Maybe these are not necessarily "parties," but I work for a division of I.T. with Northwestern University that employs about 50 other students, and every quarter we have some sort of social event that I always manage to slip a game show into.
I always get a lot of good feedback from the games, even though I've had my fair share of stuff like technical glitches, getting confused doing 12 different things (running the game board, doing math, dealing with the contestants, etc), and what have you. And, I offer real prizes and gift certs that I can expense on my paycheck!
1)
TPIR - Made a Powerpoint file with all the games, prices, and whatnot. A projected PPT presentation is not the best idea, obviously, for execution, but my small workgroup still had fun pricing all the video editing equipment and software we use in the lab. However, I didn't have SCSDs or SCs.
2)
Card Sharks - I've played this with the entire department a couple times. My boss keeps a ton of interesting technology like this
instant survey system for Powerpoint, so I could write questions in the traditional CS style, get the entire audience's feedback instantly, and have the contestants guess it. Great questions are key to making this fun; I threw in some interesting stuff related to work, as well as one that read "How many people will answer Yes to this question?" That was good for a laugh! The bonus round is tricky though, as far as what exactly to award for the prize.
3)
Pitfall - yes, I love bringing back the really obscure ones. I used the same survey equipment as I did for Card Sharks, and represented the eight spaces by drawing numbers on a chalkboard. We had fun with this one, again mostly with the questions I wrote. Too bad the bonus round player sucked at trivia.
4)
Whew! - This one was tough because I wrote a game board in Visual Basic and intended for someone else to use it while I hosted. Well, they didn't bother to learn my program before we started the game. :-P And, we also ran out of questions during the 2nd running of the Gauntlet, so we had to reuse some. I got the most compliments on this game, nevertheless; folks thought the concept was really interesting.
5)
Match Game - This one was the toughest. We were at a restaurant (not conducive to game playing), and they ran through an entire stack of index cards. (Well, we played a lot of rounds.) I thought the questions were good, but it was a bummer that the best score anyone ever got was 3 matches after both questions were asked!
6) I didn't host this one myself, but our Special Olympics had a
Family Feud fundraiser for which I wrote a very comprehensive game board, again in VB. I ran the game board during the show, and the Special O exec spent lots of time taking (and then memorizing the results to :-P) surveys around campus, which I then loaded into my program. If any of you folks are interested in it (or the Whew!), I'd be glad to give you a copy, but they both require a projector (or at least a 2nd monitor).
I'm especially looking forward to pulling off Trebek-style
Double Dare and perhaps
TJW some point next year!
Cheers,
Stephen "Mr. City" Wylie
Mr. City's Game Show PageP.S. - The Special O exec board *still* lost the game when it was their turn to play in the tournament, even though it was clear at least one of the team members read through the surveys!
P.P.S. - Contrary to what my stepmom initially thought, we didn't have any Special O athletes actually participating in the Family Feud. :-P