Cranium is a stupid game. Celebrity is fun. Dictionary is genius.
Cranium is a stupid game.
I feel I'm dismissive using this objection, but this is basically my objection each time. Le sigh.
Taboo is a good game. As is Apples to Apples.
I once participated in a game called the Mallory Family Fun Game, which is an unholy mixture of charades and taboo. I don't like charades. I did come up with some good clues, though.
3: Have you tried homemade Apples to Apples, ben? I think you'd like it. You end up getting to argue why "squishy" really is the best characterization of, say, "ben's chances of getting laid tonight".
I second Taboo. And Dictionary extends well to Books and Movies if you have a good source. I think it is sold as Balderdash with in addition to words; movies, acronyms, dates and people (in my experience only the first two work).
My previous roommate, who is hosting me in SF in a few days, and I invented a game that totally dominated our social scene for almost two years. He deserves most of the credit.
$25,000 Pictionary!
Everyone submits a "category," signs it with initials, and puts it into a bowl. The player chooses one, announces the initials so that person won't guess, and begins drawing instances of the category. Whoever wrote that category is the next player. There is no time limit and no scoring, only glory.
Things got very complex. At first, we stuck to categories like "Things that are pink" and "Vices we have," but after a few evenings of playing with the same people and creating hieroglyphs for everything, categories became things "Things George Lucas should be ashamed of" and "Holidays that don't exist." I think the first truly difficult one I had to draw was "Places where clowns can hide." "Things in the fire that Billy Joel claims we did not start," "Things that have been in [other roommate's] bed recently," "Things AWB finds funny about the 18th century that are not."
One of our friends would go out of his way to give really bizarre instances of the categories. For "Things that are hairy" he drew a piece of chicken falling off a counter onto a dirty floor, followed by a woman's leg next to a razor with an X drawn through it.
Anyhow, it was delightful while it lasted, and you'd be surprised by how accurate the guessing gets. I only remember one category that we gave up on because the guessing got boring, and that was "Things that are topologically equivalent to a coffee mug." If it's reasonably close, we call it.
6: That sounds very fun, AWB. I might try it on Friday.
Sidebar: I would encourage everyone to re-visit the post as it now contains my curiosity regarding the play of Exquisite Corpse.
I'm trying, but failing, to understand what this says about you all. Cranium is interesting, but flawed. Its trivia is almost stupidly easy; the humming and other performance challenges are almost stupidly hard. Everything else is fun.
Try Psychiatrist, if you're into nerdgames.
10 to every comment ever, inclusive.
A whiteboard is helpful!
I thought, at least by some versions, that Person C was to know what Person B, but not Person A, had written. Surely, a whiteboard is not good there.
I find Cranium awful. Half of the things that I could never, in any situation, derive anything but embarrassment from either attempting to do or seeing someone I like and respect attempting to do.
Now, Scattergories and Outburst, those are good.
12: Oh, but with tape and paper to cover Person A maybe? I can see that. Brilliant.
In college we used to play "drinking Jenga." They'd written prompts on each tile, and as you removed and replaced the tile you had to do the thing. The prompts were sort of a mix of drinking challenges and Truth-or-Dare type stunts. Since the people creating this game were truly foul, many of the stunts were likely to, um, push the envelope - "Probe your neighbors anus" is the one I recall best. Anyway, as the drinking progressed, our willingness to do the more horrible things increased, and our Jenga abilities got worse. Whoever tipped over the stack had to finish whatever container they were drinking from. The game became kind of notorious and eventually I think we had to swear it off, as it was drawing crowds.
Apples to apples is good because it's not (exclusively) a nerdgame. It can be played by even the most wasted of partygoers.
I think I'm starting to get it. Yes, Cranium is very embarrassment heavy. It's kind of the point. Though it's a bit surprising; I didn't think this crowd was so prone to embarrassment.
12: Sorry -- whiteboard for $25K Pictionary!
Did we ever get a report on the "awkward question" game?
In college, we pretty much removed the skill from our games. Typical examples included 3-man, kings, 7-11-doubles, and a game called "The Deck of Many Things" which might as well have been called "Dare or Dare"
18: From what I gather, it's not that people here are shy, but that they are empathically horrified by other people's embarrassment.
