Favourite Games
There was an excellent piece in today's Telegraph about the best games to play over Christmas, although imho most can, and should, be enjoyed at any time. This got me thinking - it's surprising what does - and so I offer the Badger's Choice:
1. Pictionary
Probably my favourite game ever, not least because my brother and I have some sort of weird ESP connection that renders us unbeatable. On one famous occasion, I guessed 'icicle' within two seconds after he drew a 'V', while my father was still in the process of drawing a snowflake.
2. Masquerade
Like charades but better, this requires you to act out phrases and sentences, such as 'what is Israel doing in the Eurovision Song Contest?' A game that has left me weeping helplessly with laughter (unlike Monopoly, which has just left me weeping helplessly).
3. Articulate
Very simple: you have to describe as many words as possible to your team without mentioning the word they have to guess. Like Pictionary, but for those with a better vocabulary. Worked example: I once had to describe 'glistening,' and thought I had done so rather brilliantly:
Me: 'in the lane, snow is - '
Father: 'piled up high'
Moral: never play board games on the same team as my father.
4. Cluedo
Despite the inevitable argument at the start regarding the finer details of seeing Colonel Mustard in the ballroom with a candlestick, the finest game that actually requires an element of skill to play and be accomplished within the hour. It has also directly led to some very successful murder dinners and my PhD.
5. Oh Hell!
A card game with the endearing twist that your aim is not to necessarily win nor lose, but to take the number of tricks that you think you'll take. This is harder than it looks, although the very skilled can usually contrive a flat zero. However, the number of cards dealt reduces by one each time and the trump suit changes, hence the name of the game derives from unexpected victories, and might be more accurately called 'oh shit, you've just made me win with the two of spades, you bastard.'
6. Boggle
Sixteen letters in a 4-by-4 grid and you have to make as many words as possible within a given time from connecting letters. I like this game a lot, mainly because I've only ever lost once, and that was to my boyfriend (at the time), who adopted the brilliant tactic of inventing words and then looking them up in the dictionary. It's truly amazing how many three-letter Scottish words of doubtful etymology there are.
7. Therapy
You don't often see this, but the basic point is to answer questions on human psychology. Sounds dull, but the real fun lies when you go into 'therapy' and a fellow player asks, 'so tell me Bob, on a scale of 1 to 10, how charming are you?' At which point you write down two totally different numbers and a perfectly good relationships is ruined.
8. 21
A drinking game that requires the players to count up to 21. Sounds easy, but counting two numbers reverses direction and three skips a player...it's actually fiendishly difficult and more so after a few drinks. Often messy.
9. Ibble Dibble
Another drinking game and one I haven't played for literally years - since I was an undergrad, in fact, and when my siblings were still young enough to do this sort of thing. The details now escape me (please help if you can!), but it involves reciting a complicated formula about I, Bob, having one ibble and no dibbles, toast you, Max, with no ibbles and one dibble...being penalised for the slightest mistake and having burnt cork rubbed vigorously into your face.
10. 'The Destructive Card Game'
To the best of my knowledge, the finest party game ever has no name, so I'm going to call it Badger. You take the sixteen court cards from a pack. You take four chairs (that you don't mind losing) and set them up in the four corners. You deal the cards, face down, to the sixteen players. At a given signal they turn them over...and, shouting only the name of their card, have to arrange themselves in suits. Ace sits down first, king on ace, queen on king and jack on queen. It might sound straightforward but I assure you it's noisy, frenetic, hilarious, violent and destructive. At my leaving-for-Yale party, the four lightest people there shattered a garden chair into matchwood.
There are many others I've enjoyed: Consequences, Jenga, Ex-Libris, Trivial Pursuit, Twister and so on. I have included no games or variations of a sexual or erotic nature because I don't believe they exist in real life. There is space to mention a fine game, in which one person leaves the room, then the other players each drink a bottle of whisky and guess who it was.
1. Pictionary
Probably my favourite game ever, not least because my brother and I have some sort of weird ESP connection that renders us unbeatable. On one famous occasion, I guessed 'icicle' within two seconds after he drew a 'V', while my father was still in the process of drawing a snowflake.
2. Masquerade
Like charades but better, this requires you to act out phrases and sentences, such as 'what is Israel doing in the Eurovision Song Contest?' A game that has left me weeping helplessly with laughter (unlike Monopoly, which has just left me weeping helplessly).
3. Articulate
Very simple: you have to describe as many words as possible to your team without mentioning the word they have to guess. Like Pictionary, but for those with a better vocabulary. Worked example: I once had to describe 'glistening,' and thought I had done so rather brilliantly:
Me: 'in the lane, snow is - '
Father: 'piled up high'
Moral: never play board games on the same team as my father.
4. Cluedo
Despite the inevitable argument at the start regarding the finer details of seeing Colonel Mustard in the ballroom with a candlestick, the finest game that actually requires an element of skill to play and be accomplished within the hour. It has also directly led to some very successful murder dinners and my PhD.
5. Oh Hell!
A card game with the endearing twist that your aim is not to necessarily win nor lose, but to take the number of tricks that you think you'll take. This is harder than it looks, although the very skilled can usually contrive a flat zero. However, the number of cards dealt reduces by one each time and the trump suit changes, hence the name of the game derives from unexpected victories, and might be more accurately called 'oh shit, you've just made me win with the two of spades, you bastard.'
6. Boggle
Sixteen letters in a 4-by-4 grid and you have to make as many words as possible within a given time from connecting letters. I like this game a lot, mainly because I've only ever lost once, and that was to my boyfriend (at the time), who adopted the brilliant tactic of inventing words and then looking them up in the dictionary. It's truly amazing how many three-letter Scottish words of doubtful etymology there are.
7. Therapy
You don't often see this, but the basic point is to answer questions on human psychology. Sounds dull, but the real fun lies when you go into 'therapy' and a fellow player asks, 'so tell me Bob, on a scale of 1 to 10, how charming are you?' At which point you write down two totally different numbers and a perfectly good relationships is ruined.
8. 21
A drinking game that requires the players to count up to 21. Sounds easy, but counting two numbers reverses direction and three skips a player...it's actually fiendishly difficult and more so after a few drinks. Often messy.
9. Ibble Dibble
Another drinking game and one I haven't played for literally years - since I was an undergrad, in fact, and when my siblings were still young enough to do this sort of thing. The details now escape me (please help if you can!), but it involves reciting a complicated formula about I, Bob, having one ibble and no dibbles, toast you, Max, with no ibbles and one dibble...being penalised for the slightest mistake and having burnt cork rubbed vigorously into your face.
10. 'The Destructive Card Game'
To the best of my knowledge, the finest party game ever has no name, so I'm going to call it Badger. You take the sixteen court cards from a pack. You take four chairs (that you don't mind losing) and set them up in the four corners. You deal the cards, face down, to the sixteen players. At a given signal they turn them over...and, shouting only the name of their card, have to arrange themselves in suits. Ace sits down first, king on ace, queen on king and jack on queen. It might sound straightforward but I assure you it's noisy, frenetic, hilarious, violent and destructive. At my leaving-for-Yale party, the four lightest people there shattered a garden chair into matchwood.
There are many others I've enjoyed: Consequences, Jenga, Ex-Libris, Trivial Pursuit, Twister and so on. I have included no games or variations of a sexual or erotic nature because I don't believe they exist in real life. There is space to mention a fine game, in which one person leaves the room, then the other players each drink a bottle of whisky and guess who it was.
posted by BoB at 3:37 PM
1 Comments:
Scattergories
The Cheopo Taco Boing game
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