The Vine: February 11, 2011
Do you have any good party games for grownups? I’m turning 30 next month (March 5th! Yay Saturday birthday!) and wanted to mark the occasion by throwing myself a little shindig (I also didn’t want anyone else to feel like they had to throw a party for me). A good chunk of my immediate family is coming in from out of town, some of my grad-school friends are coming down, and a few fratty friends from my summer softball team and my fun gay neighbors from the building all said they’d be there for a drink or five. So it’ll be a good mix of people from all different phases of my life.
I’m not a terribly socially awkward person, but I’m not a natural hostess either, so I wanted to have a couple casual games planned to help break the ice. I don’t think overly structured games is a great idea, since people will be coming and going, and it might be crowded for a little while (I hope!).
The only thought I had so far was some sort of celebrity game, where everyone gets a sticker with a celebrity’s name stuck on their back upon arrival, and have to determine who it is by asking yes or no questions, yadda yadda. I’m not married to that idea, but that’s the sort of casual, chatty thing I’m looking for. Although I should say that I am very competitive and would not mind a little yelling or trash-talking, either.
Any ideas, or memories from a kick-ass party you’ve been to before? Oh, and one other detail: I’m reserving the back room of the bar next door. So we’re not in a house, but it’s not a huge amount of space, either.
Planning my 30th birthday party like a 10-year-old
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult rando
I’ve been to some really fun parties where we played the game Apples to Apples. It’s a board game, but it’s about as unstructured as they get, and it’s easy enough for drunk people who’ve never played before to figure it out. There are some good opportunities for trash-talking, too, and it moves pretty fast.
apples to apples: the definition of a good game for people who are competitive and like to yell/trash-talk:
http://www.amazon.com/Apples-Party-Box-Hilarious-Comparisons/dp/B00112CHCK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297445754&sr=8-1
you don’t need the whole box – just slip the cards into someone’s bag & borrow a pencil & pad of paper from the bar.
If you want a game that goes for the whole party, you could do a murder mystery. You can buy sets at Amazon.
I once played a game of Celebrity that had three rounds. In the first, people draw celebrities’ names from a hat and have to describe them without using the name (example: “he was the King of Pop”). In the second, you can only use one word to describe the celebrity (“Thriller”). In the third, you can’t say anything (easy when it’s Michael Jackson and you can Moonwalk; not so easy when it’s someone like Karl Rove, one of the celebs when I played. Larry Craig was much more fun to act out).
Catch Phrase is completely addictive and can be played by pretty much any number of people above four (need at least two teams of two, but I’ve played it in large groups where people were coming and going.) It’s conducive to a loud place, I think, and can be done while people are standing around — it’s basically a password/charades type of game. Being a little drunk just makes it that much more fun.
There’s a little disk shaped thing that gives you the clues — you pass it from hand to hand. There’s a “hot potato” aspect to the game — the machine beeps faster and faster as it goes — when time is up, the buzzer sounds and whoever is holding it loses. So — the anxiety/hilarity level goes up as the beeping gets faster — like a bomb is about to go off.
Every group I’ve played it with has gotten really competitive (in a fun way) and addicted. Great icebreaker, easy to learn, and easy to walk into/out of (each round is like a minute long.)
Third apples to apples – it’s a Thanksgiving staple now, that even the grandparents get in on the trash talking.
Thirding Apples to Apples! Our gang used to play Uno a lot, but that almost always led to someone crying (our house rules are harsh). Once we switched to AtA, things have gotten no less yelly, but nobody has gotten divorced over it. :)
Apples to Apples!
Another vote for Apples to Apples. Hands down the most fun game (for adults too!) out there. Esp. for breaking the ice with groups of friends/family that might not know each other.
I’ll 3rd Apples to Apples. Gawd, that’s fun. And it’s one of those games that holds up while drinking, too – not a lot of brainpower to it, though people tend to get a bit yelly if there’s lots of alcohol being passed around :)
I also like Hoopla (same people who make Cranium). There’s no actual “board” to the game – everyone gets cards and everyone plays together as a team to beat the timer. There’s word play, charades, etc.
Must say I played Apples to Apples at a party a few weeks ago and I don’t get the hype.
Taboo or Scattergories can be fun and Pictionary is always hilarious. (Just skip all the damn all plays or it takes forever).
