Here are a few of our favorites.
We mostly play this with a chatbot that Danny made. The bot thinks of a word and tells you it’s between aardvark and zymurgy in the dictionary. So you guess a word in the middle like “mouse” and then it tells you “my word is between aardvark and mouse” or “my word is between mouse and zymurgy”, depending. Keep narrowing it down until you figure out the word. It’s pretty fun. The bot lives in Slack and Discord but there’s also a nice web version which was the original inspiration for this.
Also known as The Green Glass Door. Also “Going On A Picnic”. You think of some very simple rule (make it waaaay simpler than you think it should be) like “words that don’t contain the letter e”. If a word fits that rule then you say it “has Buddha nature”. Then people guess words and you tell them whether each word has Buddha nature or not. They try as many words as they like, testing out their hypotheses about what the rule might be. Whenever they want they can also guess the rule. If they guess it right, they win, of course, but if they’re wrong, then you, as the one who made up the rule, have to give them a counterexample that shows why the rule they guessed doesn’t work. For example, say the real rule is “contains no e’s” and people start guessing simple words like “cat” and “dog” and then more complicated words like “counterbalance” and “equestrian”. They hypothesize that the rule is “words with one syllable”. You would respond “no, because ‘egg’ has one syllable but does not have Buddha nature”. Or “no, because ‘cardinal’ doesn’t have one syllable but does have Buddha nature”.
PS: There’s a nice regex-themed rendition of this called Regexle.
PPS: Bethany thinks it is insanity to call this game “Going on a Picnic”, because “Going on a Picnic” is an entirely distinct alphabet game in the style of The House That Jack Built. One person starts with “I’m going on a picnic” and declares that they are bringing something that begins with “A”. The next person brings something beginning with “B”, and then “C” etc, but with the catch that each new letter must be preceded by a recitation of everything else that has been brought to the picnic so far. E.g. “I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing Apples”. “Well I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing Apples, and Blueberries”. And so on. I played this largely with my friends as a teenager. We rarely brought food to our picnics.
This is a simple, silly one for any age. I say a word — eg, “cat” — and then you think of a rhyme and try to get me to say the rhyme by giving me a clue, like “flying mouse” to get me to say “bat”. That’s the whole game!
This is a trivial (er, trivia-al) word-guessing game for three or more players. One person — let’s call him Anton the Answerer — thinks of a word, like “waffle”. The others — let’s call them Gary and Gwen — try to guess it. Typically Anton would start by saying the letter his word starts with but this isn’t necessary.
Either way, Gary and Gwen start trying to guess the word but without saying the word they’re guessing. Like to guess “wigwam” Gary might say “Is it a Native American dwelling more permanent than a teepee?”. Anton would say “no my word is not ‘wigwam’”.
Where it gets interesting is if Anton doesn’t know or can’t think of the wigwam answer. This is where the name of the game comes in. As soon as Gary asks, Gwen can yell “contact!” and then Gary and Gwen start counting down, 3-2-1, in unison and simultaneously say “wigwam”. Anton can interrupt before the countdown finishes and give the answer, or any valid answer, like “wetu” or “wickiup” (look it up). But if Gary and Gwen can simultaneously say the same answer as each other before Anton gives his answer, then Anton has to tell them the next letter.
From there it repeats but you’re restricted to words that start with the known letters so far. Like if the letters so far are ALB then Gwen could guess that it might be “albatross” and try to stump Anton by asking if it’s a metaphor for something burdensome. Eventually the guessers will either guess the word or no one will be able to think of any words that start with the letters given so far.
PS: Now written up slightly better on LessWrong.
Someone names a category like “colors” or “presidents” or “places” or “songs” or any weird set you can think of. Then everyone writes down the most focal (to use Schelling’s term) element of that set (thing in the category). Everyone then reveals what they wrote and you get one point for every other person who wrote down the same thing as you. An answer that scores a lot of points is known as a Schelling point.
