The joy of play

Tonight I played gamey-type-games-things with Dan from The Fun Fed, and five other blokes. Just proves you don’t need many mates to have a great night of game playing. We were in an amazing space at the Old Finsbury Town Hall in London. I’m really sorry I didn’t take my camera. Didn’t even have my iPhone with me. But here’s a photo of the room we played in that I purloined from the web site.

Thanks to Johnnie Moore for introducing me to The Fun Fed and escorting me through the streets of Islington to find the venue. We had a great time. Did I already say that?

What made it so good I hear you ask. The space was fabulous. Oh, I said that already too. There was a good mix of physical and mental games and LOTS of laughs – and like the best laughs they emerged from the games themselves. The pace was good too – there was no pressure to get through a certain number of games, or to perform, or to act in any particular way, or to be clever, or anything. This is the joy of play – you can just be yourself, and have fun. How often can you say you’ve gone somewhere with the sole intention of just having fun? This week? This month? This year? Heaven forbid, since you were a kid? No agenda, no expectations, no pressure.

Here’s three games I hadn’t played before that I really liked.

Adverbs

Someone leaves the room and the others decide an adverb that they have to guess by issuing instructions for us, either individually or collectively, to act in the manner of the word they are trying to guess. The three words we played with were apathetically, orgasmically and mischievously.

Ghosts

Turn out all the lights. Someone is the ghost and can move. Everyone else has to stand in still with eyes closed. The idea is for the ghost to sneak up behind the humans, stand there for 10 seconds and then scare the living daylights out of them. The humans have a chance to avoid being ‘ghosted’ by touching the ‘ghost’ if they feel him nearby. One you have been ghosted you also become a ghost and can go after the other humans.

Job Interview

One person leaves the room and comes back to a job interview with the remaining players. The interviewee has to try and guess what job/role/person they are being interviewed for from the questions asked by the panel.

I’m definitely inspired to offer game playing when I get home – for no other reason than for the joy of play.