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

This game is a lot of fun to play....the restrictions placed on each round are wht gives humour to the game.
For example when you are describing something and your team gets it right its very easy to say yes!
And remembering that you are only allowed one word in the second round is difficult and causes some very long supposed one word answers.
The funniest round has to be the last one where it can have you hopping around the room making noises making yourself look completely silly...its a real laugh!!!

Jen

Technically speaking though, this isn't the Name Game, it's a variation on it. The Name game is where you have a load of people's names in the bag that should be known to the ensemble (hence the *Name* game). It can be celebrities, old schoolfriends, characters from TV, film or literature. You can say anything in your description as long as it's not their name, and the guessers have to say the exact name on the card (so if the name on the card is "Madonna Ciccone", they wouldn't get the points unless they said her surname).

A variation on that is the restricted form, which is more similar to the game here, where the describer is not allowed to use any proper noun OR reveal the person's job.

The version on the entry is the version I had been taught, but having heard of your version I think I will include it in my page, and if anyone else out there knows any other rules, feel free to post here and I'll add them!

Cheers.

I've played the version I described since I was a child, but in the UK the BBC sports gameshow 'They Think It's All Over' has made the game more widely known using the same method, but sticking only to sporting names, like football players and athletes.

I think the game is on eof the most adaptable for whoever's playing. The way we do it is give one A4 piece of paper to everyone in the room, get them to fold the paper in half, and half again, and half again, and half again until they have the paper folded into 16 small rectangles. Next, they tear the paper up into those rectangles and then each person writes the name of a famous person on each piece. That way, the names in the bag should be representative of the people in the room (usually, friends tend to know the same celebrities because as friends they'll have generally similar cultural experiences).

Another trick is to add a couple of realy obscure names, so that other teams won't be able to guess the name on the paper, but your team will (since you wrote it). Evil, huh?

Jimster