My Top 10 Party Games

Ever since publishing My Top 10 Favorite Board Games, I have been dissatisfied with the result. There are just too many fabulous games that had to be left out of the list. To solve that problem, I've divided the world's greatest games into categories, the first of which is presented here as the Top 10 party games.

Time's Up is a long party game, but the progressively harder rounds make it well worth it. Start out by describing a famous, or not-so-famous person, progress to giving only a one-word clue, and end up with sounds and body language only. There is also a version where you have to guess titles instead of names, and I enjoy it, but the original is still my favourite. Take a look at the elusive Fourth Round of this game.

Tags is probably the best 'see-how-many-you-can-name' party game I've tried. The changing letter tiles ensure the game is different every time, while the ability to pick up unguessed words after your friend has failed makes for lots of bragging rights. And unlike some games, this one is not dumbed down enough to exclude the tough letters. Can't think of a villain who starts with Q? Too bad, I can!

When you first try Puns of Anarchy, you may think it's impossible. But don't give up; you'll soon get the hang of it. Alter your cards by writing over parts of the song title, movie, celebrity, or whatever is written there to create phrases that fit the categories. This is easily the best of the "choose-the-funniest-answer" genre, probably because actual creativity is required.

Dixit is a very popular game, and deserves to be. The bizarre but beautiful cards are open to limitless descriptive phrases, but you have to come up with one that only some of your friends will guess. Make it too hard, and you score zero. Make it too easy and you score, you guessed it, zero. Bluff other players with a great card on your opponent's turn and you steal his points. And when the game is over, you can spend a long time just looking through the cards. One caveat: this game has a load of expansions, but some of them have better cards than others. You might want to search the internet for a preview before choosing your expansion.

Wise and Otherwise repeats the game mechanic of Balderdash, but is a lot more fun. Instead of a word, you get a phrase to complete in order to bluff the other players, always beginning with, "There's an old Croatian saying..." Or Swedish, or Jamaican, or whatever. Maybe something gets lost in the translation, but the results are head-scratchingly hilarious.

This is an older game, but I've always liked it. The highest-scoring clues are the ones that use the fewest letter. You really have to stretch your mind to shrink your clues and still leave them guessable. Besides which, the other team can steal. And the write-on, wipe-off board with doors that open and close is cool.

Yes, it's pictionary. But having to incorporate cutout cats in your drawing sets The Cat Game above the rest. Cats are always funny.

Another impossible game, until you get the hang of it. You must give a three-word clue to the word on your card. But you must use the random word you get from another card. To get players to say 'bone,' you might have to start with "kid," as in, "kids eat this." Then the other players each throw out a one-word guess, one of which, say, "candy," you use in your next three-word clue. Thus, "candy causes these," can lead to "cavities hurt me," can lead to "pain when breaks," can finally get you to "bone." Whew!

That great old stand-by Taboo would've made the list if not for Banned Words. It's the same describe-the-word-without-saying-that-other-word mechanic, only the other team chooses the words you can't say. And you don't know what they are until you say them! Really!

In Funglish, you give clues by picking them out of a pile of tiles and showing them to the guessers. It's a mad scramble to find "dangerous," "European," and "dead," and hope they get "Dracula" from it.

No list would be complete without Honorable Mentions, in this case, Chronology, Sketchy, Codenames Duel, and Artbox. I haven't tried Pictures or Draw Your Own Conclusions, but I have high hopes for each of those.