Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Wanna Play?

We’re a game-playing family. My hubby’s family puts puzzles together, but my family likes to play board games. So, when we’re together, especially my brother and me, the big decision is not where to eat or who sleeps where, but should we play Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, or Sequence first?

Jay’s pretty much the only person who will play Scrabble with me any more. Just because I get a wee bit irritated when someone takes my triple word square next to an A and I have an X ready. And he put a T there! A T! Triple word score for AT! When I had AX ready to go!

OK, I’ll calm down. I’m really much better now, truly I am. And actually, I’m not a very good Scrabble player because I’m a horrible speller. And I really don’t have such an extensive vocabulary for an English major. I know, it’s shocking. But it’s true.

But I don’t want to tell you about Scrabble, I want to tell you about a hoot of a game called Imaginiff. The more people the better with this one because the first thing you do is write everyone’s name on a square, then fill in the extra squares with people’s names that you all know. Then whoever goes first, rolls the die and moves the token onto someone’s name. We spent most of the time trying to land on Mom.

So, after you know who the subject is, the person who threw the die reads the card aloud, and it’ll say “Imagine if ________ (name you landed on) were an animal. What type of animal would he/she be?” Then you’d get 6 choices, such as rat, dog, owl, cat, snake, or toad. Everyone takes their numbered cards and chooses a corresponding number to what they think everyone will say, then places it face down. Then everyone turns their numbers over and majority rules. Whoever guessed the most-used answer (say, 3 people chose choice #5 and 2 chose #4), get to move forward (2 places if you were the person who threw the die and guessed the most-used response), while the others stay put. First person to the winner’s circle wins.

Got it? Well, you can see that it can be a lot of fun since you’re using people you’re playing with. And poor Mom. We spent a lot of time trying to land on her name, hoping that it would be something outrageous and funny. And after a beer or two, it gets even funnier. She takes a lot of abuse from her ungrateful brood. But she’s such a good sport about it, she makes an easy target. Such as the question about what World Record she would be, and Jay and I cracked up at the choice, “The World’s most dense substance.” And of course that’s what we all chose, but Mom chose “The World’s largest piggy bank,” so I guess she had the last laugh.

So, wanna play? I’ll volunteer to be “it.” Here’s the question:

Imagine if Kell were a book. Which would she be?
1. How to Win Friends and Influence People
2. Alice in Wonderland
3. A Brief History of Time
4. Lady Chatterley’s Lover
5. The Shining
6. The Bible

What would you choose for me? What would you chose for yourself?

3 comments:

Newt said...

We played that game at our New Year's party last year and it was a total hoot.

You would be #2. Alice in Wonderland - because you like adventure and you are very curious.

I would be the same.

Anonymous said...

Newt stole my answer! Good job, Newt. :)

I second the motion.

I'm also a bit confused about how the game's played but I'm not terribly bright at catching on to games anyway. Keep playing and I'll see if I can figure it out.

BTW - you and Jay have both spelled it Imaginiff with two f's at the end. Is it spelled wrong on purpose? I'm confused.

Kell said...

Newt--Al said Alice, too.

Chelle--Here's a webpage about the game. I'll add it to my post. I was going to, but forgot. It's a lot of fun: http://www.buffalogames.com/HTML%20pages/iMAgiNiff.html