This isn't a question about Pizzamas but is about word games
October 4, 2022 3:06 PM   Subscribe

In todays video on yt the Vlog brothers play a word game together. I would love to learn other word games played between two people.

The rules of the game they played are simple:
-count to 3 and you both say a random word at the same time
-then count off to say another word that's an intersection of the two words
-repeat until you say the same word

My question is what are some other simple word games?
some rules:
- Does not require anything digital, or anything I would have to buy
- Can be played between two people

// I've reposted this in right place Thank you to those that answered already in the Blue!
posted by ljesse to Grab Bag (9 answers total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
In your post on the Blue, I mentioned 19th Century games like "The History" and "Adjectives" found at the bottom of this page. And AgentRocket mentioned a variant of Crambo where you guess a word with the same first letter rather than a word that rhymes--the silent version is still a word game, and it was a favorite of Karl Marx.

Something else that comes to mind are 19th C. variants of Boggle like Verbarium, where instead of 'letter dice' you use the letters of a random word--e.g. to make this fair for two players, maybe the first word with 7+ letters found when opening a book to a random page.
posted by Wobbuffet at 4:03 PM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


There's a simple one where you and someone else take turns saying words. Each word has to start with the last letter of the previous one, within a few seconds. So:

A: Elegy
B: Yak
A: Killer
B: Roundup
A: Party
B: Y... argh!

A wins that round.

Hopefully this one was not listed in your existing answers!

Another one is a sort of micro-Concentration where you trade off giving examples of a category. Two snaps or slaps after answers to give timing.

A: Subject is... (snap snap) cat breeds. (snap snap) Russian Blue! (snap snap)
B: Tabby!
A: Manx!
B: Persian!
A: Dalmatia... argh!

B wins that round.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:25 PM on October 4, 2022


I don't know if it's a thing people actually play, but like much of my physics and math, I learned about Ghost from XKCD. Actually, spoiler alert, don't read that for the description because he sorted through the dictionary and "solved" the game for two players already. BUT there are some comments below the blog post that suggest a variety of games.

And in our house it just devolves into "I don't know, do they?" anymore, but road trips used to require at least one or three rounds of Questions.
posted by adekllny at 4:59 PM on October 4, 2022


Superghost, a Ghost variant in which you can add letters to the beginning or end of the string. It's more chaotic than regular Ghost, which I find makes it more fun.
posted by miles per flower at 8:24 PM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


Shiratori
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:01 AM on October 5, 2022


As kids we played geographical endings [EnglanD - DalmatiA - AccringtoN - NorwaY - Yakutia] which is sort of a merge of BlackLeotardFront's two games. Winning strategy is to exhaust oppo with Y-places.
With my [cookie] kids we played food endings which were deemed end with someone offered Ham sandwicH.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:03 AM on October 5, 2022


Fakk! My last contrib was mangled! shd read: which we deemed to end when someone offered Ham sandwicH

In response to last night's blue post, I invented a word game which I think is pure luck = strategy-free. A bit like rock paper scissors.
1) one player is odd; the other is even
2) pick a word length [or some other constraint: beginning with B; only verbs; only Spanish words]
3) each say/write a word
4) tally up the vowels in the word pair - total must [with equal likelihood] be odd or even: incrementing the appropriate player's score.
Continue until one player has 'unassailable' lead or the bus arrives
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:23 AM on October 5, 2022


You could try No More Jockeys.

The basic concept is: first player names a person and a category they belong to. i.e. “David Beckham, no more sportspeople”
Second player names another person i.e. “Margaret Thatcher, no more people whose surnames are jobs”
And you go back and forth narrowing the pool of possible people until someone breaks one of the rules.

Needs to be played in a spirit of fun because if you really want to be competitive you can eliminate far too many people too easily, i.e. ‘no more men’ followed by ‘no more women’ (although even then you could get into famous animals)
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 3:25 AM on October 5, 2022


How about Questions?
posted by The Bellman at 12:00 PM on October 5, 2022


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