A silly, easy, fun, deep party game.

This is something I posted on the very geeky boardgaming site BoadGameGeek.com. But the game is not just for geeks. This is something I would recommend for any open-minded dinner party.

Last night we tried out a game described by Douglas Hofstadter in his incredible book "Le Ton Beau de Marot" (if you've never read this guy, you are missing something great). The game is entirely non-competitive. The aim is rather to have fun, to explore, to see what happens.

"Chinese Doodles" is trivially simple, based on the old "Chinese Whispers" or "Telephone", but using sketches/doodles instead of whispers. The materials are basic... one unlined sketch pad and one pen/pencil per person. We used 2-inch-square sticky note pads (small for environmental reasons), but the size is not crucial.

To start the game, each player spends about a minute drawing a doodle on their pad. The content/form of the doodle is completely unrestricted. Drawings, writing, numbers, whatever. Players then pass their pads around to their left. Each player now spends one minute examining the doodle that has been passed to them, then flips the page over (hiding the original), and attempts to reproduce (from memory) the doodle on the new blank page. When everyone is done, the pads are passed to the left again, and the process repeats, so that each player is now attempting to make a copy of a copy, etc.

Eventually, each player receives their original pad back, showing a far-removed version of their own original doodle. At this point, everyone can lay out all the drawings, and trace the path that their doodles have taken.

How did the left-pointing train turn into a right-pointing truck?

Sounds stupid? Sounds pointless? Well perhaps, but I have never heard so much laughter around our table before, and I look forward to playing this again soon. Douglas Hofsadter claims that some of the happiest memories of his youth are centred arond playing this game with his friends at college.

Anyway, give it a go. It won't cost you anything, and it's a hoot.