote a movie, and then if another player guesses the movie, instead of just saying the title, they could name another quote from the same movie to help the remaining players guess. So, if Cody said “That wimpy deer!?” and Gabby figured out the movie, she might add “You’re killing me, Smalls!” (This can actually be a pretty fun game all on its own.)

You could also require players to, instead of naming the movie, name the quote that directly follows the first quote. (Like, “You can’t run from me!” followed by, “Oh, wait, you can. You keep surprising me!”)

If you have an iPod or computer and someone with an impressive music library, you could also play name that movie with soundtracks or movie scores. Just have one person play snippets of different songs and see who can name the movie the fastest. Our kids love this variation!

Oh, and bonus if anyone can name the three movies quoted in the post’s pictures!

What it is: A visual spying and guessing game, entertaining for younger kids, and, when I was a kid, my family’s game of choice while waiting for food in sit-down restaurants.

Best for: 2 players or however many more you want.

What you need: Just at least two people to play. And something relatively interesting to look at (this would be a hard game to play in an empty room with white walls, for instance).

How to play: It’s a pretty simple game. One player, like Jennie, looks around the room and picks something she can see. Then she says, “I spy with my little eye something ____,” filling in the blank with an adjective that describes the object she spies (traditionally a color).

So say Jennie’s object was a blue ceramic flower pot (like this one) sitting in the Mexican restaurant where she was waiting with her family.

Jennie would say: “I spy with my little eye something blue.” Then the other players would look around the room for something blue and try to guess Jennie’s object.

“Is it the blue border on that poster of the chili peppers?” someone might ask. Or, “Is it that vase holding the flowers by the door?” Jennie would say shake her head no until someone guessed the right object. Then the person who guessed right gets to choose the next object. And everyone would play happily, spying and guessing until the waiter brings their chips and tacos and enchiladas. Yum.

Strategies: Of course, it’s wise to not be staring at the object you’re spying while you say “I spy…” That was the tragic mistake that always got my youngest siblings.

What it is: More of an activity or chant than a game with a winner and loser, but a perfect activity to occupy long car trips.

Best for: Smaller group of 3 to 6 players.

What you need: Just people to play!

How to play: Players take turns going through the alphabet and saying the following sentence:

My name is ___, my husband’s/wife’s name is ___, we live in ___, and we sell ___.

The first two blanks are always filled by names, the third blank by a place, and the fourth blank by anything you could sell (which often leads to silly results).

So, the first player would start with A and say something like this:

My name is Abigail, my husband’s name is Adam, we live in Amsterdam, and we sell apples.

Then the next player would take the next letter, B, and say something like this:

My name is Bridget, my husband’s name is Brandon, we live in Bermuda, and we sell bouncey balls.

Players just take turns, going in a circle, until you go through the whole alphabet. I suppose you could play this game competitively: If a player takes longer than three seconds to fill a blank, they’re out. But me and my sisters always just played for fun and helped each other think of words when we got stuck. It’s a nice, calm activity, if you want one of those. And it can help younger kids with their phonics skills, too.

Variations: Hmm, I can’t think of any variations. Anyone have any to share?

What it is: A guessing game for two or more players.

Best for: 2 players or however many more you want.

What you need: Just your brains.

How to play: One player (let’s call her Tasha) first gets to think of a noun (a person, place, or thing). Once Tasha has a noun picked out, the other players then get to guess by asking questions that can be answered with a yes or a no. If you’re playing by the strict rules, players only get to ask 20 questions, and if they haven’t guessed by then, Tasha wins. If someone does guess what the object is, that person gets to think of the next thing to guess.

So here’s how a sample game might go: Tasha picks the noun “fire hydrant.” Say she’s playing with one person, her friend Leroy. The game might go like this:

Leroy: “Is it a person?”

Tasha: “No.”

Leroy: “Is it a thing?”

Tasha: “Yes.”

“Is it alive?”

“No.”

“Could I hold it in my hand?”

“No.”

“Is it made of metal?”

“Yes.” …

And the game would go on like that until Leroy uses up his 20 questions or until he guesses what the object is. It’s a great game for filling up long hours on car rides or for playing on walks. And you can go by the 20-question limit if you want, but I never really have. We just ask and guess until someone guesses right, then it’s their turn. And if you’re playing with little kids or just playing for fun, you could allow hints, too, especially if it’s taking a long time to guess something.

We also usually play with concrete nouns, things that you could see, touch, or feel. If you want to allow or disallow abstract nouns (like honor, love, capitalism…), you should probably specify beforehand, either way.

Some of the hardest-to-guess objects I’ve played with are confetti, trash bags, stop signs, and…oh, fire hydrant.

Variations: No, because and breakfast combo are some more difficult variations on this classic game. And poodle is a slightly sillier one

What it is: A talking, thinking game for anywhere from two to a busload of players. This is also one of those games where you need someone who knows the “secret” and other players who are clueless.

Best for: 2 players or however many more you want.

What you need: Nothing! Well, just people to play, at least one who knows the “secret” and at least one who doesn’t.

How to play: The object of the game is for players to discover what can be taken through a hypothetical set of green glass doors. Players who know the secret give other players hints (or further confuse them) by saying “I’m going through the green glass doors and I’m bringing ___, but not ___,” filling in the blanks with an object than can go through the green glass doors and an object that can’t, respectively.

