Predator/Prey

I was at a friend's birthday party tonight (2 parties, actually... busy night!) and there were some fun and interesting things going on at one of them. For one, I played Twister for the first time in like maybe forever. The playing was fun, but the watching was more interesting - I wasn't doing so well, but a couple of women there were super flexible and pretty fun to watch!

But the thing I wanted to blog about was this - there was a group of grad school aged women having a conversation (for quite some time) about making out. I was curious about what could possibly be so interesting that they'd be talking about it all night, and it turned out that a couple of them were trying to plan a sort of make-out party, and they were discussing a "game" called Predator/Prey in which everyone at the party would draw a name out of a bowl, and the object would be to make out with the person whose name you drew before the person who drew your name made out with you.

Now, you have to understand that those aren't the kinds of parties I get invited to, so I don't know how interesting those types of games really need to be, but the first thing I thought about it was "that's no fun, you'll just walk up to the person who's name you have and kiss them and the game would be over." So, being the game designer I am, I suggested the following:

Rather than getting the name of your target, it would be cool if you don't know who it is you're after, and the more people you make out with, the more clues you get as to who you're trying to make out with. So the paper you get should have like 3 clues and then the name of the person. The clues would be simple, like "Wearing a red shirt," or "over 6' tall. This changes the goal slightly... to make out with 3 or 4 people, one of which is your target, before the person who has you as their target does the same.

In case that's not clear, here's an example. Maybe my paper says "Green shirt," so I would go make out with someone (presumably someone who's wearing a green shirt), then I could look at the next clue which might say "brown hair." So I'd make out with someone, presumably someone with brown hair and a green shirt, allowing me to look at the third clue which might be "hanging out in the kitchen." So then I'd go make out with a person with brown hair wearing a green shirt and hanging out in the kitchen, allowing me to look at the final clue which would be the name of the person. If at this point I have already made out with my target person, then I say so, and I guess I win*.

This idea simultaneously encourages people to make out with more different people, and gives you some reason to make out with one person over another. That's in addition to the other, more natural reason you might want to make out with the people at the party.

Everyone was happy with my suggestion and thought it would be a fun game to play at that kind of party. Now let's just see if I get invited!

* Evidently there's a little more to it than that. If you make out with your target, you're supposed to take their target from them and keep going. I guess eventually someone will end up with themselves as a target, and I guess that's how you could declare a winner.