Party Games
Active Party Games Hunt The Slipper
Hunt the Slipper is possibly the most successful party game in Fabulous Party History. The Victorian game is sometimes called "Hunt the Thimble." It can be played in a large or small (not otherwise empty) space, inside or outside with no previous planning. It goes like this:
First, a smallish object is chosen to play the role of the slipper. This can be an actual slipper, or one can use another curio. One player is decided upon to hide the slipper, and the other players all leave the room or area. The slipper is then "hidden" in a conspicuous place somewhere in the room, in plain sight (nothing should need to be moved in order to view it.)
The other players then file into the room, looking around for the slipper. As soon as a person sees it, they sit down without telling where it is. Once everyone but one has found the slipper and sat down, the last person standing must do something of the group's choice. They might sing, dance, tell a secret or do a trick.
This person will be the next to hide the slipper.
 The Knot Game
This game is utterly simple, but when we debuted it at the Victorian Technological Exposition it was a big hit. Basically, everyone who is playing (the more the merrier!) stands in a circle and reaches out to hold hands with two different people who are not standing right next to them. Once everyone is in a tangle, and while holding hands the whole time, the group untangles themselves by stepping over, under or through the knot. Most of the time, it ends up with one big circle of people! Sometimes it makes two circles.
The Rainbow Labyrinth
This is a game from the 1901 book, "An American Nights' Entertainments" by Josephine Stafford.
"The Rainbow Labyrinth is a jolly puzzle when played in a large house, and yet it is down-right fun in a flat.
"A number of balls of different colored twine, and of equal size, are purchased, one to each guest, and the day before the hostess expects her guests she arranges the labyrinth. She selects the chandelier of a large room as the starting-point for all the balls, and then taking one at a time, she twines it upstairs and down, around furniture, doors and balustrade, until it is all unwound. At the end she ties and conceals a souvenir. Care must be taken not to get the cord where it will encounter the feet and legs of the guests, letting it pass around the walls instead. The cords may cross and re-cross, but must not enwrap one another, as a guest would then have to await for another to come up and extricate his cord. Each guest is given an end dangling from the chandelier, and cautioned not to break the cord. The one who first displays his souvenir is the prize-winner."
Silhouettes
This game requires a little bit of forethought. The props needed are a lamp (with a removable shade) or flashlight, perhaps a table to place it on, and a large, plain sheet or butcher paper. This game can be played anywhere where there is a doorway and the ability to make one side of the doorway darker than the other.
Hang the sheet or butcher paper in front of a doorway (it is helpful to roll it up so that it is not in the way of partygoers before the game is played.) Behind the "screen" place a lamp so that someone standing between the lamp and the screen creates a clear silhouette. Divide the group into two teams, and one team will be inside the room, taking turns casting their shadows on the screen, while the other team guesses who each person is.
This game is a lot of fun, especially with funny props to use (feather boas, weird hats, pillows. At the FHHCB, my bum roll and hoop skirt were helpful too.)
Subdued Party Games The Exquisite Corpse
This game requires paper and a writing instrument. The first player writes a line of poetry or a sentence or two of a story, folds the paper over so that what they wrote is invisible, and passes it to the next player who does the same. When the paper is full, or, in larger groups, when everyone has written something, the paper is unfolded and the disjointed story or poem is read aloud. This game can also be played by drawing part of a picture, leaving only a slice of the image available for the next person. Another variation is to allow a person to read only the line before theirs, and not any before that (this makes the story slightly more coherant.) The game can also be themed.
Who Am I?
This game is sometimes used for an ice-breaking getting-to-know-you game. It requires sticky notes (or paper and tape) and a writing untensil. One player, or perhaps someone who does not wish to play, writes the name of a famous person or character on a note and sticks it to another player's forehead. This player does the same, and it continues until everyone has a name on their forehead. It is then time for people to guess whose name they have, by asking yes-or-no questions. If the answer to a question is "yes," the player may ask another question. If it is "no," then it is the next player's turn. The game is over when everyone has determined whose name is on their forehead.
Order Out of Chaos
Another Entertainments game:
This is a test of observation and memory. A table is filled with numerous small articles (possibly fifty). This is placed in a room apart; then each guest is admitted alone and allowed to survey the conglomeration for the space of half a minute. At the end of the allotted time he withdraws and begins to write upon a sheet of paper as many of the objects as he can remember. A great deal of amusement is sometimes caused by the players remembering things which they did not see. The prize is allotted to the one guessing the largest number correctly.
I Never
This was originally a drinking game, but is also a successful, entertaining cool-down game at the end of a party. It can also be played around a campfire.
Players arrange themselves in a circle and each hold up ten fingers. Someone starts the game by saying, truthfully, something they have never done ("I never went to Canada.") In response, all of the players who have done whatever it is (in this case, anyone who has been to Canada) puts one finger down. Then the person on the right of the first player says something they have never done ("I've never been on the radio") and the game continues. If you put all ten fingers down, you are "out."
The winner is the last person with any fingers up when everyone else is "out."
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