Codenames
Vlaada Chvatil is the smartest game making person in the world. One day he woke up and decided to make the best word game of all time and by the end of the day he had (that’s may not be true but I like to believe it is). Two teams will race to figure out their words on a 5*5 grid. On each team is a spymaster who can see the words they need to get on a card. Taking turns they will say one word and one number. The word relates to other words on the grid and the number is how many words it relates to. There is also an ‘assassin’ word, if your team says that, you lose automatically. Brilliant game for every age.
Dixit
Players take it in turn to be a storyteller From a hand of six the makes up a sentence and says it out loud (without showing the card to the other players). Each other player selects the card in their hands which best matches the sentence and gives the selected card to the storyteller, without showing it to the others. The storyteller shuffles all the cards reveals them and everyone has to guess which was the storytellers card. The twist – if nobody or everybody finds the correct card, the storyteller scores 0, and each of the other players scores 2. Otherwise the storyteller and whoever found the correct answer score. In other words the storyteller can’t be too vague, but neither can they be too specific!
Concept
Its kind of like charades on a board. There’s a point scoring system but most people don’t bother with it. There are a tonne of symbols on the board that could represent multiple things. By placing your tokens on the board you try to link ideas together to make the concept on the card you draw. If the concept on the card is pretty tough then you break it down into smaller concepts. Excellent left side of the brain activity and lots of fun to boot.
Pictomania
A drawing game in which everyone is both drawing and guessing at the same time, giving a chance for those who excel only at one or the other skill to crush other players. Over five rounds you set up six randomly drawn cards on card racks visible to all players with seven related words on a single side. Each player receives one symbol card and one number card, which together indicate which word or phrase on the revealed cards that player must draw. Players simultaneously look at their cards and start to draw. While drawing, they can also watch what others are doing and place a guess card on that player’s stack. Only one guess per player is allowed, and once you make a guess, you can’t change your mind. Other players will ideally be playing guess cards on your stack, too. One by one, players reveal what they were drawing and the guesses that others made. Those who guess your word earn points, with early guessers earning more points, while those who guess incorrectly have their card placed in the center of the table. Once all the guesses are resolved, you determine the black sheep – the player who made the worst guesses who receives negative points. You also lose points for every person who didn’t guess your word. Confused? Don’t worry, once you get it, its amazing and its also by Vlaada Chvatil, did I mention that guy’s a genius, I guess this was his best drawing game ever day!
Time’s Up!
40 Cards, divide them up between everyone who looks at their cards (yes you see some answers). Sort yourself into teams and take 30 second turns trying to get your team mates to get the people/titles on the cards by saying anything (except rhyming or the words on the card). Some are easy, some deliberately obscure to make you use roundabout descriptions to get them. You can’t pass either and if you don’t get it, the next team will tackle the same card until someone gets it. Next round you can only say one word, but can act. However, you use the same cards as the first round. Final round, equals only acting, but again, the same cards. The genius of the game is the in-jokes it creates as people use the terrible description someone did in the first round to get their team to say the answer in the later rounds as opposed to the obvious one. I have laughed to the point of crying playing this one.
Spyfall
