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Party games are games that are played at social gatherings to facilitate interaction and provide entertainment and recreation. Categories include (explicit) icebreaker, parlour (indoor), picnic (outdoor), and large group games. [1] [2] Other types include pairing off (partnered) games, and parlour races. [2] Different games will generate different atmospheres so the party game may merely be intended as an icebreakers, or the sole purpose for or structure of the party. As such, party games aim to include players of various skill levels and player-elimination is rare. [3] Party games are intended to be played socially, and are designed to be easy for new players to learn. [4]
The characteristics of party games tend to include:
Traditional children's party games include:
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Party video games are commonly designed as a collection of simple minigames, designed to be intuitive and easy to control, and allow for competition between many players. Some games are played on simulated game boards, like the Itadaki Street series, Mario Party series and Sonic Shuffle .
BYTE in 1981 called the Olympic sports game Olympic Decathlon (1980) "the first true party game for microcomputers". [5] Another early example is Starpath's Party Mix .
Modern examples include Tower Unite (2016), a virtual community party game played online, and The Jackbox Party Pack series which offers minigames that can be played both online and with people in the same room.
Large group games are played by many participants and are often used as planned activities in structured environments, especially as educational activities. They are similar to party games, except that large group games are typically planned for larger numbers (perhaps even hundreds) as part of an event.
Large group games can take a variety of forms and formats.
Some are physical games such as Buck buck.
Some are modeled on the TV game show format, offering points for teams who can answer questions the fastest. Trivia-type games might have questions posed from the stage and each tabletop writing their answers to be collected and scored. Others may take on some of the qualities of Open Space environments and allow participants to wander in a less structured way.
Some are modeled on TV reality shows such as The Amazing Race or Survivor . Participants compete as individuals or in teams to complete challenges that move them towards victory in a competition spanning the entire party. The TV shows on which such parties are based are normally competitions involving elimination, so such events require significant planning to avoid exclusion or boredom.
There is also now electronic party games such as Cards Against Humanity or Appyshot App, that can be played on the phone or computer.
Group board games can take on the design of small groups of players, seated at tables of 4 to 6 people, who work together on a problem. There can be large numbers of people (and thus many tables). If properly designed, these scalable exercises can be used for small groups (12 to 20 people) as well as very large events (600 people or 100 tables).
Generally, for these larger exercises, multimedia projectors, large screens and microphones are required for instructions and communications.
A search for team building events can turn up millions of links to exercises, companies, and various offerings ranging from paintball competitions to fire walks to outdoor climbing or whitewater adventures. The impact on actual team building can vary widely - a golf outing for corporate executives does not generally accomplish much in the way of organizational improvement while a business simulation might be directly focused on linking the play of the game to issues for corporate improvement.
Holiday groups use a gift exchange party game such as white elephant gift exchange for socializing and sharing gifts. New online party games, based on these holiday games, allow larger groups to gather on the internet to save travel expenses.
Fictionary, also known as the Dictionary Game or simply Dictionary, is a word game in which players guess the definition of an obscure word. Each round consists of one player selecting and announcing a word from the dictionary, and other players composing a fake definition for it. The definitions, as well as the correct definition, are collected blindly by the selector and read aloud, and players vote on which definition they believe to be correct. Points are awarded for correct guesses, and for having a fake definition guessed by another player.
Charades is a parlor or party word guessing game. Originally, the game was a dramatic form of literary charades: a single person would act out each syllable of a word or phrase in order, followed by the whole phrase together, while the rest of the group guessed. A variant was to have teams who acted scenes out together while the others guessed. Today, it is common to require the actors to mime their hints without using any spoken words, which requires some conventional gestures. Puns and visual puns were and remain common.
Balderdash is a board game variant of a classic parlour game known as Fictionary or the Dictionary Game. It was created by Laura Robinson and Paul Toyne of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The game was first released in 1984 under Canada Games. It was later picked up by a U.S company, The Games Gang, and eventually became the property of Hasbro and finally Mattel. The game has sold over 15 million copies worldwide to date. It is aimed at fans of word games, such as Scrabble.
Pictionary is a charades-inspired word-guessing game invented by Robert Angel with graphic design by Gary Everson and first published in 1985 by Angel Games Inc. Angel Games licensed Pictionary to Western Publishing. Hasbro purchased the rights in 1994 after acquiring the games business of Western Publishing. Mattel acquired ownership of Pictionary in 2001. The game is played in teams with players trying to identify specific words from their teammates.
Yahtzee is a dice game made by Milton Bradley. It was first marketed under the name of Yahtzee by game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe in 1956. The game is a development of earlier dice games such as Poker Dice, Yacht and Generala. It is also similar to Yatzy, which is popular in Scandinavia.