We count to 3 and simultaneously say a word, like I say “boat” and you say “table”. Then we each try to think of what word might be in some sense right in between “boat” and “table”. Or a word that somehow captures the combination of “boat” and “table”. We again count to 3 and say that word. Maybe I think of “toy” because a toy boat is the only kind of boat you can put on a table. But you think of “bolt” because a table on a boat would need to be bolted down. So we’ve again said two different words — “toy” and “bolt” — and the process repeats. Eventually, or sometimes surprisingly quickly, we both say the same word and declare victory!
This is a collaborative game where we make a list that has to alternate between rhymes and synonyms. Even lines must rhyme with the previous line. Odd lines must have some logical connection to the previous line.
Here’s us playing this around 2010:
I think of a word and people start randomly guessing. Say you guess “cow” and my actual word is “moon”. I tell you whether your guess or “french toast” is closer to my word. I might say “‘cow’ and ‘french toast’ are equally far from my word” but I’m encouraged to get creative in saying which is closer. Maybe I say “cow” because of how the cow jumped over the moon, making “cow” closer to “moon” than “french toast”. Now that I said “cow” is closer, that replaces “french toast” as the benchmark. If the next guess is “rock” then I’ll say “‘rock’ is closer to my word than ‘cow’”. So now “rock” is the new benchmark. This continues until someone guesses my word!
Get people to think of a rhyme by obscuring it. Examples:
Excellent version on the web that we discovered in 2023: Twofer Goofer. (Then Merriam-Webster bought it in 2024 and it sadly got less brilliant.)
Someone says something like “7 D in a W” and you have to figure out that that’s “7 days in a week”. Or “26 L in the A” is “26 letters in the alphabet”.
We solved all of these in the past:
Here are some that we never solved, and I’ve lost track if these were totally esoteric in-jokes or if they’re ones other people could figure out:
I’ve lost track of where most of these come from but they’re pretty amazing.
A lithoid form whose onward course
Is shaped by gravitational force
Can scarce enjoy the consolation
Of bryophytic aggregation.
Of little value, their compunctions,
Who arrogate clavigerous functions,
When once from circumscribing pen
Is fled its equine denizen.
What keeps the avian species warm?
Its decorations pinniform!
When these impress, their owners’ pride
Is comparably fortified.
For none who claims to represent
The Homo species sapient
Will loiter Einstein’s fourth dimension
Or sea’s quotidian declension.
That unit of the avian tribe,
Whose movements one can circumscribe
“In manu”, as a pair will rate,
Subarboreally situate.
Faced with material esculent
As source of liquid nourishment,
Avoid excess, ‘twill but displease,
Of culinary expertise.
When, nimbus-free, Sol marches by
The circumambient sky,
To graminiferous meads repair -
Your instant task awaits you there!
What’s purveyed by the bakery,
And oft partaken of at tea,
Is some temptation to ingest,
But cannot then be repossessed.
The first arrival hirundine
Should not be taken as a sign
That it is time to aestivate.
Hang on until you get a spate.
To offer cranial inclination
Serves as well as nictitation
If equine quadruped intent
Is ocularly impotent.
Observe the avifaunal nations
Eschewing random aggregations,
Respecting taxonomic border
Arrange themselves in Wetmore order
The topologic reconnection
Of fabricated garb in section
Is efficacious for preventing
An ennead of like cementing
The gallon’s aliquot divisions
By eight and four have no provisions
To compass in the former’s hulk
The liquid of the latter’s bulk
Rhetoric art quite fails to turn
The lactic oils within the churn
And (though its hearers stand amazed)
Leaves pastinaceous roots unglazed.
The felon who purloins the hart
Reserved for mighty Nimrod’s dart
Will, in exchange for coin or kind,
With utmost skill preserve the hind.
Omitted from one’s cerebration
Midst periods of isolation—
Forsooth one ne’er doth ideate
One’s amative consociate!
No matter how they pelf acquire—
Through moil or braving Satan’s fire,
Delict or battle uncontested—
Erelong an ament is divested.
