I blogged about the Just One tabletop game over a year ago, over here. It’s such a fabulous game! Here’s why: it’s simple, it’s fun, it challenges your brain, it can be played with a small or a big group if you share the little easels and markers, and everyone can play every round. That all makes it a wonderful game for a party! You can make it short or long, according to how much time you have. It’s also a word association game. So if you like Code Names you will probably love it.

On top of all that, you can customize the game to make it even more fun! We just played it with 5 out of my 7 children for our family birthday party, when we celebrated my wedding anniversary last month. It’s SOOO easy to customize. Just hand out an index card to each participant. Ask each person to write a list on the index card (in portrait orientation) numbered 1 to 5 of interesting words that pertain to the family. These are words that can stir up laughter, memories, or opinions. The words can also be names of people in the family or family titles like “mom,” “son,” “cousin” etc. Remind everybody to use words that only stir up positivity. So this could be words that pertain to furniture in the home, family vacations, quirky moments, friends, favorite toys or games, pets, hobbies of family members, etc. In the regular game, you start with 13 cards that you as a group go through. The aim of the game is to see if you can get 13 out of 13 correct working together as a group. If you have fewer than 13 people than have some people make more cards so you can have 13 cards. Then use those customized cards and play according to the regular rules. Hopefully you will enjoy lots of laughter along the way. We sure did!

Variations:

Use guidelines above but put different words themed according to the holiday you are celebrating: Valentine’s, Easter, Independence Day, Thanksgiving or Christmas. Or play a Family Tree version and use names and words associated with your ancestors and other relatives. How fun it would be to play on a family member’s birthday and then come up words that have to do with that person like his or her favorite food, hobbies, books, trips, possessions, etc.