The holidays are upon us, and in thinking about the events and get-togethers that come along with the season, I conjure memories of family, food and games! We were always playing party games after dinner, and as an adult, my friends and I carry this tradition on. Holidays or not, we often have game-nights and break out our favorites after dinner. Here is my list of all-time best party games!
For big crowds: While charades is an old-school favorite, I am going to skip the standard go-to and offer up Apples to Apples. Perfect for up to ten people, and with very few, very simple rules, this game makes for a boisterous round-the-table event. Let's not gloss over the fact that it was Games magazine's party game of the year in 1999!
For outgoing, slightly rowdy friends: Our family favorite was always Taboo. Much like a modern $20,000 Pyramid, you have to describe a thing without using the words that best describe the thing! There's a buzzer, and you split the group into two teams. It's prime grounds for a battle of the sexes, or family vs. family. Maybe it's just our family, but our games always involved a lot of loud, frantic rounds ending in lots of laughter!
For a small group: I'm of the opinion that good, old-fashioned card games are hard to beat. Give me a deck of 52 and three willing opponents, and I will deal spades, poker, or euchre all night long! Keeping a Hoyle's Rules of Games book around means you can even learn a new game from time to time! (I know, you can find this all on the internet, but I like the book, for Pete's sake! It makes it more official!)
For those with endurance: If you've got a bit of time on your hands and the taste for world-domination, Risk is hard to beat. By building armies and moving from country to country battling opponents armies, the goal is to become the dominant world power. Be forewarned, this game can last for hours, and has been known to be the cause of some heated debates! I suppose we like to tempt fate like that around our household!
Drinking game: Alright, so it has been years since I've actually played a drinking game, but during an indulgent vacation with one of my best friends in town, we watched far too many episodes of the original Melrose Place series. We immediately decided that the best drinking game in the world involves taking a drink every time you a) see someone in a robe, b) see someone with a coffee mug in their hand, c) see someone in a vest and d) see someone making a "really obvious face" that shows exactly what they're thinking. Honestly, you could pick one of those rules and drink too much wine in one episode!
My personal, all-time favorite party game: Yahtzee! It's like poker, but with dice. For some reason, I feel like this makes it a bit more approachable for the guest that doesn't play poker. Plus, the act of rolling a cup full of dice makes it more exciting, and there's strategy to be learned! I'm pretty biased towards any game where you're encouraged to yell Yahtzee! when you roll all of the same number.
So, now I turn to you, readers, to find out what your favorite party games are! What am I missing in terms of fun, rousing games for groups of folks after dinner?
Image 1: U.S. National Archives via Flickr Creative Commons
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We always play charades. It doesn't seem to get old. However, our group has known each other since high school, and so we kind of know who put's in "The Epic Of Gilgamesh" and other hard ones :) We've had practice.
Around here...Euchre. It goes well with the jam session in the other room.
My friends and I love a drawing game that I don't have a name for. I have played it with up to 10 people. Everyone has a piece of paper and writes a sentence on it. Then, give your paper to the person on your right (so you are reading someone else's sentence). Then, read the sentence that is on the paper you received (from the person on your left), and draw it! Fold the paper so only the drawing is visible and pass the paper on (so the next person sees only your drawing). You keep translating drawings and sentences back and forth until you get your own paper back. Hard to explain, but always a hit and you don't need anything expect writing utensils and paper. This game is hilarious!
all you need is paper and pen for two of my favorite party games: celebrity and drawing telephone.
celebrity: have each guest write down 5-10 celebrity names on scraps of paper and put them in a hat. divide into 2 teams. there are 3 rounds, and each person has a minute to get their teammates to guess as many as they can. in round 1, you can describe without using any proper names or titles. in round 2, you can only use ONE word. in round 3, it's charades. you put the names back in after each round, so the guessing with one word isn't as hard as it sounds.
drawing telephone: fold your paper into 6 or 6 horizontal rectangles. each person writes a phrase in the first space and passes it to the next person to draw. when they pass it to the next person, they fold over the original, and the person has to write what they think the drawing is, then the next person draws what the previous person wrote. this goes on until you run out of space or the papers have made it around the room and the end results, read aloud, are always hilarious.
We play Yahtzee every Christmas. It's fun and fast and the rules are printed right on the card. We reuse the score cards year after year. For those of us getting older with failing eyesight, I scanned the score sheets and enlarged them to 8.5x11.
Another new favorite is "Foodie Fight"..it's like Trivial Pursuit except it's all about food, cooking, etc. Very fun.
