Some Party Games from Megan and Daniel

The Cast of Arrested Development does the Chicken Dance
Megan and I just came back from a game trip to Labyrinth Games in Washington D.C. (more about that soon!) And now Megan is vibrating with game ideas of her own. She's always been more into party games than my gamer-type games. So, this was a fun little experiment. We came up with two games with a similar charades-like theme, with some elements of games like Cranium, Quelf, etc.

So here are the two games. Both are co-op party games that make players act silly, but with a touch of strategy in the choice of how you do so. The first game is inspired by that scene from Arrested Development where the each member of the Bluth family has their own very weird chicken impression. (The photo above is of some silly people doing the Bluth chicken dances.)

Bluth Family Chicken Dance Game

There is a deck of cards, each one with the subject of an impression. There is also a 30sec timer.

Everyone draws one card. If you don't like the card you drew, you may discard it into the game box and draw another one. you may continue doing this until you get a card you like.

When everyone has chosen a card place it face down. Everyone puts their card down in the center of the table and mixes them around, so no one knows who had which card.

Start the timer.

Everyone does an impression from their card at the same time until the timer runs out. While doing that impression you may move around, make noise, point at objects, or use props, but you may NOT say or write any words.

Each card is revealed one at a time and everyone gets one attempt to guess who was doing that impression. 

If someone guesses correctly, put that card in the scoring pile. If someone guesses incorrectly, discard that card into the game box.

If you get twenty cards in the scoring pile before the deck runs out, you win!


What is this? I don't even...

There are three decks of cards: an adjective deck, a noun deck, and a verb deck. Each card lists two options for it's respective subject, an easy option and a hard option. (For example, the adjective card could list Happy as an easy option and Bright would be a hard option. The noun card could be model or bikini model. The verb card could be turning a wrench or repairing a sink.) There is also a 30sec timer.

Each player takes turns, starting from the youngest player.

On your turn, you draw one card from each pile. These cards combine to make statements like "I am an -allergic- -panda- -in a car chase.-" If you don't like a card, you can discard it into the game box and draw another. You may repeat this as often as you like.

When you're ready, keep your cards hidden and start the timer.

Do an impression of any combination of the words on your cards. You may do anything to make this impression, such as moving around, make noise, point at objects, use props, but you may NOT say any words.

When any player guesses one of the words on one of your cards correctly, you may place that card face up on the table. 

When the timer runs out, see which cards are revealed and which are still hidden. Any cards that are still hidden get discarded. If someone guessed the easy word on one of your cards first, the card goes on the 1-pointer scoring pile. If someone guessed the hard word one of your cards first, the card goes on the 3-pointer scoring pile.

If the group gets 20 points in the scoring pile before any deck runs out, you win!

---

So clearly the 20 point victory condition is pretty arbitrary. That's not what we would tweak to moderate difficulty, though. In both these games, we'd just adjust the size of the main decks so players have less room to be picky about their cards. It's a fun little mechanic for those of us (like me) who are picky about our live performance, while still giving extroverted people (like Megan) the freedom to be very silly.

Comments

  1. Matt SnodgrassFebruary 16, 2012 at 6:07 PM

    Any game that can reference one (or all) of the Bluth chicken dance impressions is worthy of a play. Kudos, Mr. Solis for keeping AD in the top of all our minds! A-coodle-doodle-doo!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5 Graphic Design and Typography Tips for your Card Game

Image
Chris Farrell of Illuminating Games just wrote a thorough critique of card games setting their body text to be so small that they cannot be read at arm's length, let alone across the table. Here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is worth a read for any would-be card game designers out there. (Myself included.) Break out your copy of the base set of Dominion, and look at the Chapel. This has a text box roughly 3.5cm by 4.5cm. It's got a single line of text. That line of text is 1 (one) millimeter high. 1mm! For me, it's only clearly readable at half an arm's length even in the bright light of day. (...) Compare this to a more sane game like Glory to Rome, where the font size is 2-3 times as large (text is 2mm high, keywords 3mm and usually highlighted). I can generally read Glory to Rome cards across the table, and can certainly see the important keywords. To heap insult upon injury, not only does Glory to Rome have far more legible text than Dominion it also has...
Read more

Low-High Dice Game

Image
A dice game inspired by the stock market (and playing lots of Martian Dice). Roll a bunch of dice and choose which sets to keep. Choose your strategy wisely! Stuff You Need Two-to-Six PLAYERS A PENCIL and PAPER to keep score Thirteen standard six-sided DICE How to Play The shortest player takes the first turn. On your turn, first roll all thirteen dice. Several dice will have matching results. These are called SETS. (A single die result is a set, too.) You must choose a set to keep. For example, your first roll results are 111124445555 . The sets are four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, and four 5 s. After keeping a set of dice, lock them up in a row. This is called the GOOD TRACK. For example,  you could keep the set of four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, or four 5 s . You decide to keep the four 1 s and line them up in your good track. After keeping a set, you may end your turn or re-roll the remaining unlocked dice. When you re-roll, immediately set aside any results tha...
Read more

One Thing to Avoid in Game Design

Image
When game designer Paul Peterson was interviewed for the upcoming Titans Series of games from Calliope Games, there was one segment at 1:55 that really caught my attention (emphasis mine): "A couple years ago I was teaching people how to play Guillotine and I hadn't played in a while. The first thing I did was say, 'The first thing you gonna do when you open your game is you look through this deck and you take this card.' I pulled out the Callous Guards card and threw it over my shoulder. Everybody laughed. I said, ' That's the biggest mistake I ever made as a game designer in my life.'" Oof. Those are strong words. What's the big deal? For context, the game Guillotine is all about collecting the heads of French nobles during the revolution. There is only one guillotine, with a line of nobles waiting for their grim fate. On your turn, you play action cards to change the order of the line, then take the Noble card from the front of the ...
Read more