Anyone Know if This Game Has a Name

[GHolden]

We quite often play the following word game.
Works best as a spoken game (requires more concentration).

You can play with any number of people.

1. First person says a letter.

2. Going round in order people add one letter at a time which must form the start of a word with the previous letters.

3. At any point you can challenge if you think someone has added a letter that would prevent a word being completed. If you're right they're out, if not you're out. Next person starts a new word.

e.g.

Three People...

Person 1 Adds 'T' (if challenged could state anyword starting with T: 'Thumb','Top','Tart', etc)
Person 2 Adds 'H' (if challenged could state anyword starting with TH: 'Thumb','Thorn','Thanks', etc)
Person 3 Adds 'E' (if challenged could state anyword starting with THE: 'Then', 'Theatre', etc)
Person 1 Adds 'A' (if challenged could state anyword starting with THEA: 'Theatre', etc)
Person 2 Adds 'V' Person 3 challenges!! But loses because person 2 comes up with 'Theave'

There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

I don't know of a name for the game, but I've played it for years. There's one very important rule I didn't see in your post. Maybe you just play differently, but for us the object of the game is to not be the person who adds a letter which completes a word.

This can be tricky if playing fast, because sometimes you are thinking that the letters are leading to a certain word, and you think you're safe because the final letter will come on someone else's turn...but you wind up giving a letter which completes a word you haven't even thought of.

In your example, Person 3 would be "out" when playing with us because (s)he just made the word "The".

Of course, any number of rule variations are possible, just so long as the people playing all agree. You could agree that no words consisting of 3 letters or less count, enabling you to use "Theave" (Which is a really obscure word!).

It's a great game. The only problem is that we can't play it here on this forum - to many people posting at the same time, not to mention online dictionaries. Part of the challenge is to see who has the best vocabulary.

John

Every generalization is false, including this one.
-Unknown

 

[GHolden]

We played it when we were kids and I play with my kids, it's a very good way to improve spelling and vocabulary. We have never played with your don't complete a word rule. But I think we'll give it a go for a bit of variety.

I agree that it's not really suitable for playing in the forum for exactly the reasons you state.

Might be an idea for people who don't know it to play elsewhere though.

BTW 'Theave' is one of my brother’s pet obscure words, reserved for irritating people during Scrabble games and such like.





There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

 

[strongm]

I've always played it using the rule mentioned by anotherhiggins