The World's Funniest Game

I have played lots of games in my day. Card games, games with people in circles, board games, geocaching (is that a game?), organised sports and the list goes on and on. A few years back I was introduced to a game that I consider to the the funniest I have ever played. This game doesn't have a name that I know of, so I call it the sentence-draw-fold game.

It goes like this. Every person gets a blank piece of paper, with or without lines is unimportant. Everyone writes their name at the very bottom of the paper. Then each participant writes a sentence at the top of the paper. It can be anything you want but just a single thought encapsulated in one sentence. It shouldn't be too long either.

Second, once your sentence is complete, you pass the paper to your left or right. The direction doesn't matter, as long as everyone passes the same direction, i.e. to their left. Now you have a new piece of paper with a sentence written at the top. Now the real fun begins. You read the sentence and then you must draw the sentence in a picture just below the sentence. So, if the sentence is, "A man is driving a car", you draw that just below the original sentence. You don't want to draw it too big, because the paper should be passed and drawn or written on several times but draw large enough so that the picture can be understood.

Once you are finished drawing, you have to fold the paper. Your paper should have a sentence at the top and a picture just below it. Fold your paper where the next person can see ONLY your picture, not the original sentence. The original sentence must be obscured by the fold but the picture must be visible. Now, pass your paper to the next person on your left (if that is the way you are passing).

Now you will get a paper with a fold and a picture. Looking at the picture, write a sentence that you feel encapsulates the picture. Then, fold the paper to cover the picture and leave only your sentence showing. Now pass to your left for the next person to draw under the sentence. Draw, fold, pass. Write, fold, pass.

When your original paper finishes the circuit (you know this because you wrote your name at the bottom of the page) you may unfold the page and begin guffawing. The game usually works best if each person gives a short presentation of their original sentence and the various evolutions it went through. I am not kidding, you will laugh during this part.

Here are a few examples to show why (It may help to click on the picture so you can enlarge it and see it better):

The original sentence is "I like to hike in the mountains" followed by a great drawing of a man smiling as he hikes. This one goes off when the bedroll in the second pic looks like a halo and the backpack looks like wings. I am the one who finished the page with the great drawing of Daniel in the lion's den, a far cry from "I like to hike in the mountains".

This one was going well until I got a hold of it. Somehow my frightened princess was mistaken for a frog and my knight for a space alien. Can you believe it?

On this one I laughed harder than I have in ages. The first sentence is simple, "It was a very beautiful day." The next player kinda cheated (mainly because she had taken some good natured ribbing about her drawing skills) and had the man saying the original sentence. The trouble was, she forgot to draw his feet. So, the sentence changed to "The sun is out in a beautiful field of flowers, and one can talk." I cried I was laughing so hard on that one.

Now, some will say that they can't play this game because they can't draw. I am not a great artist either but that is the beauty of this game. It is all in the interpretation. A great picture may lead the sentence way off the path, while a couple of stick men may move it on without change.

Give it a try and if you like it post a comment letting me know how much laughter it created. Honestly, your face will hurt from playing this game.