Unplug Play

MATCHMAKER,
MATCHMAKER

HOW WELL DO THE OTHER PLAYERS KNOW YOU?

Be prepared for laughter and plenty of revelations about each individual and the other players’ perception of you!

NOTE: This game can only be played if there are no complete strangers to your group participating. It is mostly for those groups of people who know each other at least fairly well . . . like friends and family members.

First, write the name of every player in your group on a separate piece of paper. Fold each one and place them all in a hat or facedown on a table. Next, each player must come up with an activity he or she thinks would typically not be associated with or attempted by a member of the group—for example, activities such as “nude sunbathing” or “eating bugs” or “hiking to the top of the tallest mountain in the world” or “walking on fire” or “crashing a wedding” or “entering a hot dog–eating contest.” (Some of these activities may not be a big deal for certain members of your group, so be creative and come up with activities that will be out of the norm for your specific group.)

Players must predict the group’s consensus about the tendencies and willingness of each individual to engage in certain activities.

Once everyone has thought of the activity they wish to present, Player 1 announces his activity. Then Player 1 picks two random names from the hat and reveals them. Every player then writes down the activity and lists three people next to it. The first is the person in the group each player thinks is “most likely” to engage in the activity. The second is the person in the group each player thinks is “least likely” to engage in the activity. The third is the person out of the two random people selected from the hat who would be most likely to engage in that activity (out of those two only). You may, of course, select yourself for “most” or “least” in the entire group. Keep in mind that each player is trying to match the answers of the rest of the group, so answers should depend on what each player feels everyone in the group would say. Once everyone has written their answers, each player reveals their list. Players who match all three answers with another player achieve a trifecta match and the points are tallied accordingly (see “Scoring” below.)

Player 2 then presents her activity and picks two random people from the hat, and then everyone writes down their three selections as before. The game continues until everyone has presented an interesting activity and revealed who they think are most or least likely to participate. There are endless activities you can come up with in this game.

Players earn 5 points for every trifecta match they achieve! All three names must be in the exact same order to be a match. Players do not receive any points if even one of the three is in a different order. (For example, if Player 1 had Sandy for “most likely,” Phil for “least likely,” and Jennifer for “more likely than Phil” [Jennifer and Phil being the two selected from the hat], and Players 5 and 6 also had those three in that same order, all three of them would earn 10 points because each of them matched all three exactly with two other people.)

For example, for the activity “eating bugs,” the two people pulled from the hat are Bob and Mary. Player 1’s answer may be John, Allison, Bob, and Player 2 might say John, Betty, Bob. Both had John as “most likely” and Bob as “more likely” than Mary, BUT because they had a different person (Allison and Betty) as “least likely” in the entire group, NO MATCH!