So, our days high-fiving after sinking a ping pong ball in a red Solo cup are long over, but we hope we’re never too mature for imbibing with friends and partaking in silly antics. Playing drinking games in college was never really about the alcohol (though, it admittedly added to the fun), it was the experience – making a plain-old party something of a jovial competition.
And though you might be totally up for making the next cocktail party with your friends a bit more interesting, you’re not about to relive your frat row days and set up a beer pong table. So, we rounded up five very-adult and very-interesting games to play next time your rounds with buds could use some spicing up.
The Game: Is It A Hashtag?
Hashtags can target everything from celebrities (#northwest) to current events (#doma), making it easy to find multiple thoughts on the same trend. Sometimes, though, hashtags can get a little too silly or unreadable, which is kind of what this game is built on.
How To Play: Each player writes a word on a slip of paper. It could be any word: a noun, proper noun, adjective, slang, etc. Then, you fold the paper in half so that the word isn't visible, and give it to the person picked to be in charge. The game master then draws two pieces of a paper at a time, creating the teams. Each team combines their words to make a compound hashtag. The game master then searches Instagram or Twitter for the possible hashtags. If the hashtag exists, the team members are safe. If not, they must drink!
The Game: Never Have I Ever Instagrammed
We all remember the “Never Have I Ever” game from grade school sleepovers, right? Well, this version targets our Instagram habits.
How To Play: Everyone sits in a circle and takes turn being “it.” When it’s your turn, you say, “Never have I ever Instagrammed...” and fill in the blank with a cliché Instagram photo, like “a glamour selfie” or “my lunch” or “a sunset.” You can also say something more personal to your group of friends by naming photo-worthy spots in your city, canine friends, or even pics of an event you all attended. Everyone who has Instagrammed what you mentioned must drink!
The Game: Thumper
This one’s great to break shy people out of their shells.
How To Play: Each player comes up with a seated dance move. Once the moves are decided, everyone demonstrates their selected jigs while others commit it to memory. To start, everyone thumps their palms on the table in unison to make a beat. The first player performs their dance move (to the beat of the hands, of course) and then performs another random player’s move. Then it's that player's turn to perform his or her move before doing another player's jig, passing it on. Whenever someone misses the move being passed to them or forgets someone else’s move, they must drink!
The Game: "The Cards Against Humanity" Drinking Game
We’re sure you’ve heard of the party game, “Cards Against Humanity” that was created by a group of high schoolers and funded completely by Kickstarter (exceeding its goal by almost 300%!). Well, as it turns out, it’s fairly simple to turn the card game into a drinking game.
How To Play: You can buy the game on its website, or download it for free and print it out yourself. Each player draws 10 white cards. The designated card czar draws a black card and reads the question or fill-in-the-blank phrase aloud. Everyone chooses one of their cards that applies and passes it face-down to the card czar who then shuffles the cards and reads each combo aloud. The czar then chooses their favorite response. The person who submitted the response is safe, everyone else must drink!
The Game: True American
Popularized by the roommates in the show New Girl, you’ll need to play this one in a living room with lots of furniture, and with very-willing friends.
How To Play:
On a table in the center of the furniture, you build a castle made out of, you guessed it, alcohol. A liquor bottle sits in the center as the King and beer cans are lined up in four rows stemming out from the King as the Pawns. The castle is then surrounded by four access points that are made out of furniture. And around that is a circle of varying furniture pieces that the players will hop on, because the floor is made out of lava — obviously.
To start the game, a player yells, “One, two, three, JFK” at which point all the other players yell “FDR,” grab a Pawn from the castle (remember, that's a can of beer), and retreat to any piece of furniture. Everyone jumps from furniture to furniture in a clockwise direction. The person whose turn it is has to move from one space to the next by completing tasks with patriotic themes. Every time a player gets to a center piece, they take a Pawn. Once all Pawns are removed, the King is vulnerable. The first player to land on one of the center pieces, finish their beer, and take a swig from the King wins the game! Sound complicated? Don’t worry, you can read all the detailed directions on the True American website, here.
The Game: Cheers To The Governor
This game requires remembering a set of random, made up rules, which inevitably gets trickier (and more fun!) as you continue to play.
How To Play:
Sit in a circle with a group of people and go around one by one, each counting a consecutive number from one to 21. Once you get to 21, everyone yells, "Cheers to the governor," and takes a drink. The person who said the number 21 picks any number (between 1 and 21) and replaces it with a rule. (The only numbers you can't choose are 7 and 14, which must remain as numbers the whole game, except they are switched. So each time you go through the count, you say 6, 14, 8, and 13, 7, 15.) Rules can include anything from spinning around in a circle 10 times, having to sit under the table until your next turn, or coming up with a new fruit each turn without repeating one that has already been named.
For example, you could choose "six" and replace the number with an animal sound, such as mooing like a cow. Then you re-start the count from one to 21, but any time someone gets to the number six moving forward, they have to moo like a cow instead of saying six. Every time you get to 21 everyone yells, "Cheers to the governor," takes a drink, and that person comes up with another rule.
When someone forgets a rule or messes up, that person has to drink, and then the count starts over at one (or whatever the rule for one is) with the next person. As the group gets closer to replacing all the numbers, it becomes harder and harder to keep track of everything.
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