Mario Party 5 is a party video game developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It is the fifth installment in the Mario Party series and the second game in the series to be released for the GameCube. It was first released in North America and Japan in November 2003, followed by Europe a month later. The game is set in the fictional Dream Depot, consisting of seven game boards. The single-player "Story" mode involves the player winning multiple games against the Koopa Kids to prevent Bowser from conquering the Dream Depot. The main multiplayer game mode consists of four characters from the Mario series playing a board game, with each board having a set theme. The game also features several minigames, which are played after every set of turns. Mario Party 5 introduces the "Super Duel" mode to the franchise, which requires players to assemble and control custom made battle vehicles which can be used in combat against other machines. The game features ten playable characters, with playable debuts to the series from Toad, Boo, and Koopa Kid.
Mario Party is a party video game series featuring characters from the Mario franchise in which up to four local players or computer-controlled characters compete in a board game interspersed with minigames. The games are currently developed by NDcube and published by Nintendo, being previously developed by Hudson Soft. The series is known for its party game elements, including the often unpredictable multiplayer modes that allow play with up to four, and sometimes eight, human players or CPUs.
A parlour or parlor game is a group game played indoors, named so as they were often played in a parlour. These games were extremely popular among the upper and middle classes in the United Kingdom and in the United States during the Victorian era.
A social game or, less commonly, parlour game, may refer to tabletop, other face-to-face indoor or outdoor games, or video games that allow or require social interaction between players as opposed to games played in solitude, games played at tournaments or competitions or games played for money.
A number of related games under the Yahtzee brand have been produced. They all commonly use dice as the primary tool for game play, but all differ generally. As Yahtzee itself has been sold since 1954, the variants released over the years are more recent in comparison, with the oldest one, Triple Yahtzee, developed in 1972, eighteen years after the introduction of the parent game.
A game is a structured type of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work or art.
Power Yahtzee is a variation on the classic dice game Yahtzee first published by Winning Moves Games USA in 2007. It includes a sixth multiplier die called a "Power die" and an expanded scoresheet. This game is no longer in production.
Family & Friends Party is a video game developed by Spanish studio Gammick Entertainment for WiiWare. It was released in North America on March 2, 2009 and in the PAL regions on April 10, 2009.
Family Game Night is an American television game show based on Hasbro's family of board games and EA's video game franchise of the same name. The show was hosted by Todd Newton. Burton Richardson was the announcer for the first two seasons; he was replaced by Stacey J. Aswad in the third season, and Andrew Kishino was hired for the fourth season. The 60-minute program debuted on October 10, 2010, on The Hub ; it was previewed on October 9, 2010, on its sister channel, TLC. Seasons 1 and 2 contained 26 and 30 episodes respectively. Seasons 3, 4 and 5 each contained 15 episodes. Season 2 premiered on Friday, September 2, 2011, with additional games being added. The games added to the second season included Cranium Brain Breaks, Green Scream, Ratuki Go-Round, Simon Flash, Operation Sam Dunk, Trouble Pop Quiz, and Spelling Bee. However games from the previous season were still kept.
uDraw Pictionary is an art-based video game developed by Page 44 Studios and published by THQ Inc. that players can play on the uDraw GameTablet for the Nintendo Wii. The game is based on the popular board game Pictionary, in which players draw pictures based on clues from a subject and have their teammates guess what specific words the picture is supposed to represent. It was released on November 14, 2010 for the Nintendo Wii game system.
Yacht is a public domain dice game, similar to the Latin American game Generala, the English game of Poker Dice, the Scandinavian Yatzy, and Cheerio. Yacht dates back to at least 1938, and is a contemporary of the similar three-dice game Crag. Yahtzee is a later development, similar to Yacht in both name and content.
Mario Party 10 is a 2015 party video game developed by NDcube and published by Nintendo for the Wii U video game console. It is the tenth home console release in the Mario Party series and a part of the larger Mario franchise. Featuring gameplay similar to the prior series entries, players compete against each other and computer-controlled characters to collect the most mini-stars, traversing a game board and engaging in minigames and other challenges. There are multiple game modes, including one where players traverse a board in a vehicle, sabotaging each other and making choices to collect the most mini-stars by the end. Mario Party 10 adds two modes over its predecessors: Bowser Party, where four players compete in a team against a fifth who controls Bowser on the Wii U GamePad, and Amiibo Party, where players use Amiibo figures. Their gameplay is interspersed by over 70 minigames with various play styles.
Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems and rules of a game. Games can be created for entertainment, education, exercise or experimental purposes. Additionally, elements and principles of game design can be applied to other interactions, in the form of gamification. Game designer and developer Robert Zubek defines game design by breaking it down into its elements, which he says are the following:
Super Mario Party is a party video game developed by NDcube and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. The eleventh main entry in the Mario Party series, the game was described as a "complete refresh" of the franchise, bringing back and revitalizing gameplay elements from older titles while also introducing new ones to go along with them. It was released worldwide on October 5, 2018 and sold 1.5 million copies by the end of the month. As of March 31, 2024, the game has sold more than 20.66 million copies worldwide, making it one of the top ten best-selling games on the system. Mario Party Superstars, a game featuring maps remastered from earlier entries and a return to the original formula, was released in 2021.