I love the game Blockus. You get these odd shaped plastic pieces which you have to place onto a board, while trying to get in the way of your opponents placing theirs. Its a fun strategy game, although I think the max is 4 people.
Having a few decks of cards on hand is always a good idea.
Thirding? Fourthing? Apples to Apples.
My sometimes-weird friend bought me The Origin of Expressions for my birthday. I had my doubts, but if your people are nerdy, sarcastic types (like my people), they might like it:
http://www.amazon.com/Discovery-Bay-Games-1061-Expressions/dp/0979182778
Loaded Questions is worth a look also, and Curses can be amusing if nobody’s too proud.
Apples to Apples pleases both my cynic husband and his Mormon parents, and the old turn-of-the-millennium standby, Cranium, ain’t bad either.
One of my favorite party games is Telestrations:
http://www.amazon.com/Telestrations-Telephone-Game-Sketched-Out/dp/B001SN8GF4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297448406&sr=8-1
I’ve found it at Borders and Barnes and Nobles as well, as far as availability goes. It can take up to 8 people (so, maybe good for the beginning or tail end of the shindig).
It’s a mix of pictionary and telephone that yields ridiculous results. Each person has a pad to draw on and draws what was on the card. Each pad gets passed to the next person, who writes down a guess of what the drawing was. The next person after that can only see the previous person’s guess, not the original drawing, and does a drawing based on the guess, and so on. I once had “garlic powder” end up with a final guess of “latke vampire,” so it can get pretty strange and funny. It’s definitely a good icebreaker.
Not sure if this would work for everyone or with every crowd, but I recently threw a 30th bday party for my husband and I put together a little game that everyone really loved…
I got about a dozen pictures of my husband at various ages from his parents, printed out 8.5″ x 11″ versions of them, and stuck them on poster boards. The game was “How Old is He?”: everyone studied the pictures and wrote down their best guesses of how old he was in each picture. The thing that made it really fun was that he had friends at the party from various eras of his life, so they all recognized a few pics, were able to share memories, etc. And they also spent some time teasing him about childhood fashions and hairstyles, which was fun, too.
Anyway, that was pretty much it, but everyone raved about it. The person who guessed the most right won a little prize. And the birthday boy played along, too, and did kind of horribly… which only added to the entertainment value of the whole thing.
Apples is great as other commenters have mentioned. I find it a little TOO unstructured; it is so random that it’s impossible to get really competitive about it. But it is perfect for a party in that it can last any amount of time and involve any number of players.
Your mention of celebrities reminded me that “Celebrity” is a good game that requires a lot of people to be fun, although it is more punishing to newcomers. That’s the one where everyone puts the names of celebrities in a hat. In the first round, you try to get your partner to guess the celebrity Taboo-style, by describing him or her; in the second round, you use charades; in the third, you only get one word.
For a solid casual, easy to play but high-energy game, I vote Catchphrase (the even simpler version of Taboo). You basically just throw whoever wants to play onto two teams and people can join or leave whenever (although you might have people who aren’t paying attention asterisking the game by guessing the wrong team’s clues).
At a recent party I went to, the hosts made a trivia game ahead of time and ran it when most people were present. Trivia is classic bar fun, and you can divide people into teams so that they interact with people they don’t already know. In fact, it’s a plus because a group of people with different interests and background knowledge is helpful. Newcomers can easily be added to shorthanded teams.
Apples to Apples is the best! My friends also like a similar game called Say Anything, in which each person gets to supply their own answer on a little whiteboard, then everyone votes on what they think the judge will choose. (This probably makes no sense if you haven’t played Apples to Apples.)
Depends on the crowd. Some people tend to go the “writing dirty words” route very quickly.
Hey guys – I’m the birthday girl. Thanks so much for your recommendations! My neighbor has a copy of Apples to Apples (which I’ve played before and yes, it’s great). I’m not sure I’m looking for a boardgame, but I LOVE Suz’s idea with the pictures. My parents are coming down, and I have at least one folder of the old Melissa pics in my apartment. I guess the first step would be figuring out for myself how old I am in all of them…
Thanks again! Keep the ideas coming!
http://www.cardsagainsthumanity.com/
This is like Apples to Apples, only completely awesome in the most disturbing way. If your friends have a good sense of humor, they will love this game!
