I played one the other day. I thought it was pretty fun.
It was called the “Movie quote game”
What you would do, is somebody would quote a line from a movie, then it would be up to the rest of the people in the group to guess what movie he or she was quoting.
Just got me to thinking:
I wonder what other cool party games are out there.
So if you have any please share.
I know a whole bunch.
Are you looking for team or individual games? Word games or knowledge games or quick-thinking games or drawing games? Cooperative or competitive? How many people?
Are you already familiar with Celebrities? Taboo? Pictionary? Trivial Pursuit? Scattergories?
I need some guidance here…
Apples to Apples is a great party game for 5+ people. Get an expansion box. too.
Cranium has won lots of awards and I’ve enjoyed playing it a couple of times.
Books like this one and those on the same page can be fun as well.
I will second the Apples to Apple vote.
I was going to suggest Apples to Apples. Then I thought that maybe I’d second it. I guess now I’m left with thirding it. It’s a great game. Cranium’s also a lot of fun.
Cranium didn’t go over well with my group. I found it to be a hodgepodge of better games.
Taboo and Apples to Apples are the two that I would recommend first.
After that, it depends on how big your party is.
For a moderate size (6-8), try Eat Poop You Cat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eat_Poop_You_Cat
I recommend using the simultaneous variation listed there.
Also, you can do The Story Game (dunno if this has a real name. Similar to EPYC, everyone gets a sheet of paper, but they write 3 lines of a story on it. Fold the paper over so the next person only sees the last line of the story, and continues it with 3 lines of his own. Then fold and pass, etc. At the end of the page, stop and read all the meandering stories)
Or Balderdash. You don’t have to actually buy the game, just get a big honking dictionary, and pick random words from it. One person picks the word, writes the real definition down, then everyone else writes their own made up definition and hands it in to the picker. The Picker shuffles up the definitions (including the real one) and reads them, trying not to chuckle. Go around the circle, voting for which one you think is right. 2 points for guessing the real answer, 1 point for each person who picked your answer. 2 points for anyone who actually wrote the correct answer down (remove that one fromthe pile before reading). Pass the dictionary and repeat until bored.
Other options to purchase: Once Upon a Time, and The Big Idea.
For larger groups, Mafia (a.k.a. werewolf) is fun. As is Encore.
I love this game. Podkayne is right, Mafia is much more fun than Wikipedia makes it sound. It works best in groups of 10-12 players.
Does anybody still play Charades?
The Fictionary thing with dictionary and phony definitions is fun, especially if you have a bunch of punsters involved.
GHOSTS can be fun for a small gathering.
Our group/family usually resorts to team Trivial Pursuit whenever it’s game time.
Taboo, Apples to Apples, and Trivial Pursuit are my favorites.
It’s not just the Wikipedia. The fun of playing it simply cannot be understood based solely on the rules. The first time I played the game, I thought it’d be absolutely stupid, but then I found myself trying to convince eight people (an equal mix of friends and friend-of-friends I didn’t know) not to execute me because I was not a werewolf![sup]*[/sup]
[sup]*[/sup] Full disclosure: Okay, I was a werewolf.
What’s Apples to Apples?
I love Taboo and Pictionary, myself, depening on the size of the group.
Scene It is my absolute favorite game. They have lots of different editions, movie (the original Scene It), TV, Sports, Music, Friends, James Bond, and I bet there’s a few more.
My best friend and I play these for hours and they are great for any number of players because you can form teams of up to four, I think.
In a rowdy crowd, and as a designated driver, this game can be equated to a long, slow descent into hell.
Apples to Apples is basically this. One person turns over a category card, and the other players lay down one of their held cards face down and try to match it. The first person collects all of them and chooses which is the best match for the category, and they win a card. First to however many cards (5?) wins the game.
So, if the category is “magnificent” and I’m holding the cards “Your Bathroom”, “Jupiter”, “John F. Kennedy” and “Racecar” I would lay down “Jupiter” and hope I had the most magnificent thing in the pile, according to the player who does the choosing. Then play rotates and the next person gets to be the chooser. It’s heaps of fun.
For board games you purchase, I add Balderdash to the list, but it depends on the crowd. I still am trying to reproduce the with of that one game I played back in the 80s along with 20 other fellow university students.
But here’s one you don’t need to buy. You only need enough slips of paper and pens for everyone. This will sound stupid, but just try it! The game is called “What If?” It consists of three rounds
[ol]
[li]Everyone gets a slip of paper and pen and writes down a question that begins with “What if…” No other constraints. Anything goes, it just has to be a question that starts with those two words.[/li][li]The slips are gathered, shuffled, then redistributed. No fair if you get your own question. Now everyone answers the question given. Make if funny, serious, whimsical, profound, doesn’t matter. Just answer the question by writing it below.[/li][li]The slips are again gathered, shuffled, and redistributed. Now the fun starts. One person reads her “What if…” question on her own slip. Just the question. Then the person to the left (or right, doesn’t matter) reads the answer on his slip. It, surprisingly often, makes a funny sort of sense. Once the laughter subsides, the second person reads his question, then the next reads her answer, and around it goes until returning to the first reader.[/li][/ol]
The first time you play this game everyone is still in the “not sure why this will be fun” mode. By the time the first circle is complete, everyone will see how well it works. Do it again! and again! If you are not rolling on the floor laughing your collective asses off, I will fully refund your money - guaranteed.
“reproduce the with” = “reproduce the wit” Why oh why cannot I preview? (and why oh why cannot we edit?)
For two teams, Catch Phrase and Outburst are good for involving everyone to some degree and moving quickly. I suggest having the losers give the winners a one-minute backrub to generate the correct level of competitiveness.
For something not store-bought, Charades can be fun with the right crowd. However, it can be slow-moving and I have seen it inspire really intense competition.
One of my favorites is Poop the Pear. It’s a relay race, and can have two or more teams. For each team you need a receptacle (wastebasket, paper grocery sack, cardboard box) and a “pear.” Actual pears aren’t the best choice – tennis balls, softballs, or oranges seem to work well. The teams are lined up beside each other on one side of the room (or yard), the receptacles lined up across the room. The runner for each team (at the front of the line) stuffs the pear into his crotch and walks/waddles to the receptace, squats over it, and releases the pear into it. He then picks it out of the receptacle and runs it back to the next person in line on his team, who is now the runner. If the pear slips out of his crotch on the way to the receptacle, he has to reinsert it to continue. It’s a hoot to watch.
Asshole, Beer Pong, and Power Hour are always good, and you can always play the Rob Zombie drinking game (drink every time he says “Yeah!” or swears), and of course that is just one of a myriad of artists you can play that with. There’s also Flip-Cup, a game that requires a lot of coordination that you don’t have after a few games of it.
That is, of course, if that’s the kind of party you’re talking about. 