They whom attend the bain-marie
With diligent expectancy
Will quit this sphere from inanition
Before it reaches ebullition.
To Hymen’s altar ne’er proceed
With rash and unconsidered speed;
For swift espousals oft beget
Protracted eons of regret.
See Cavall, Gelert, and the rest
Whose dormant state is manifest.
Ignore their cynophonic snores;
Do not alert these carnivores.
The bony herald does not spell
For martial veterans their knell;
Translucently their fate is that
They emulate the Cheshire Cat.
A porcine choral education
Is not a worthwhile occupation.
You won’t account it time well used,
And hog or sow will feel abused
The power over the demesne
Whose lords and serfs have never seen
(Though you may think it jocular)
Is held by him [sic] monocular
In the set with every human being
Arranged by faculty of seeing
The minimal elements are those
Who purposely their eyes do close.
Among the threefold classification
Of methods of prevarication
Are falsehoods simple and accursed
And those with means and graphs—the worst.
The set of meals served at midday
Whose cost is such that none need pay,
Though many advertise it, still,
Its cardinality is nil.
Who emulate the bird well fed
And hesitate them not to bed
Will find a positive correlation
With vigor, purse, and penetration.
On queen or twin when they recline
The span from base to topmost line
Of one potentially a mother
Equates to that of any other.
Comparing levels of attainment
Of merriment or entertainment
You’ll find the ones with golden braids
Outstrip those sporting sombrous shades.
If wistful thinking wanders on
To Suffolk Punch or Percheron
No mendicant shows hesitation
In espousing equitation.
A Yorkish gate, or ginnel, can
Have finite length Euclidian,
Yet seem to fail to terminate
If pathologically straight.
Corporeal punishment
With dermal lesions evident
Is inappropriate if linked
To eohippus that’s extinct.
Conducting to a watering-place
A quadruped of equine race
Is simple, but it may not care
To practise imbibition there.
Observed the coroner: “Perpend,
“The death of this, our feline friend,
“Reflects preoccupation shown
“With business other than its own.”
To carry haulm of cereal growth
The tylopod is nothing loath.
But just one haulm too many means
That dorsal fracture supervenes.
However bleak the sight may be
Of nimbused tenebrosity
Remember that each vapour floating
Has within an argent coating.
The pond in some deserted mead
Is home of bedstead, boot and weed.
Quiescent surface does not show
The range of hypogeal flow.
By Tiber’s side what’s social law
Would much offend in Arkansas.
The wisest custom’s to conform,
In manners, to the local norm.
The whiskered Nimrod now departs.
Roll out the cheese! Lift up your hearts!
The murine nation’s on a spree:
Ailurophobic revelry.
Careful observation shows
That, when resisting viscous flows,
The living fluid in the veins
Beats that which gathers when it rains.
When glazing’s used for every tile
And panel in a domicile,
We warn the dwellers in these modules
Against projecting petrous nodules.
A rule regarding cock and hen
Learned by successful husbandmen:
Do not commence enumerating
Ere they have finished incubating.
Those of the fairer sex will find
Advances from the other kind
Will not come forth in their direction
Adorned with ocular correction
Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minific,
Fain would I fathom your nature specific.
Exaltedly set in ether capacious,
A reasonable facsimile of a gem carbonaceous.
Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minific,
Fain would I fathom your nature specific.
And here are some non-rhyming ones we found or made up years ago:
I wouldn’t call this a word game but we made it and it can be fun: molecall.com.
This is a variant on the card/board game “Just One”. There is one guesser per round, and everyone else will clue. A word is picked that the guesser doesn’t get to see If you’re playing in person, grab a novel, or a dictionary, or a random noun generator, and select a word.
Now each cluer takes a minute to write down a one-word clue without revealing it to anyone. The catch is that before giving the clues to the guesser, any duplicates are discarded.
Then the guesser gets the remaining clues and has one guess what the word is.
Rinse and repeat.