I have to second Celebrity, although it does take a little bit of initial organization — getting people paper and pens, having them write their celebrities, and making sure they understand the rules. But once you clear though hurdles and get going it is absolutely the best party game ever. I have never played a bad round, no matter the participants/situation. Here’s a breakdown of the rules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_%28game%29
One dumb but fun party activity I’ve done is to have a fortune box (or bowl, or hat, or whatever you have that will hold slips of paper.) Have pieces of paper and a pen next to the box. As people happen by, ask them to make up a “fortune” (prediction, character assessment, whatever), write it on a slip of paper, and drop it in the box. They also get to take a fortune out of the box. So, people get to think up funny or happy or dire fates to write on the slips, and they get to pick a fortune for themselves, like opening a fortune cookie. People can put in/take out fortunes throughout the evening and discuss amongst themselves. It’s also fun to run across the people who got the fortunes you put in. You’ll need to make up a few beforehand, so there is something in the box for early arrivals. We had people going back and putting in/taking out fortunes all night long.
Thirding Apples to Apples!
I just full-on laughed out loud at that game, @S. Hilarious!
Someone said Hoopla, and I second it. It’s sort of a combination of Pictionary, charades, and word games all mashed together with a timer. In fact, all the Cranium games I’ve ever played were pretty damn awesome.
Gah, I hate Apples to Apples! Everyone seems to love it, but it can be absolutely dull if you’re not playing with the right people! If you really want to try it, please plan to pull the plug after 20 minutes if your guests start to glaze over.
Another option is an all-out theme party — “Redneck Prom”, or a “Murder Mystery” that everybody has to solve…I’ve done both, and they can be a lot of fun (although quite a bit of work to set up).
Or just ask everybody to bring their favorite old-school vinyl, and get out a turntable.
I’m George Bush? (get the reference and you win an internet!)
Twenty-thirding Apples, since it’s really easy to move people in and out of the game–a team isn’t at a disadvantage if they lose a player to pool or the bar.
And what, no Twister? Who doesn’t want to play Twister on the floor of the back room of a bar? C’mon!
A tradition for a friend of ours is family-feud style ‘Trivia about (hername)’. You can make a Jeopardy-style board with a bunch of post-it-Notes, and have people make teams and figure out the answer. It doesn’t have to be super-obscure, people just like racking up points. Categories have included “Cardigan colours” and “Stuff (dogsname) does”
Its’ hilarious and you can tailor the trivia so that all the people have an advantage in one category or another…
Fictionary – all you need is a dictionary and paper and pencils. One person keeps the dictionary, picks out a word that no one knows, and everyone writes down a fake definition for it (the person with the dictionary writes down the real definition). Said person reads all the definitions, and the others guess which is the correct one. Points for guessing the right one, and for having one’s fake definition guessed.
Duana – Ohhhh, “We asked 100 Melissas, ‘What is the first drink you order in a bar?'” That idea has got some legs too, I think. :-)
And Jen S 1.0 – Twister did cross my mind.
The owner has a giant Connect 4 board and I got him to let me bring it out. At this point I’m thinking I should also put together gift bags. Or just hold this party in a Chuck E. Cheese.
I had a similar party a few years ago (lots of people, with an assortment of different groups so there were a lot of people who only knew a few friends). We made up 2 free-flow games that worked well as ice-breakers and conversation-starters:
I had an old “word of the day” calendar that I never used, so I tore off a bunch of words and folded them up. Everyone got a word when they arrived, and they had to find a way to use it in a sentence at some point in the party.
I went through old magazines and found a bunch of large pictures, and cut each one in half. Shuffled them up and gave one half to each attendee as they arrived, and they had to find their other half.
Both of them are very unstructured, but it allowed people to be as involved as they wanted – and they were good at getting people to strike up conversations with strangers. And they didn’t require explaining lots of rules.
Our party had a prom theme, and when people either used their word or found their other half, they got a ticket they could cash in for one poloroid picture in our prom-style photobooth (a shiny sheet hung up with a disco ball – very classy).
Also, I absolutely despise Apples to Apples (and I win most times I’m forced to play it, so this isn’t my usual “I hate it because I’m not good at it” attitude). Man that game annoys me.
