h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was introduced to this one the other week here in Canada (hence "couch", I suppose you could change it to "settee" if you prefer). Anyway, this is a game for two teams of four (any two equal teams will do, but four seems traditional) best played in a lounge, since you'll have a couch there. The aim of the game is to get all four team members sat on the couch. As well as this there should be five other seats, so that a vague circle is formed and eight bits of paper, with the players' names written on them. The teams sit alternately, leaving one empty seat. Then the pieces of paper are passed out; one each.

Now the game begins. The player to the left of the empty seat calls out a name. Whoever has that name moves to the empty seat and swaps name with the player who called the name. This is then repeated. The trick to winning is obviously to try to get your team on the couch and the other team off and pass the play to someone else on your team - not easy when trying to keep track of whose name is whose.

This game should probably not be combined with the consumption of too much alcohol. At least not if you want it to actually end.

That sounds a cool game!
I will try that one day or another!

HP
»--.

My team won as well.

I think I'll mention another game, which was popular in my youth group. Well, not that popular, since it was played once a year, but sort of traditional. It goes by the rather unoriginal monicker of "The name game":

Divide into two roughly equal teams. Each player then writes a name on a piece of paper (best if the name belongs to either a famous person or a famous character - I got caught too often by writing something obscure down, which made everyone think, "Definitely Richard.") Do not show the name to anyone else, but hand them all in to a co-ordinator who reads them all out (probably best if this person isn't playing, otherwise he or she should try not to recognise the handwriting). The teams take turns at trying to connect a player from the other team with the name (they would say something like, "Amy, are you Al Capone"). If the guess is correct, then that player changes teams. The team then gets another guess. Please note that you are not allowed to "guess" at someone whose name has already been revealed on the first guess, but you may on subsequent goes. So what happens is that when a team gets one right, they also call over anyone who has already been "unmasked". Clear? Good. The winning team is the one that gets all the players. So everyone's on the winning side, how nice. Those players who don't get guessed can show off, though.