For large groups of around eight or more people, an amazing game is "Werewolf"!! (also known as "Mafia" or "The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow") It requires only a pen and a few pieces of paper, and the players do the rest. This mind game can be varied in multiple ways by adding a number of optional roles, depending on the number of participants. It's a game that involves accusations, murder, and defense, and I've found it's a blast even when you don't know half the people in the room!
Here is a link regarding the rules:
http://eblong.com/zarf/werewolf.html
LOVE Yahtzee!
I second Mafia (we play a card version though, without pen or paper..?) and 'drawing telephone'. Another fun game we just picked up that is best with groups of 4-8 is Anomia. Pictionary is also a favorite in my family of artistically challenged stick figure draw-ers.
@Jillian_T THAT GAME IS AWESOME!!
"Contact" is another fun game. One person is picked to think of a word, and then they tell everyone the first letter of the word. Everyone then has to direct questions at Person 1, and keep asking questions until they stump Person 1 for the next letter in the word. It works well with big groups.
For example, say I'm thinking of the word "clay". I say "C".
The next person asks me, "is it a small purring animal?" I would answer, "No, it is not a cat". This goes on until I can't answer the question and then I have to give them another letter.
Now I can ask a question that could be an inside joke, and say "Is it that thing that Mark sat on and then had to go get surgery to remove it?" and if another person says "CONTACT!", and Person 1 is stumped, the "contact" individual and I count to three and say the word at the same time. Then Person 1 has to give us a letter. If we don't say the same word, then it just goes on to the next person.
It's easier than it sounds
Yahtzee is our family Thanksgiving tradition. We play for hours upon hours after the dishes have been washed and the leftovers put away.
What?? You missed the all time greats. Cranium is fantastic especially when you have teams. I've never laughed so hard as when my cousin had to charade "cocktail dress".
Balderdash is good for figuring out how your friends and family members think.
Password is a classic. It never goes out of style. We play this ad nauseum at the beach.
If you enjoy 'Apples to Apples,' you should also try 'Bubble Talk.' It's the same kind of idea, but instead of relating words to an another word, you are trying to choose the best caption for a picture. Both the pictures and the potential caption cards are a riot. And it has a way of becoming hilariously filthy (when you're playing with adults only) in the same way that all of my 'Apples to Apples' games seem to do.
My family has epic Trivial Pursuit battles after big meals. It usually devolves into epic arguments. Dominoes is popular as well.
Balderdash. Especially with a group of friends that are clever and witty - you will laugh and laugh and laugh. :)
We are a big fan of 'Catchphrase' around here.
My family is very into trivia games too.
If you like Wherewolf/Mafia, you might also like Bang. It's a western themed game where everyone has a character and the bad guys are pitted against the good guys. Tons of fun!
Balderdash for sure!
Balderdash and Catchphrase are the family favorites. Our favorite card came though it Pitch.
Telestrations is THE BEST! Like Pictionary meets the old kid's game Telephone. A lot like the game "Jillian_T" was describing.
http://www.amazon.com/Telestrations-Telephone-Game-Sketched-Out/dp/B001SN8GF4
Our group of friends has played Dominion (a deck-building game) hundreds of times over the last year. Even the non-nerds like it!
The drinking game concept also applies well to watching presidential debates and there are a few ways to determine who drinks what, when. It's also a great way to get friends who otherwise aren't interested in politics actually to be engaged. A cheap trick? Yes, but it is fun!
@Jillian T, that game sounds like a variation on Exquisite Corpse, which is a drawing game that was invented by Surrealist artists.
Poker or other card betting games for smaller get togethers. One such game, called Guts, is great, because it requires very little thinking (read: you can still play this game successfully even while drunk).
We're big fans of Apples to Apples and Dominion, but my absolute favorite party game (not to mention the only time I've ever had a noise complaint!) is Pit. It's a fantastic no-turns card trading game based on commodities markets, and it gets very loud and silly. For smaller groups I also love Fluxx, a card game where the rules are constantly changing.
Bingo.......in our household. .25 per card!
Love playing Mexican train. It's good for groups of 3 to 6 people. All you needs is a double twelve set of dominos. Here are the rules: http://www.pagat.com/tile/wdom/mextrain.html
Big fan of Balderdash and Catchphrase...but my personal favorite is one we call Telephone Pictionary. Everybody has a stack of index cards and draws a picture of whatever they like (usually some kind of scene). Pass the stack, the next person writes a five-word description. Pass the stack, the next person looks at only the description, and draws it, and so on. It's hilarious to see how the picture got crazier and crazier (one game of ours included a pissed-off transvestite Hitler on a rooftop responding to the batsignal in the clouds)!
