War. Business. Risk. Life. What do these words have in common? Why, they're the names of extremely popular board games! You may not have heard of them, which is completely understandable. Games like Business and War require battle-ready strategizing, while games like LIFE and Monopoly require immense patience and an exorbitantly competitive spirit. So they aren't always the best option for a relaxing family evening or a paint-by-numbers game-night designed to encourage bonding.
The best way to bond is by sharing words, stories, and pushing your intellectual capacity to its furthest reaches. The best game nights involve shared puns, confusing rhymes, and bad jokes so awful they can't not be funny, After all, words go a much longer way in creating closeness than targeted strikes on your significant others Battleship! With that in mind, here are some puntastic board games that take the "play in "wordplay" to a very real and exciting level!
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The guessing game that doesn't give you a second to catch your breath, Word Slam is a fast-paced word-based party game that turns every player into a storyteller.
There is no limit on the number of people that can play this game, though all players must be divided into two teams. Each team selects a player, let's call him/her/they the 'storyteller'. The storyteller for each team is given a hidden word or phrase. Using only the 105 explanatory cards given in the box, each of which contains a word which can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a preposition, the storytellers must give their respective team enough viable clues to guess the hidden word.
For example, the storyteller may be able to provide the words 'long', 'eat' and 'green'. So the team may guess cucumber, lettuce, or maybe beans. The storytellers are forbidden from speaking, acting out, or signing any clues or the hidden phrase. And don't forget, this game is a race! The clock is ticking and only the first team to correctly guess the hidden word will score a point. Are you ready to get word-slammed?
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‘Fitz It: If The Word Fits Play It’ is the ultimate card game that pits all of the players firmly against each other, and the English language.
This game can be played by 2 to 10 players. To start with each player is given 15 cards from the deck of 265 cards provided. Each card contains a phrase describing an attribute, a feature, or a general description that can be related to a specific object or objects, and each and every card is completely different. Each turn, the respective players must guess a word, specifically a noun, that fits the attribute or description on the card. They can then place that card next to other guessed cards in play on the table.
That's where this game gets tricky. The players must then be able to successfully select a word that fits all of the attributes, features, and descriptions laid out in the adjacent cards in play on the grid. This game requires some serious trivia and general knowledge, not to mention language skills, quick wit, and some real patience. Once you master the base version of this game, you can play with more advanced rules, using the grid of played cards as a crossword for guessing more words!
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This may well be the greatest name for a game that has ever been named and will test your knowledge of the American Presidency. Just kidding. It's all about rhyming!
The full name of this game is ‘Obama Llama: The Celebrity Rhyming Party Game’, so we can gather that it is intended to be played by 4 people or more. This game mixes charades with our favorite celebrity puns and what can only be described as poetic genius. Every turn, a person from each team is given a phrase that involves a celebrity or famous character and an unrelated rhyming word. The player with the phrase must then act out or mime the phrase so his teammates can make an accurate guess.
The phrases may include things like "Tom Cruise in platform shoes", or "The Yeti eating Spaghetti", so all teammates are encouraged to scream as many ridiculous rhymes about celebrities as possible. And make sure to rhyme quickly, because each guess has to be made before the timer dings to score a point!
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Also known as ‘Quiddler: The Short Word Game’, this amusingly named card game is not to be confused with the well-known Batman villain played by Jim Carrey in 1995 (AKA the 'Riddler').
This game can be played with 2 and up to 10 people, and can be enjoyed by anyone aged 3 years and up, which makes it the perfect all-inclusive family game. It is essentially Scrabble in the form of a card game. Each card contains a letter, which has a certain point or score value. Each player starts with 3 cards and may draw a card and discard a card each turn. The goal is to spell out a word, or as many words as possible with the cards in your hand, and these words can be as small as 2 letters, like “at” or as large as the number of cards in the player's hand.
Much like Scrabble, certain cards and letters have unique and higher score values, so players must be wary of the cards they discard because the next player can grab it from the discard pile. The game is played in 8 rounds, with the number of cards in each player's hand starts with 3 cards and continues increasing every round until they each hold 10 cards. Each round the points are tallied based on the completed words held by each player, and the player with the highest number of points at the end of the 8th round is the winner!
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As the name suggests, ‘Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers’ is the perfect card game for pun lovers and combines all the fun of puns with some healthy competition.
Punderdome can be played between 3 people or more, and a love of puns and terrible jokes is absolutely necessary. The game comes with a deck of 200 prompt cards. These cards have one green side and one white side, both of which contain a word. Each turn, one player selects two prompt cards (1 green and 1 white). The other players then have 90 seconds to come up with a truly terrible pun that combines the two prompted words. Really dig deep inside to find the most eye-rolling exasperating pun that will leave your group groaning. The prompter then selects the funniest answer and hands over the pair of prompt cards to the winner of that round. The game continues with these rounds until one player has 10 pairs of prompt cards and is declared the winner.
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