Cranium is very embarrassment heavy. It's kind of the point.
BAD.
So bad.
Hate all that.
You want my secrets? Fight me with knives.
@23
So you're not into "I Never" (which was probably the college game I dreaded most).
18: My only flaw is that I am too empathetic.
This may be similar to Exquisite Corpse: We used to play the game where one person wrote a sentence, then the next person drew an illustration of that sentence, then the next person wrote a sentence describing that illustration. Each person could only see the entry they were describing. Kinda like telephone, but more interpretive.
12: Sorry -- whiteboard for $25K Pictionary!
No problem. I'm envisioning a version of Exquisite Corpse whereby each member is handed the white board with a a dry-erase marker, a piece of paper, and a roll of tape. Along with instructions to construct the next sentence and then cover the most recent person before you's sentence. So it works! (In my head. Will test on Friday.)
Our game (from 26) involved pieces of paper that you fold over after each entry. It's low-tech, but it works.
I am the worst player of dare/embarrassment games because I don't get embarrassed doing things or talking about sexy things, so it's not fun. There's no frisson in it for me, and that ruins it for everyone. I'm supposed to take my clothes off or kiss someone or talk about my sex life? That's not embarrassing. I get embarrassed, but by things that aren't exactly fun party-time talk.
For when you really want to minimize thinking, have had success with some board games. Sorry! and Careers come to mind.
29: That sounds like Eat Poop You Cat, which was a big hit not too long ago on Facebook around my household.
I got the adjectives and nouns mixed up wrt Apples to Apples, by the by. OP updated.
@32
That's exactly it. I had no idea it had a name, much less such an exquisitely surreal one.
It is best, I think, to do the "each player holds one strip at any one time" variant.
What I didn't mention in the post is that I can't think of a card game I like. Poker? No. It's not that I don't get it. It's that I don't care.
@36
You don't like the trick games (Hearts, Spades, Bridge, Euchre, Pinochle)?
Hearts, Spades, Bridge, Euchre, Pinochle
I shall look into these. Never played, to be honest.
I submit that Asshole has convinced me that card-playing is the dominion of, well, assholes.
Asshole is only fun when drunk.
I forgot "Oh Hell". The simplest of these is probably Euchre, which is why it's so common in the Midwest.
I was in the midst of describing Eat Poop You Cat, but I see I am too slow.
20: I can report on my friend's awkward question game. She finished it. There's somewhere over 100 questions on individually laminated heavy-stock 3.5"x1.5" cards. And a modified Candy Land board for playing.
She brought it to a couple of parties, where people have had fun rifling through the cards. No one has played it, but I don't think that was the point.
Cranium is horribly unbalanced and poorly designed. Some of the individual games are fun (the clay one, and blindfold pictionary), but many categories are absurdly easy (trivia, spell backwards, etc.), while others are broken and undefined (what exactly are you allowed to say in the impersonation one? "Hi, I'm an actor, and I was in such and such a movie" isn't forbidden). Basically any team of smart grownups has about a 50/50 chance of winning on their first turn.
At it's root Cranium, like Trivial Pursuit (but unlike say Taboo), is a game where you're playing against the cards rather than against your opponents. Such games can't modulate their difficulty for the group. In Taboo with a good crowd you need 8 cards in a minute, whereas with younger kids around 4 is probably pretty good. This means the game is fun at all levels. With Cranium it's aimed at people who aren't very smart, so if you are smart it's boring. Trivial Pursuit is aimed harder, but I bet there are groups of people who have a 50/50 chance of winning on their first turn. And for those people it's probably not much fun.
"Things that are topologically equivalent to a coffee mug."
Doesn't that just mean toroids?
Casino is a nice little 2 to 4 player card game. Oh Hell can be decent as well, at one job a group of us played it at lunch every chance we got. Growing up we played many, many different card games (and solitaires), but I have forgotten the names and rules of many of them, and seem to have tired of a lot that I do remember. I do suspect that card playing is one area that video and computer games and the 'net in general have taken a huge chunk out of (not to mention TV, especially with video & beaucoup channels).
I think I'm starting to get it. Yes, Cranium is very embarrassment heavy. It's kind of the point. Though it's a bit surprising; I didn't think this crowd was so prone to embarrassment.