@S – thanks! I’m going to do that for my friend’s 30th next month. It’s dark and warped enough to be perfect for the crowd I’m expecting. (Or, even if everyone else hates it, the birthday girl will be delighted, so good enough.)
@Kat – I played Cranium with my inlaws and it just about ended in tears… I had no idea how hostile that game could get!
dk – I LOVE those ideas. I might not set up a photo booth, but I’m already thinking that if you can find your matching photo half, you and your new friend get matching funny straws.
Oh man, thanks so much again everyone. This is such a huge help. (And also fun and hilarious.)
I *loved* Catchphrase when I played it at a party recently – people come up with the most amazing descriptions of stuff… “It’s an animal… and it stores water…” for a beaver, for example. Yeah, we didn’t get it from that. And lord, did it get competitive!
Mad Gab is also fun. And for a friend’s birthday, another one of her friends made an Apples to Apples game that was specific to her- all the nouns were things she liked or talked about a lot.
There’s another game I’ve played at parties that’s fun- one person writes a sentence and passes the paper to the next person, who then illustrates the sentence and folds the paper over so that the next person only sees the illustration. The next person then writess a sentence describing the illustration, the person after that does an illustration describing the sentence, etc. At the end you see how far you’ve gotten from the original sentence- it’s like Telephone on paper.
Dixit- its a lot like Apples to Apples but with art. Its actually pretty fantastic and the illustrations are beautiful and interesting. We found it randomly for my brother in-law who has taken classes on game design and he’s in love with it.
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39856/dixit
At a 30th I went to last year the old childhood games came out, particularly Pass the Parcel and the Chocolate game. Kiddy games are awesome.
For those who don’t know the Chocolate game. ALl players are in a circle, a dice goes round the circle with everyone taking turns to roll. When someone rolls a six they put on the supplied hat, scarf, and gloves and cut a kingsize block of chocolate with a knife and fork, only eating when you have individual squares. In the mean time the dice goes round the circle and as soon as someone rolls a six they get the hat, scarf and gloves and knife and fork. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Another vote for Apples to Apples because I love it thiiiiiiis much. Plus, if you’re already familiar with the game, there’s no reason you have to stick to the rules as written.
– Draw two cards at once and have the players bridge them together
– Pick the best film title — we pick porn titles because we’re not-so-secretly 12 years old, but if Grandma wouldn’t approve you could go with westerns or romantic comedies or badly-translated foreign films or whatever
– Build a deck of party attendees’ names and use them instead of red cards
– Make it a drinking game — this also works as a handicap for anybody who’s particularly good and/or lucky.
I don’t really like Apples to Apples either! I guess I’ve played too often with kids who get so self-important being the judge that they take forever. Plus I don’t like kids.
If there’s a time when things quiet down but you still want to play a game, my FAVORITE party game is Crack the Case. It’s a board game that only had one year of release, I think, and it gave you cards with a mystery on them, and people ask yes or no questions to find out the circumstances and who did it. If you like the idea but can’t find the game, I hear the book series of “Five Minute Mysteries” can be used the same way, and copies of that are on Amazon for under $10. We always play it when the power goes out.
Adding to the call to at least try Apples to Apples. It doesn’t look like anyone explained the rules (although there’s a link that might). So you have a stack of cards with descriptive words/adjectives on them and a stack with the names of events, places, famous people, and other nouns. Whoever is the “judge” each round puts down a descriptive card and then everyone else chooses an event/person/place from their own hand and whoever the judge thinks chose the best noun wins that round and keeps the descriptive card. When you get bored, whoever has the most descriptive cards wins. Some judges prefer literal (so if the adjective is “evil” a person who plays “Hitler” will win). Some prefer funny, and some go for more personal definitions. Every round, a different player acts as the judge, and figuring out how to play to each judge’s personality can be really fun. In my particular group, the key is to be as offensive as possible. We’re weird that way.
Anyone who thinks it isn’t a competitive game has never played with my friends.:)
Ooh. Adding to say this. Maybe you could combine the celebrity idea with the Apples to Apples rules. Give everyone a card from one of the Apples to Apples decks, but stick it to their backs or something so they can’t see it, and have everyone else give them a card from the other deck (the decks are different colors, so it’s easy to keep them separate) and see if they can guess their card that way.
