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The Hat Game
Popularised as a "board game" which you can now buy in the shops,
we have been playing this one for years in my family - and with much enjoyment
too. It makes a great game for mixed age groups and works best as a sit-down
game, perhaps in the early evening or after a meal.
Age: 8+
You will need:
A hat or other container
A 1 minute timer or stopwatch
Lots of small pieces of paper *
A pencil for each player *
* alternatively, you can prepare the game in advance yourself
How to play:
Give each player a stack of 10-15 small pieces of paper and a pencil, and ask
them to secretly write down on each piece the name of a famous person or
character (alive or dead, fictional or non-fictional, real or cartoon). Fold
each paper in half and throw them into the hat. When all the names are in the
hat, give it a good mix.
Divide the players into teams. It is best to have no more than 3 or 4 teams with
no more than 3 or 4 players on each team. Try to mix up ages and abilities.
One player is chosen from each team to start, and one team is chosen to start.
At the signal, that player must pull a name from that hat and try to describe to
the other players on his team who that character is, without using any of the
names which are actually written down. For example, he could describe "Prince
Charles" as "current British royalty, next in line to the throne, Queen
Elizabeth's first son" and so on, but not "a British prince". As soon as the
character is guessed correctly, it is discarded and another pulled from the hat.
The other teams keep score and watch the time, shouting "time's up" after a
minute.
Carry on until each player has had a turn, count up and declare a winning team.
Hints:
If you write down the names yourself in preparation for the game, you can make
sure that all players will reasonably know the characters. otherwise you should
caution players to keep the characters they write down realistic, and remind
them that they might end up describing a difficult character themselves, so
writing them down might backfire on them!
Include the names of some "real" people known to the players,
such as the children's headmaster or a favorite auntie.
You may decide to allow children under a certain age to "pass" on one name
during their term.
If you don't know a character, you can still often describe them to your team -
if you don't panic. You might say, for example, "I don't know this character but
his first name is the same as the British prince who is next in line for the
throne, and his last name is a kind of coat that you put on when it is raining".
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