Some embarrassment is interesting, some is not. "Pretend that you have some idea of what impersonating Tom Cruise would consist of, aside from just reciting movie lines" is both pointless and leads to no creativity or personal revelation (which would be the interesting kind of embarrassment).
So you're not into "I Never" (which was probably the college game I dreaded most).
I always loved that one.
what exactly are you allowed to say in the impersonation one? "Hi, I'm an actor, and I was in such and such a movie" isn't forbidden
That's what what happened, to a T.
Such games can't modulate their difficulty for the group.
Exactly the problem. We won by one turn, because there was one wrong answer the entire game. And I assure you, it ain't outstandingly brilliant company I keep, present company excluded or included as need be.
One thing that always bothered me about Cranium is that the rules on stealing a turn from someone (during the Club Cranium event) are poorly spelled out in the instructions.
Casino sounds very interesting and I'd never heard of it. Is it easy to pick up?
48.2: Yes, relatively easy. Takes a couple of times through the deck before you see how it flows, but ultimately pretty simple, although with some interesting decisions to be made.
Fight me with knives
Brings back family memories, especially at this time of year.
Has anyone here played Tarot? It is a French card game much like Hearts or Spades but it is more complex than those. In addition to four suits, you play with a fifth trump suits: a 21-card tarot deck. My friends in Austin and I play this on the river whenever I'm in town.
but ultimately pretty simple, although with some interesting decisions to be made which means it's ideal for teaching the kids quickly when they're young, but then kicking their whining little asses at it for a long time.
A game, played in three rounds.
Pre-game: Everyone in the group writes the names of seven famous people on slips of paper (one on each) and all the slips are gathered in a hat (bowl, whatever). It doesn't matter if there are duplicates. The players are divided into teams of three players. (There can be more than three players on a team, but that means that one person will only be a guesser.)
Round one: One member of a team has 45 seconds to draw names from the hat and describe each person for the other two teammates to guess. (If you don't know who the person is, put the name aside and put it back in the hat for the next team.) Each team gets their 45-second guessing time. At the end of this round, discard all the unused names, and put all the used ones back in the hat.
Round two: Draw names again, with a different member of each team doing the describing, for 30 seconds. But this time you are only allowed to say two words for each description. Names back in the hat after all teams have gone.
Round three: The third member of the team is up. This time you have to act out the people whose names you draw.
Since everyone knows all the names by the final round, you get these hilariously shifting fast charades of famous people, from Mother Theresa to Mick Jagger to Steve Jobs to Michael Jordan.
So you're not into "I Never" (which was probably the college game I dreaded most).
This game is backwards. Why should the people who have already done all the transgressive stuff be the ones who have to drink? Shouldn't the ones who have never done the things named have to drink, so that they'll get drunker and be more likely to have I-Never-worthy experiences?
53: Oh damn. I sort of wondered what Celebrity was, but didn't feel like googling it.
Practice for my career as an instruction writer for game companies when academia doesn't work out.
I am the worst player of dare/embarrassment games because I don't get embarrassed doing things or talking about sexy things, so it's not fun.
It may not be fun for you, but all you have to do is add one other player who is horrified at your nonchalance to the mix and bam! giggles for everyone else.
"I can't believe you just casually probed by anus like that!"
55: or, hell, I smell a second PhD, in game theory explaining.
I am a master of explaining/describing. Readers of my work always want more analysis. They don't buy my 'thick description' stuff.
Dictionary is genius.
Truer words were never typed. I grew up playing it.
5: I find it utterly ridiculous that someone is making money by selling Balderdash when all you need is, you know, a dictionary.
Hey, since this is a game thread... Whoever mentioned the Iron Chef game for the Wii a couple of weeks ago? THANK YOU!! Rory opened that about an hour ago, and I don't believe I have ever gotten a better reaction to a gift ever. I was quite literally tackled by the hug.
I'm envisioning a version of Exquisite Corpse whereby each member is handed the white board with a a dry-erase marker, a piece of paper, and a roll of tape. Along with instructions to construct the next sentence and then cover the most recent person before you's sentence. So it works! (In my head. Will test on Friday.)