We spent the entire weekend of my wedding playing Quiddler (well, I guess I got married too). But it’s really a game for word nerds. I’ve loved Apples to Apples for-freakin’-ever, and it’s not really a “board” game because you can set your own goal, like 3 cards instead of 5, rather than feeling like you have to play out some twists-and-turns-and-back-10-spaces board.
You could probably modify the game to be more like Cadoo–I THINK it’s Cadoo. You know, the kids’ game where you get points based on how much the person likes your choice? That way everyone gets to know more about each other quickly, and you can just play one round.
I love celebrity, with the three rounds that someone described earlier (can say anything but the person’s name, can say one word, can only act things out). I’ve converted my in-laws, who used to be charades people.
The only bad round of celebrity I’ve ever played was with a 12-year-old nerdy cousin who put in obscure characters from fantasy novels that none of the rest of us had ever heard of and that were really hard to pronounce and remember. The best was when my wife had to act out Monica Lewinsky.
How about good old fashioned Charades? But with a theme! Movies, songs, books, celebrities, political events from the year you were born! Bonus points if you bring/wear clothing from that year!
And Mad Libs (I know my local small town book store carries them). Drunk lit geeks makes for fun Mad Libs!
Please let us know what you end up doing because it sounds like it will be a great party!
Happy birthday from another March 5th’r!
I actually played Charades at a gathering over the holidays and it was a ton of fun. There are web sites that will serve as a clue resource and you can just pass a phone, netbook, laptop around instead of cars. It seems old-fashioned, but it takes very little prepping and usually ends with gigglefits.
Another interesting game is to have everybody write down on separate slips of paper ten secrets that no one knows about them. They can be pedestrian (“I find NYC overwhelming”), semi-embarrassing (“I threw up on my teacher in third grade”), or mega-embarrassing (“I have two extra nipples”). A reader reads them aloud and everyone guesses whose secret it is. Guess right, you get a point. If no one guesses right, the secret writer gets two points. It can be a BLAST in the right crowd, but certainly isn’t for every crew.
IF you can find a copy in time, Songburst was tons of fun the one time I played it. Make teams so people can come and go, and let the madness begin.
The version I played used song lyrics from the 50s to the 80s and we had people from all those eras, which made for some stiff competition. (Hint – knowing the lyrics to *every single Beatles song ever* was a big help for that version.) Alcohol just adds to the merriment.
Whatever you do, Melissa, Happy Birthday!
I need to know more about that Chocolate game … hat? scarf? gloves? Is this a UK thing? (Running off to Google.)
I love the bizarre things that people come up with under pressure while playing Catchphrase.
[Numero Uno] “I’m looking out for ME… and I’m Spanish!”
[shoe polish] The player spent the entire time trying to describe wooden shoes … somehow he thought it said “Shoe, Polish” (as in “from Poland” and he imagined those would be like Dutch wooden shoes…
Apples to Apples. The only person I’ve met who didn’t love this game was my dad, and I think that has more to do with his inability to think his way into the heads of others.
Depending on what kind of a crowd you run with, and how well everyone knows everyone else, a “Book of Questions” might be handy. It’s not a game, but can lead to some entertaining conversations. Please note: this works especially well for academic, sit around, drink wine and chat kinds of partys. If you’re aiming for people to end up wearing lampshades, go with Apples to Apples. However, Like A2A, watch for the glazing over. If that happens, deep 6 the book.
I’m not sure it would work for a big party, but I’m going to second Telestrations as well. Works best with 8 people (so maybe more a not-quite-a-party-but-I-have-a-houseful-over-for-beers)and I have never laughed harder in my life than at that stupid telephone-but-with-drawings game.
Favorite progression:
“Night Owl” -> person drew an owl with stars -> next person guesses “owl under the stars” -> next person can’t read, draws an owl under STAIRS -> next person guesses “Owl in a cupboard under the stairs?” -> drawings and guesses take left turn, become progressively more akin to a Hieronymus Bosch painting by way of Harry Potter.
I recently have heard a lot about Tabletopics. It’s basically a bunch of questions to stimulate conversation and you can get them for a variety of types of get-togethers. You can just leave the box on the table and let people start using them, or, if you wanted it to be a little more interactive, hand one to each person as they walk in. That could be their card to ask people questions throughout the evening. http://www.tabletopics.com