Andie's Games

I love inventing and playing games with friends and family. I'm someone who loves a structured party where the fun is evenly dispersed among all guests, and everyone is engaged, included, and laughing. I feel like nothing does this better than an interactive game. 

I have, to date, invented three games.
1. Word, Yo! 
2. In(ter)vention
3. Bull Shit!

​Below are the rules and instructions for how to play each. All the pieces you need can be made in your home with some creativity and resourcefulness. 

Word, Yo!

Game pieces needed: 1 Custom Made Large Dice (I used a small cardboard box, and then place images and colored on each side with each of the options). One hat or bowl. A blindfold or scarf. Paper and markers.
Players: Best played with a group of 4 or more, ideally more. Lots more.
Rules: Everyone divides into 2 or 3 person teams and writes down 5-10 words or well known simple phrases (i.e. got milk?) on little strips of paper and puts them in a hat or bowl. When it's your teams turn your partner or you will take out a strip of paper (not showing it to the other person or people) and then the other person rolls the dice. Whichever side the dice  roll on tells you through which manor you'll have to use to get the other person on your team to say the word or phrase that is on your piece of paper.
*Blind Draw (they have one minute to draw blindfolded something--no words--to make the other person/people on their team guess the word or phrase)
*Word Association (they have to say one word or short phrase and then the next person on their team responds with one word or short phrase and they go back and forth without saying the word or phrase they got to get the other person to say the word or phrase)
*Body Language (without saying anything or making any noise they have to mime something to get their teammate(s) to guess what word or phrase)
*Improv (the team to your Right chooses your Relationship (who you and your partner are and your relationship to each other--ie. Lucy and Ethel) and the team to your Left chooses your Location (ie. in Prison). You do an improv in which you try to get your teammate(s) to guess the word or phrase.
*Your Choice (the person who drew the word or phrase out of the hat/bowl gets to choose which method they want to use)
*Their Choice (the person who drew the word or phrase has to show the word or phrase to the other teams and they get to decide which method they have to use)
Each section is timed for 1 minute except for Improv which is alloted 2 minutes.
​The team that gets the most right answers wins!

In(ter)vention

This game is kind of like the show SharkTank (though I invented it before I ever heard of SharkTank). The name for the game comes from the word "Invention" and "Interruption." It's just an added bonus that the two words together mean you can propose doing In(ter)ventions at your friend's houses. 
Game pieced needed: A spin board with four options for it to land on (Word of Mouth, Silent Pitch, Jingle Pitch, and Late Night Infomercial), a deck of card with words on them that you might see in As Seen On TV type products--what I did was google infomercial products and found lists of them and then divided up the name of the product so there was one word on each card), paper and markers.
Players: 6+
Rules: Divide into three teams. Each round one of the teams acts as the "investors" and the other two teams compete for the investment. Then, they rotate so each team gets to do both. The competing teams draw two cards each (for example: potty and pocket) and then they decide if they want to use "potty pocket" or "pocket potty." They will have to create a new product to idea to pitch. Next, they spin the spin board to find out what method they must use to pitch their product:
1. Word of Mouth: This is conversational. One person on the team tells the other person/people on their team about the product as if they are just a friend they are recommended the product to.
2. Silent Pitch: This is a billboard or magazine advertisement. You wont be able to say anything during your pitch. You can only hand them a piece of paper on which you've drawn and written things to communicate what your product is, the price point, how it works, etc.
3. Jingle Pitch: This is a radio ad and it must include a jingle. 
4. Late Night Infomercial Pitch: This is a larger than life, over-exaggerated, loud, big-movements--highly recommend using at least one person on your team to demonstrate how hard life is without the product and then how easy life is with the product. Buy now!
Each team has 2 minutes to come up with their product and their pitch. When time is up, the Investors can ask for the name of the products and decide who they want to hear from first. Then each team has 1 minute to do their pitch. After each pitch, the investors can ask 5 follow up questions about the product and then decide which team wins their investment.
After a team has been declared a winner, the other team can challenge this win by shouting "Interruption!" and re-pitching the their product (in whatever pitch method that team already spun) OR the other teams product with a new idea or improvement and if the investors determine that idea/improvement or pitch is better than the winning one, that team can steal that point. 
This goes 2 rounds and then the teams rotate to the right--it goes until the cards run out or until a predetermined and agreed upon number of rounds.
Team with the most points/investments wins. 

Bull Shit!

This is the trivia game where the fact don't always win (inspired by the political times it was created in). 
Game pieces needed: Trivia cards--I googled trivia questions and strange facts. You could customize this to different themes if you wanted, or keep it general. The trivia card should have the question, then below that it should have the answer. True/Bull Shit! response cards--each player needs a response card that has True on one side and Bull Shit! on the other side.
Players: 3+
Rules: Going around the circle, at each players turn they grab a trivia card. They read the trivia question (could also be a sentence with one or two blanks), they read the question and then an answer it with either the truth or a lie. Then the other players hold up their True or Bull Shit response, if they think the person is telling the truth or lying. If the person is telling the truth, and people vote they are telling the truth--they get one point for each person who voted they are telling the truth. BUT, if they tell a lie and one or more person thinks they are telling the truth, they can 2 points for each person who thinks they are telling the truth. So, you get more points for convincingly telling a lie than for telling the truth. Most points at the end of the game wins.