So players who know the secret might say things like this:

I’m going through the green glass doors and I’m bringing a poodle, but not a dog.

I’m going through the green glass doors and I’m bringing the moon, but not the sun.

I’m going through the green glass doors and I’m bringing a puddle, but not water.

I’m going through the green glass doors and I’m bringing boots, but not sandals.

I’m going through the green glass doors and I’m bringing Harry Potter, but not Ron Weasley.

Have you figured it out yet?

Players who don’t know the secret to the game can then try their own sentences, maybe something like, “I’m going through the green glass doors, and I’m bringing a lamp shade, but not a light bulb?” To which the in-the-know players would respond with, “Nope, you can’t go through the green glass doors” while shaking their heads sympathetically. The game can continue indefinitely, and pause and resume as needed, until all players know the secret. It’s perfect for filling long hours during car trips.

So do you know the secret yet? Do you know what can be taken through the green glass doors? (I’ll give you one hint: the fact that you’re reading this post and not playing this game out loud should be a huge help to you.) Oooh, I know! How about, if you still don’t know the secret, leave a comment in the form of “I’m going through the green glass doors and I’m taking ___ but not ___,” and I’ll respond with a yes or a no! And, if you already know the secret, you can post mysterious, enigmatic sentences to confuse all the clueless people! It’ll be like a massive online, ongoing version of green glass doors! Awesome!

Or…since you’re probably reading this blog to figure out how to play, and if you really really really want to know and have no will power at all, or any desire to experience that awesome “a-ha!” moment when you figure out the secret yourself, click here to find out.

Variations: My mom and sister play the same game but call it Fanny Dooley, where Fanny Dooley a made-up lady and phrases take the form of “Fanny Dooley has ___ but not ___.” I’ve also heard the game called “deep but not profound” (which I think is clever, funny, and awesome).

Also, for a very similar game with more flexible rules, check out going on a picnic.

What it is: An easy talking game for anywhere from two to lots of players, perfect for car trips, bus rides, or walks.

Best for: 2 players or however many more you want.

What you need: Just people to talk.

How to play: It’s a pretty simple game. First, players pick a category—let’s say food. One player starts by naming any food, say, a strawberry.

The next player has to name a food that starts with the last letter of the previously named food: so, in this case, Y. Yam, for example, would be a good choice.

Then the next player has to name a food that starts with M. And that’s the game! Keep naming food until you can’t name any more. Then choose a new category and go again!

Variations: You can have players go in order, and the first player to not think of a word (at all or within a certain time limit) or say a repeat word is out. Play until you have one winner. Or, if you’re looking for a less restrictive game, don’t set a playing order and have players call out words whenever they have a good one. Play until no one can think of another word. If you’re competitive, you could even keep points—whoever has called out the most words by the end wins. Can you think of any other ways to play?

Printables: Here’s the list of categories if you need help brainstorming some!

Categories

Best for: Group of 2 to 9 players.

What you need: Just people to play.

How to play: First, have everyone sit in a circle, or establish a clear playing order so everyone knows when it’s their turn. Then you can start. The point of the activity is just to tell a story, one word at a time. Each player gets to say one word. So this is how a sample start to a game might go:

I’ve played where ending punctuation marks count as words, too; otherwise, sentences tend to drag on without any clear end. You can tell your story on paper or out loud or both, and it usually ends up pretty silly or ridiculous. But that’s the fun part.

Variations: To avoid the story breaking down into a totally unrelated mess of words that lacks any continuity whatsoever (which is often what happens when I play with my siblings), you could choose a topic or narrow the scope before hand. Or, just say anything goes. You could also play by having each player say a whole sentence at a time, rather than a single word. Also, the game fortunately, unfortunately is very similar, just with a little more direction.

What it is: A simple, easy game that can be played with two or lots of people.

Best for: 2 players or however many more you want.

What you need: Just people who know and like music. Optional: something that plays music (piano, guitar, iPod speakers, you know).

How to play: The basic game is simple. Someone picks a song and starts humming or singing it. Then the other players try to guess which song it is. Or, instead of singing or humming, you can play songs on the piano, one note at a time, or from a CD in the car, or with an iPod, or anything that makes music. You could take turns singing or playing songs, or have one designated song-player. You could choose a theme (oldies, Disney, movie scores, 90s pop) or leave it open. And I suppose you could keep score, but you don’t have to at all.

Variations: If you’re into music but not singing, you could play name that tune by reciting lyrics instead of humming or singing. For some similar games, also check out Sing a song and What’s the name of that song?

What it is: A talking game for two or more players.

Best for: 2 up to about 8 players.

What you need: Just two or more players.

How to play: The point of the game is to hold a conversation using only questions. Players take turns asking questions to each other, and the first person to say a statement is out. The questions don’t have to make sense or logically respond to one another; the trick is just to get another player to fall into the habit of automatically answering a question. So a sample game between Ian and Lilly might go something like this:

IAN: Why is the sky blue?

LILLY: What are you doing?

IAN: Where are you going?

LILLY: What time is it?

IAN: Where is my hairbrush?

LILLY: Where do you think it is?

IAN: I don’t know….dang it!

LILLY: Haha! I win!

(Ian just said a statement, so he loses.)

With more than two players, you can take turns asking questions in a circle, or players can ask questions specifically to other players, in any order.

This is a great game to play while killing time in the car, on a bus, waiting in line…you get the idea. So go ask some questions!