For up to 6 people, I really like Carcassonne! For up to 4, Scotland Yard cannot be beaten. For a crowd, charades are hilarious and I played it with my friends a lot of times!
But when there are two families I would never, ever make them play as opposite teams. Things can get very nasty, especially when the families don't know eachother VERY well.
Snorta is hysterical for a large group, and we love Bananagrams too. Other faves include Apples to Apples, Cranium, Pictionary, and Left/Right/Center. Can't wait to get together for the holidays....GAME ON!
Oh, almost forgot.....Funglish is what we played last year. It got very rambunctious...
if your looking for a drinking game you could always try to remake "Chardee MacDennis" from last weeks Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Much like @themoderngal, my husband and I have to be careful with games. I have never been so angry at him as when we are competing against each other!
I whole-heartedly agree with Apples to Apples. I usually play it with just a couple of friends and it usually gets pretty dirty and ironic.
I also like playing Balderdash with my family. The things my Grandmother comes up with...wow
@sberry - My friends and I are totally going to play Chardee MacDennis, after we figure out how to do it and with some slight modifications (we don't have a large animal crate, but we DO have a very small coat closet!).
A few Thanksgivings ago, my sister and I devised the notion of a Turkey Trophy. The trophy is new every year, and basically consists of the ugliest piece of Harvest-themed decor that one of us can find. You play a 2-outta-3 or 3-outta-5 tournament consisting of multiple games.
So, if trivia isn't your thing (Scene it!), your team can catch up next round with your weird-sister-mind-meld abilities (Catchphrase). All games must be decided on before supper, so teams are able to develop a strategy.
We get a little intense. But it's always fun!
MAHJONG (what the ladies play in the picture). Best. Game. Ever. Also, I got a nice antique one from China, that gives extra game joy! (:
I can't believe I'm the first to say mahjong! Such an addictive and fast paced game if you and your friends are a little lenient with the rules.
Werewolf is simply the best for large groups. Who am I is also always a hit.
I love pictionary and charades but sadly I seem to be the only one in my family and group of friends. Don't even get me started on trying to convince people to play Set...
I love this post! all of my games have already been said.
Bananagrams!!!
I love mah Jong too, but the problem I never seem to have the required four people around to play.
One favorite around my family is Fluxx, which kind of like if Calvinball were a card game. It's equally amusing with 2 people as it is with six or seven. Another good point is that it's also available as a Monty Python or Zombie edition. Oh, and unlike other games, one's game performance doesn't really suffer with the addition of a festive beverage or four.
http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki/Calvinball
I host a game night for friends every couple of weeks. Smallworld is popular. Apples to Apples is always a hit, when you want to play, but not think too hard. Settlers of Catan, Carcassone, Trivial Pursuit, Mexican Train, Scrabble, Curses, have all made their rounds through the group.
Is that Rummikube in the picture??? I love that game! Oh, nope. Sorry, majong. Not as fun.
For parties, if we must, it's generally Apples to Apples (especially with a group that's not afraid to be un-PC - Helen Keller card, anyone?). Taboo! and Crainium are also fun.
For family it's always cards: Shanghai (like an enormous, 7+ person, complicated version of rummy), Up & Down the River, Four-Handed Merry Widow, or Roust (a trick-based wagering game).
In high school we played a lot of Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit. Yeah, we were dorks like that.
Almost forgot! A new one we tried a while ago is called Think! One person reads a card with a suggestion (like, "What would a small dog say to a large dog?") and everyone comes up with an answer, pass the secret answers to the card reader, who then reads them all aloud. Each person then marks down who they think came up with each answer. Most correct guesses wins points. Can get very dirty/outrageous/hilarious. The quiet ones always seem to be the best at it because no one suspects them. Best played with people who know each other at least a little.
Another vote for Werewolf any time you can get a large group together.
Also a game called "Cash and Guns" for mid-size groups- everybody gets a foam gun and some bullet cards. Some of the cards are bullets, some are blanks. Face down, you determine whether you're playing a real bullet or a blank this round, then everybody pulls their gun at someone else.
Once you see where the guns are pointing, you decide to either back down or stay in. If you stay in, then any guns pointed at you reveal their contents. A bullet and you're out, but a blank let's you split the pot. Repeat until you have a winner. Lots of screaming and invective, great for people who like action movies!
Another vote for Settlers of Catan.
My husband's family always plays Pitch. My family plays Phase 10 if they have enough time and Skip Bo the rest of the time. They also like Trivial Pursuit but some members of the family feel left out.