Since I can't sleep, I'll teach you one of my favourite casual games. All you need to play is something you can write small lists with, like pen and paper for each player. Smartphones would be fine too if people are fast typers.
It's called
"What were you thinking" because you could buy a game with that name that teaches you the same basic mechanics. However that game also has a bunch of stupid cards and limitations that make the game worse, so don't buy it, you don't need it.
You just need to know the rules, which are as follows:
- You need at least four players. The more the better. This fits over ten players easy. Each player needs something to write small lists on.
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Each round one player comes up with things to list along with any additional rules for that round he wants to set. Anything at all can be used, creativity is a bonus but not required. For example it can be "three ways to die", "five things that cost less than a dollar", "four bands", "four horrible pop songs", "five celebrities you would like to sleep with", "three scifi movies that are not Star Wars or Star Trek movies", "two people that would get shot at the start of the revolution"... Anything. Depending on the company you can have a theme, be kid-friendly or adult only, philosophical, political, what ever.
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Every player makes a list with items he thinks the other players will list. The spelling is not important, only that he makes a note which makes it reasonably clear what he means. Abbreviations are fine. Speed is important. Overthinkers lose. This is essentially an association game.
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Every item scores as many points as the times it appears. So for example if three players have Bladerunner, they each score three points for that movie. Yes, you count yourself, so even if you were the only one to mention "Gone With the Wind", you get a point for that. (This encourages people to fill their lists completely.) Obviously if everyone has the same item you can just ignore it, it doesn't affect the scoring.
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This is not a quiz, so it doesn't matter if the items on the list actually match the question. So Darth Vader can be a celebrity, Bob Dylan can be a band and "lager, beer, bitter, stout" is just fine as a list of coctails. The only hard rules are that you can't list the same thing many times and you can't list more things than asked for.
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Meaning is important, what the list says is not as important. So for example "the guy who played Batman" is propably the same as "Christian Bale".
- You go through every players list to see what everyone had, score every item and then each player sums up his points for that round.
The player with the least total points gets a "you're different" point. You try to avoid these, so don't be unique. We tend to call them "terrorist points"
These are the only points that you keep track of over the whole game. The points for each individual round are ignored after the round is over.
- Then it's the next players turn to come up with something for the next round.
- You play as many rounds as you like.
In the end the one who has the most terrorist points is outed to the secret police. Alternatively you can just shake your heads and say "what were you thinking!?!" (This is more common.) There is no winner.
- This game requires good faith and sporting spirit. The game will suck if the players start arguing for every point or if there's need to actually check what people wrote. (You do need to make the lists however, otherwise people will forget their lists and cheat accidentally.)
- There are often hazy areas as to which count as same things and which count as different. A quick vote and some common sense have so far settled every situation we've had.