No, you want to do it on paper, the way that F describes in 26. That way, everyone is doing it at once. That is, everyone starts with a sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" paper and writes a noun phrase* at the top, then folds it over and hands it to the next person for a verb phrase. Then illustration, sentence, illustration as F describes.
We usually do 8 rounds, so that you end up with 4 sentences and 3 illustrations. Then you unfold them all and pass them around.
*Seems like F starts with a full sentence; we do half and half for heightened surrealism. You end up with things like "Stanley's luxurious beard/ jumped as high as an elephant's eye."
36-41: I adore Spades but especially adore Bridge. Rah and I have hella played some bridge with our friends.
If you aren't into card games but you are into strategy games or "personality" games - how I think of things such as charades, Pictionary, Apples to Apples, etc., that lend an advantage to knowing one's fellow players - then Bridge is an interesting combination of the two: a four-player, turn-based strategy game made easier by being able to read one's opponents and make informed analysis of their behaviors.
This game is backwards. Why should the people who have already done all the transgressive stuff be the ones who have to drink?
Yeah, being one the most boring people alive would let me kick ass at I Never. Of course I never played I Never.
My friends in Austin and I play this on the river whenever I'm in town.
Me, me! I want to play when you're in town!
let me kick ass at I Never
The point of drinking games is getting drunk. If you're the most sober one at the end of the game, you have lost resoundingly.
The point of drinking games is getting drunk. If you're the most sober one at the end of the game, you have lost resoundingly
I still consider it a win if I am the last man conscious. This may be one of the reasons that I am very boring.
This may be one of the reasons that I am very boring.
But with everybody else unconscious, who's to know?
a four-player, turn-based strategy game made easier by being able to read one's opponents and make informed analysis of their behaviors.
Being able to read your partner helps too -- when you're playing competently and you know each other well, there's a very pleasant telepathic feeling about it. I miss bridge, and I just can't get organized to play. I wish Buck liked games.
When you're the only one without Magic Marker all over your face, everybody knows.
There should be a variant I Never in which drinking is dictated by being in the minority. I say "I never X," we poll the players, and if most have done X I drink, along with everyone who has never done X, otherwise the perverts and degenerates drink. Everyone drinks for a tie.
re: 66
See, that is how I think too. And that's not an uncommon attitude. Being last man standing is a sign of manliness [assuming you haven't wimped out on the booze]...
"Sign of manliness .." isn't supposed to be an endorsement of that actual world view ...
Here's one: Contestant takes a broom, holds it upright and spins around it as fast as possible while everyone in the room drunkenly roars out a count of 30 mixed with insults. After the count reaches 30, contestant places/throws/drops broom on the floor and must jump across it over and back.
Or: The most socially dominant and secure person in the room calls out, "X is the nigger queer person in the room least likely to inflict any lasting social, financial or physical harm in retaliation" and everyone piles on X.
Or: The neighborhood bully compels a 9-yr old to join a poker game for money during which the gull 9-yr old ends up $16 in the hole and JP said 9-yr old has to borrow the money from his older sister to pay the guy back, during which she extracts a solemn lifetime vow from him never to gamble again.
Or: You invite another couple to your home and entertainingly explore interesting episodes from your pasts. Fun and Games!
69: okay, now I'm imagining CJB, sitting alone as everybody else snores on the floor, glumly magic-markering his own face to hide his terrible secret.
Stanley, you might be interested in looking at this book of Surrealist games for your cadavre exquis rules.
I like and used to be very good at those card games where you have to have quick hands and sharp eyes. Speed, spit, Egyptian ratbadword, and variants.
Celebrity is kind of like the Mallory Family Fun Game, except in the latter:
(a) the clues can be anything
(b) the rounds are first descriptive, then charadesive, and then in the third round you can either make one gesture or say one word.
Oh wait. Maybe 76 is the way I played Celebrity? I think we're dealing with an amorphous set of very similar games, here.
If you want to explore dehumanizing effects of the 'net, play Bridge, Spades or Hearts online with strangers.
76: card games where you have to have quick hands and sharp eyes.
Used to play a bunch of these as well. I seem to recall Double Solitaire with shared piles. Hard on the cards, though.
Speaking of games, Bad news. Someone has done a pretty effective recreation of Tangleword (online Boggle). Serpentine at Cobra Dragon games. (I never liked Wordracer that much.)
