Creative Games for Long Trips

By Bernie DeKovenBoredom is the mother of playfulness. Desperation, the father. This is one truththat you can explore, in depth, while traveling with kids. The particular joy of this realization is the attendant realization that almost anything goes. The longerthe trip, the lower the criteria for gamish acceptability. Even games that are just barely games. Even games that you have to make up as you go along.Here are some of my favorite creative word games, and several games that areless creative, but challenging and mile-spanning.

Many Questions

You know the game “Twenty Questions?” It’s the one that usually starts withsomeone asking “animal, vegetable, or mineral.” After that, the Questioned One(the Q1) can only answer “yes” or “no.” And the Questioners (the Qs) have to tryto figure out what the Q1 was thinking of, in, as so clearly implied by the name of the game, 20 questions or less. After enough miles have gone by, it really doesn’tmatter how many questions anyone asks, as long as someone eventually guessesthe right answer. After another many miles, it doesn’t even matter whether thequestions can be answered with a “yes” or “no” or “usually” or “it depends.”This is when it becomes both fun and profoundly appropriate to explore otherrule changes. For example:

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Other Kingdoms: Instead of animal, vegetable or mineral as the categories,how about cities, food, books, games….?

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Numerical Answers: Here, the Q1 can only answer with a number. Forexample, if the thing to be guessed is an animal, the Qs can ask “how manylegs does it have?” or “how much does it weigh?” or “how fast does it run?”As the game develops, it becomes an in-depth exploration of the art of numerical questioning, giving rise to such questions as: “how long would ittake it to eat a french fry?” “how many decibels is its mating call?” “on a scaleof 1 to 10, how happy would I be to find it in my kitchen?”

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Boiticelli: The Q1 thinks of some person that all the players would know, andthen announces the first letter of that person’s last name (or, depending on thevariation people want to play, the first letter of that person’s first name, orperhaps even the last letter of that person’s last name). Players ask questions by describing people whose name starts (or ends, last or first) with that letter,e.g.: “is it someone who lives on our street?” The Q1 responds with “no, it’snot ____,” filling in the blank with someone who does in deed live on ourstreet, and whose name (last or first) does in fact start (or end) with thechosen letter. If Q1 can’t think of anyone who fits the criteria, the Qs get to aska direct question.

Boiticelli Variations

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Bratislava - Like Botticelli, but played with geographical names (namesof natural or political entities). The entity must be larger than a singlestructure. The longest game on record was "Temescal" (a neighborhoodin Oakland, CA) by Richard Kraft. This game was proposed by DavidGedye.

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Vermicelli - Like Botticelli, but played with names of foods and beverages. Ingredients are OK.

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Protozoa - Like Botticelli, but played with names of living things fromany kingdom. Typically only the common names at the species levelare used, but if the knowledge of the group permits you can usekingdom, phylum, class, order, family, or genus names, including Latinnames. Guesses can be speculative, and can be corrected by anyone.Dissemination of biological knowledge is encouraged. This game wasproposed by Richard Kraft.

Crambo

This is actually an old Victorian parlor game. The Q1 begins the game bytelling people a word that rhymes with the word everyone is trying toguess. Thus, if the word is “corn,” the Q1 might say something like “itrhymes with horn.” The Qs, in a manner similar to that of Boiticelliplayers, try to figure out the answer by asking the Q1 questions. Thus,they might say: “is it something you find on some flowers?” The Q1 mustanswer “no, it is not a thorn.” If the Q1 can’t answer the question, she hasto say what she was thinking of, and the person who asked the question

becomes the Q1 for the next round.

No, No, You Mean

The first player begins with a word, and a definition of the word. Only thedefinition actually defines a rhyming word. Thusly: A hatter is somethingyou need when you make a cake.” Someone else responds: “No, no, youmean a batter” correcting the previous player, but then continues withsomething like a batter is that thing you use when you play golf. Thensomeone else replies, “No, no, you mean a putter. A putter is thing you getin the mail.” To which you might respond, “no, no, you mean a letter. Aletter is a that thing with rungs that you use to get to high places…”And on, and on, each player supplying the correct word for the previousdefinition and then coming up with a new definition for a more-or-lessrhyming word. Do note that the words don’t have to rhyme exactly. Thismakes the puzzles more interesting as well as easier to create.

It Could be Worse

Starting player says something innocuous, like "I almost overslept." Nextplayer says something like "It could've been worse. You could've beenlate." Then the next, or other, says something worse, like, "It could've beeneven worse than that. You could've been dead." And then the next or othertries to find something worse than that. Or, the next person says "it could be better..."

If We Were

Story-building can be made acceptably gamelike. Especially if people taketurns adding to the story. You can build a story a paragraph at a time, asentence at a time, or even a phrase at a time. Sometimes it helps to pick aparticular theme. One variation of story-building is a game I call If WeWere. If we were, for example, driving in an ant instead of in a car, then,well, the highway would be maybe no wider than the curb on a sidewalkand those telephone poles toothpicks and that big truck a ladybug andthat roadsign a matchbook cover, and on, and on, and on. Or if we were,for another example, flying in an airplane, then the road would be maybe