17 November 2020

The Beauty of Games

In the midst of lockdown 2 and with the wintry weather, we are spending so much time at home. Even though Netflix is helping us through to an extent, there is nothing better than old school entertainment and yes, I’m talking games! 

As an events planner, over the years I have been charged with organising games for groups of friends, family and colleagues. Whenever I organise games, something magical happens – people start smiling, their whole body language changes and a sense of childish excitement and competition takes over. 

Playing games is something innate in us from when we were children; it conjures up magic and experiences that just can’t be replicated with any amount of technology. In the current climate we are living in, so many of us, understandably, rely on something else to entertain us; the box in the corner, the screen and external influences. However, if we can back to basics so much joy can be gotten from it. 

What games did you used to play as children? Was it the board games classics such as Monopoly or Scrabble? Did you play cards? It is worth revisiting what memories you have and see what you can bring back within your own home to spend time together, physically and virtually. 

I am loving putting games together for teams of people and recently hosted a few Around the World events virtually for teams. This was a nerve-wracking experience as it was down to me to transfer these skills virtually, but luckily, due to huge planning and preparing, the events went really well and people enjoyed them greatly.

In all my events that I am working on currently, games play a big part and I wanted to exclusively share with you a game that never fails to generate a great reaction – The Hat Game!  

Number of players:  

4 minimum – no maximum  

Methodology: 

Each person writes on little pieces of paper names of people – can be dead, alive, famous, biblical, people in group playing etc. Basically anyone! 

To begin with, everyone writes 5-8 names, depending upon how long you want game to go on for and how many people you have and then divide the group into teams of at least 2 people. 

All pieces of paper with names on get folded and put into a ‘HAT’!   

One team at a time takes it in turn to try and guess as many names/pieces of paper as possible in a minute.  

 How do they do this? 

One person is describer, the rest are guessers: the describer has to describe the person on the paper without mentioning their name or using abbreviations, letters in alphabet, etc. 

After a minute they stop and keep a tally of what they have. They don’t put the names back in. 

The hat then passes on to the next team and so on until no more names in hat – the winning team is the team with the most names guessed 

Tips to enhance the game: 

Put all papers back in hat 

Start a second round of the hat game 

This time the describer can only use 3-5 words 

 

Do let me know what games you play and any new ones I should know about! And if you try the hat game, do share how you enjoyed it!