In college we used to play "drinking Jenga."
We liked to play Munchies Jenga, where you built the tower out of tacquitos and everyone is a winner.
I know "Eat Poop You Cat" (the game described in 26) by the less surreal name of "Telephone/Pictionary", or however else one feels like mashing together the words telephone and pictionary.
In the category of giant, long-lasting strategy board games, I think Diplomacy is the most enjoyable.
Then there's this game called "Mafia"....
...where you find a bunch of people who are too smart and jaded for their own good and won't agree to actually play anything! I love that game!
A couple of notes on Blume's Celebrity instructions:
Round 2 should be played with only one word.
There are two Coda rounds: Celebrity War and Celebrity Sex War. In Celebrity War, the names belonging to each team are dealt face up one at a time, as in the card game War. Whichever team's celebrity kicks more ass gets to keep both names. If there is a tie in ass kicking, three names are dealt face down, as in the card game War, and the fourth card decides the round. Ass kicking is not subjective. It can be objectively determined by who yells the loudest about it.
Celebrity Sex War is the same as Celebrity War, but instead of ass kicking it's which celebrity you'd rather have sex with.
44: Yes, but "Toroids" would have been an even shittier category to have to draw.
But still preferable to the "Hemorrtoroids" category.
Euchre's selling point is that it shouldn't use too much of your attention to dominate a party where most people aren't playing. After you see your hand, you should be on auto-pilot and merrily drinking and hanging out for the rest of the round. Plus I love Euchre.
Roughly speaking, the game described in 70 has been played.
Poker! Poker for money! And none of that crap where you call your own variant and every other card is wild.
I assume that Asshole is similar to what I know as Shithead.
We've got Apples to Apples, Ticket to Ride and Khet to open tomorrow. And the 12yo got World Monopoly today. Think we may be playing a lot of games in the coming days. I played Consequences (exquisite corpse) a couple of weeks ago with friends, and I like the sound of that alternating sentence/picture version.
I found Ticket to Ride really fun the night I played it.
Risk, I'll play, given ample advance notice to block off four hours of time.
Just set a time limit: whoever holds the most countries after 30 minutes wins.
Spades is fun. Double spades is fun. Both require beer to truly appreciate them, I think.
max
['I didn't know ToS was my ex-.']
Many games are improved by adding drinks, max.
Surely your ex wasn't so inarticulate as that....
whoever holds the most countries after 30 minutes wins.
this is known as the Bush Administration variant.
Rules for cassino. Wonderful game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassino_(card_game)
Cranium is not a wonderful game. Neither is catchphrase.
As somebody else pointed out - in neither of these games are you playing against the other team. Rather you are playing against the cards.
Monopoly, played with the original rules (no free parking, bank auctions unpurchased property) is enjoyingly ruthless.
Drinking jenga is a lot of fun too. As is drunken Risk.
Just coming to the end of our annual Robert Sabuda fest. Feeling almost Christmassy - have a lovely day tomorrow everyone.
Thanks, JM, Kraab, and F, for your helpful tips and links regarding EC.
I think I'm the only person in the world who doesn't like Apples to Apples. I'm not sure why.
R's family plays a lot of Celebrity and charades every Christmas, which I'm rather looking forward to. Unfortunately, my body seems to have chosen now as the best time to finally break down and get sick. Wah.
not for the winter maybe
it's perfect for the summer days, my sisters used to play this game, three steps forward two steps backward, 4 steps forward 3 steps backward etc until reaching some point they agreed upon, holding their hands like chains with a lot of giggling and counting and laughing, very noisy
i used to shout at them stupid! and be quiet! b/c i'd sit on the porch reading some book and they would shout back they are free to walk anywhere they want
or there is another game, also outdoors, tuki-taki, everybody will hide and try to reach the wall and shout tuki-taki first before the player who counts would find them and touch the wall, one should be good at running fast and hiding between the houses
I am really charmed by the prospect of young read ensconced in her book while her sisters stagger around the yard annoying her.
i recalled the games coz i was so full after the dinner and craved for some exercise i guess, everything is so much physiology
I think I'm the only person in the world who doesn't like Apples to Apples.
I've never played it or seen it played (or know how it's played), so I can feasibly say I don't like it. Comity!