Game Show Parties

[jmangin]

For those of you who have had game nights, which games have fared the best and which were a total disaster?

Also, if you could have software to assist with the playing of a game (such as the Feud or Pyramid software available a few years ago), which game control would you like to have?

For me, Feud and Card Sharks have been the best.  Pyramid was the worst--for non-game show fans, it ended up being a very difficult game.

[chris319]

Take my advice, don't play Jan Murray's "Charge Account". I did once, just for nostalgia's sake. People were saying "They put this on TV?". Remember, David Hammett?

[Don Howard]

Password can be a fun one and Win, Lose Or Draw can be very entertaining after everyone's been on colortinis for a while.
Very imaginative art work is possible on those sketch pads.
May I also recommend Dueling For Playmates.

[Fedya]

For some reason, I have a feeling Three's a Crowd would be problematic.

A charades-based game like Body Language ought to work as well as Win, Lose, or Draw.

[DoorNumberFour]

The Who What or Where game was fun when I played it with a few friends a while back.

[Adam Nedeff]

"Eye Guess" was just about the only game I could get my family to play with me when I lived in West Virginia. The 40-year-old question material holds up amazingly well.

[calliaume]

Stay away from Jeopardy.  Using an old box version of the game doesn't work ("He won the 1968 Nobel Peace Prize in Physics"), and big groups don't work, either.  Did it in training class for a group of about 60 -- it went down to arguments over who rang in first, the answer we had was wrong, etc.

Password is simple enough so that even if some people haven't seen the game, it should still go okay.  And even though almost no one outside this forum remembers it, the box game of You Don't Say! still works just fine.

Match Game has to have good questions, remembering only about one question a show was salacious.  For a big group (like the 60 listed above), I'd bastardize it into two groups, having everyone but one person writing down their answers and throwing them into a hat, the one other person says their answer aloud, and then picking 10 answers from the hat (this also keeps, for the most part, the breathtakingly stupid answers anonymous).  Endgame would be a SuperMatch for each team, but bet the points all or nothing (a la Celebrity Sweepstakes).

Any show with prizes, rather than cash, as the goal is bad ("You could win this 3" x 5" card showing a microwave oven!").

[deknaj]

I did MG, FF, To Tell the Truth and Go at a game night I did.....all worked pretty well except having to explain how to play Go

[GSFan]

Password and Win, Lose or Draw are great party games.  I also happen to have the software versions of Pyramid and Feud that Todd Robinson created.  I have used both at fundraising events. Both are great in that the software gives you a real feeling of being "on the show".  Both games are easy to program and operate.

I do wish he had the chance to get the bugs out of Pyramid before Fremantle hired him.  Regardless, I am grateful to Todd for taking the time to create them and happy he got a job out of it.

[tpirfan28]

I've had success with Family Feud and Concentration.  I had/have a really piss-poor Concentration maingame control...it worked for what it needed, and that's about it.

[Don Howard]

[quote name=\'calliaume\' post=\'190313\' date=\'Jul 8 2008, 11:34 PM\']
it went down to arguments over who rang in first, the answer we had was wrong, etc.
[/quote]
Oh, don't you just love that? While hosting The $25,000 Pyramid at such a party, the subject was Things Associated With McDonald's and the term the giving player was charged with giving clues for was GOLDEN ARCHES. The receiving player simply said the single word "arch", the giver {the giver, mind you} said, "I'll accept it" and moved along. I'll spare you what happened next, but I don't believe the game ever got finished.

[davidhammett]

[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'190296\' date=\'Jul 8 2008, 10:13 PM\']
Take my advice, don't play Jan Murray's "Charge Account". I did once, just for nostalgia's sake. People were saying "They put this on TV?". Remember, David Hammett?
[/quote]
Ah... now I remember my brief exposure to this game.  Great for 1962, but not today.

Generally speaking, word games have done better than Q&A for me.  Pyramid and Password are faves; I would not recommend Go or, despite my own love for it, You Don't Say!  On the other hand, Q&A board games (Trivial Pursuit et al) are good.  But Q&A that involves any sort of buzzing in is usually disastrous, unless you've got players that are equally matched.

On a widely tangential note, we tried Duel at this year's GHP Math Tournament, and it went well.  12 teams competing at once, with four members of each team in charge of determining which answers would be marked (one person controlled "A," one "B," etc.).  So as not to eliminate teams as we went, we awarded points when players gave incorrect answers... one point per incorrect answer, or ten points if the correct answer was not marked at all.  Our other games this year included Family Feud, Double Dare, 1 vs 100, Gong Show, Pyramid, Millionaire, Press Your Luck, Deal or No Deal, and Jeopardy!

[Sodboy13]

[quote name=\'jmangin\' post=\'190292\' date=\'Jul 8 2008, 08:55 PM\']
For those of you who have had game nights, which games have fared the best and which were a total disaster?

Also, if you could have software to assist with the playing of a game (such as the Feud or Pyramid software available a few years ago), which game control would you like to have?

For me, Feud and Card Sharks have been the best.  Pyramid was the worst--for non-game show fans, it ended up being a very difficult game.
[/quote]

Now see, I've done Pyramid a couple of times, and it's been a raging success.  Lots of fun for those who were able to rack up seven-for-sevens, and for all of us when the category is "Things associated with a hot dog" and the receiver somehow comes up with an emphatic "Guacamole!"  Feud is lots of fun, Curt King's PYL is a godsend, and Match Game, done at the end of the night when everyone's got a solid buzz going, brings tears to the eyes.  (DVRing lots of episodes, especially PM, is essential.)  The most "meh" experience I've had so far was with Lingo, so I don't think I'll be going back to that one.

Notice that all of the games I've mentioned are decidedly non-trivia.  That's the way to go if you're rounding up a group who's not doing the NTN or pub quiz on a weekly basis, and is just out to have some goofy fun.  I'm going to try a "Quiz Show Night" soon with Weakest Link, PokerFace, $OTC (thankyouthankyouthankyou Mr. Mangin), and 1 vs. 100.  We'll see how that goes.  Also up: A "Home Game" night, with Wheel, P+, CS, and TPIR, playing with the equipment straight out of the box (and maybe a few extras.)

[The Ol' Guy]

Grab a whiteboard and by all means play Chain Reaction. Main game as in Cullen days, bonus as in the USA version. Played the game at work last week and got some new converts.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Sodboy13\' post=\'190381\' date=\'Jul 9 2008, 09:03 AM\']
when the category is "Things associated with a hot dog" and the receiver somehow comes up with an emphatic "Guacamole!"[/quote]
http://images.meredith.com/bhg/images/2007...100996458_1.jpg

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