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Party Games

A selection of party games, for: Alphabetic list of all games (click here); Games listed by age group (click here); Games listed by location (click here).

The idea of a party game is to provide participatory fun for a group of people. The people, often children, are often together to celebrate an event like a birthday, or it could be a family gathering for Christmas, New Year – or even just co-workers in an office.

One of the features of party games over board games is that the number of players is flexible and can usually go up to quite large numbers – often the more the merrier.

Serious stuff
In today’s world it is common, particularly at children’s birthday parties, to forgo the traditional party games and go out somewhere to be entertained. This coincides with the rise of the TV baby-sitter, children are no longer used to being participants, they are just spectators.
The spectator child can make a party with games rather traumatic for the adults – children no longer know what to do automatically, they have poor social interaction and they expect to win without any effort. Hence the spoilt child who thinks party games are "boring" – on the contrary the problem is, they are too interesting.
This makes the playing of party games very important socially. And for those concerned with winning and losing – that’s life, better they learn early.

Light hearted stuff
The good news is that given the right selection of games to play any child – and adult – can be have fun, and such genuine fun they’ll be talking about it for days.

So how to choose your games?

Look at your target audience, how old are they? Where will the event be? Indoors? Outside? In the pool? Then look at the lists on the various pages referenced on the left menu and the select the ones you want.

For a three-hour children’s party you can expect to have an hour eating (do the eating after the games!) perhaps half an hour to cope with arrivals and gift giving. So you need an hour and a half of games. Most games can be expected to last from 15-20 minutes, for the younger kids, so you’ll need a maximum of 6 games prepared. Be flexible.

Older children (from 13 to 90) can take games of longer duration and with more complex rules.

Themed parties
One way to get people in the party mood is to have themes it could be Pirates, Vampires, Spongebob Squarepants or Aliens, anything really. Then look at the games and see how they can be adapted for the theme. For example "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" can easily become "Pin the Xxxetrbolic on the Grimblin" if your theme is aliens.