Back in the 80's when Kevin Bacon's filmography was still quite young, a friend of ours proposed a game: Name any two actors and then without help from any reference, trace a path between them via a chain of movies with overlapping costars. For instance, Marlon Brando and Paul Reubens can be linked like so: Marlon Brando was in Superman with Margot Kidder who was in Amityville Horror with James Brolin who was in Pee Wee's Big Adventure with Paul Reubens. My friend called the game Association-- although 20 years later, it became widely known as 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon based on the popularized factoid that you could connect any actor in Hollywood with Kevin Bacon via a chain of no more than 6 movies.
Six Degrees, or Association, as my friend invented it in the 80s has become my daughter and my go-to game for down time. We of course don't restrict ourselves to Kevin Bacon movies. Rather we prefer picking unlikely pairs, usually with a theme-- e.g., Karen Black to Betty White. (Spoiler follows: Betty White was in Advise & Consent with Henry Fonda who was in On Golden Pond with Jane Fonda who was in Coming Home with Bruce Dern who was in Family Plot with Karen Black.) With us, the longer the chain, the better*, but probably the oddest game I ever played was with a co-worker. I suggested finding a link between Louis Jourdan and Michael Jordan. I figured this would be good for an afternoon. My colleague came back almost immediately with Looney Tunes: Back in Action and Return of the Swamp Thing. (Michael Jordan was in Looney Tunes, Louis Jourdan was in Return of the Swamp Thing and Heather Locklear was in both). This was before Google.
I could play the game forever, but on the theory of Everything in Moderation, lately it has occurred to me that we should mix things up. The requirement for a substitute is a game with simple rules and no equipment (or only readily available materials such as paper and pen). Since my mind tends to go blank under pressure, it's occurred to me that perhaps I should start collecting a game chest of such games for future reference. Some of the below may already be familiar to you, some are games invented to entertain on long (or even short) car trips, and some were invented by my daughter at my request. To her, coming up with equipmentless games is a game in itself. The results are below. Descriptions of play involve 2 players, but with each game, the number of players is scalable to the interest/boredom of the room. Rules do not include details about scoring, but almost all could with a small amount of imagination be easily adapted for wagering.
Word by word story - (Equipment needed: vocabulary, grammar) Each player takes turns adding words to an evolving story. The words must be grammatical in the context of what has come before, otherwise all bets are off. ("Once" "upon" "a" "goat" "there" "were" "two" "fleas" "named" "Jennifer" "and" "Ringo". &c.). As a variation, you could sing the words to create a song.
Change-a-letter - (Equipment needed: none) Using words of an agreed upon length (3-6 letters generally), players take turns altering the last word spoken before their turn by one letter. The object is to see how long they can keep a chain going. ("brain", "braid", 'brand", "bland", 'blind", "blink", "slink", etc) Players may agree on whether and when words can be repeated and whether they will allow shuffling of letters to prolong the chain. ("purse", "usurp", "spurn", "prune", "prone", "phone", etc.)
Add-a-letter - As a variation of the above, Player 1 starts with a word of 1 letter, Player 2 then adds a letter to the first in any order to create a new word, and so on until no more words that both players can agree are words can be created. (E.g., "a", "at", "tar", "rant", "train", "rating", etc.)
Alphabet safari - (Equipment needed: Car and destination, child in backseat, short term memory, knowledge of alphabet, ability to compartmentalize driving safety and game playing) The object is simple. As you travel streets and roads on your way to your destination, cooperate on finding each letter of the alphabet in turn. No, you can't save letters when you see them. If you are on G and pass a liquor store, you cannot save the Q. Just put it out of your mind. (Don't worry there will be plenty of other liquor stores. Just watch out for that pedestrian trying to cross over in front of it.)
Antonyms - This was presented to me as a Mensa game, but don't hold that against it. Player 1 says a noun, verb or adjective. Player 2 must come up with its opposite, but the catch is that the opposite may begin only with either an R or an S-- simple rules yet much harder than it sounds. The notion of antonym in practice is as fluid as both players agree for it to be and fluidity is rewarded with fun. E.g., for "good", if both players accept "rancid" as an opposite, so it shall be. Does "baby" have an antonym? Would you accept "senior" or "sire"?
Hinky Pinky - Player 1 comes up with a 2-word rhyming phrase. The rhyming word must match the number of syllables of the first word-- e.g., Merry Berry is allowed but Contrary Berry is not. The rhymer then comes up with a clue for the phrase, such as "Happy fruit" and indicates the number of syllables by saying whether it is a Hink Pink (rhyming 1 syllable words), a Hinky Pinky (2 syllable words) a Hinkity Pinkity (3 syllable words) and so forth. Player 2 then tries to guess the phrase. Hours of fun for the players and annoyance for the bystanders.
Riddle for a Rhyme - This is a loose variation of the above invented by my niece when she got bored with Hinky Pinky. Player one thinks of a word -- e.g., "Score", and then gives a word that rhymes with it-- e.g., "Door"-- as a clue. Player 2 then tries to guess the word, but instead of guessing directly, asks yes or no questions based on their guess. E.g, Player 2 might say, "Does your word come after three but before five?" If Player 1 is wrong, Player 2's reply has to include the rhyme that Player 2 had in mind-- in the case of the example, "No, the word isn't four." This is the only game I know in which the clue giver is also a guesser and vice versa conveniently eliminating the wait for either role
Band names - (A daughteral contribution) Almost as simple as it sounds the idea is for Player 1 to free associate a name for a band. The quality of the name is not important. The challenge for Player 2 is to fit the name to a genre, to a first album title, and to the name of the band's biggest hit. E.g., Player 1 blurts out: "Pretzel Kingdom"; Player 2: "The genre is polka. The first album is 'Once around the Kielbasa'. Biggest hit: 'I told you not to look.'"
Remake - (another daughteral contribution) Name a classic movie or television program and re-cast it with contemporary actors. The re-casting can be apropos or it can give it a new twist. My daughter has been proposing a new Columbo. In her mind, it should still be set in the 1970s. She has several ideas for casting villains: Jeff Goldblum as a photographer who snaps, both literally and figuratively; Steve Buscemi as a college professor being blackmailed by a student; Idris Elba as a popular disc jockey about to be exposed for taking payola by an up-and-coming star. In a way, Rian Johnson has already re-cast the title role perfectly with Natasha Lyonne in Poker Face, but my daughter had two notions for Columbo that promise 2 different but equally interesting directions for the role: in the more traditional vein, Bob Odenkirk; and for something completely different (go with her on this one) Joaquin Phoenix.
Geography - I recently saw them playing this on an episode of Mad Men. Players take turns naming a country. Each country must begin with the same letter that ends the previous player's country, without repeating any already named. E.g. "Barbados" "Suriname" "Eritrea" "Azerbaijan" (Your turn.) Play proceeds until someone is stumped or the neighbors complain. For variety, players can use different geographical categories, or to really live it up, a free for all in which any category is fair game: "Antwerp" "Puerto Rico" "Orinoco" "Okinawa" &c.
Eye roll contest - This variation of the above was suggested by my daughter for some reason. Same as above although the object is to provoke not laughter but exasperation. The book I'm reading at the moment tends to be exceptional at this game with non-ironic sentences along the lines of: "Joe would have called the police, except for the inconvenient fact that he'd been dead for a week."
BG
CB
DD
EF
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