Best holiday car games: who remembers what?

Wednesday, 28 December 2016

Scrabble is probably not good for travelling in cars, but other 'word chain games' can work a treat.

Games are the best way to remove the boredom from a long road trip and while telling your little brother to 'stop hitting himself' while forcing him to hit himself is the pinnacle of comedic entertainment for a 10-year-old, it won't cut it for the adults in the car.

If your road trip requires something brain-stretching to keeps things civilised, word-chain and memory games are just the thing to keep everyone busy.

We're Going on a Picnic starts with the first player saying 'We're going on a picnic and we took…', followed by any object they like. The next person then repeats 'We're going on a picnic and we took…', followed by the original suggestion, then their own item. A player is disqualified if they forget any of the previously mentioned items or can't think of something new to add. The game continues until all but one have been disqualified.

Or you can use any variation of course. It doesn't have to be a picnic.

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Testing quick thinking instead of memory is the classic game Word Chain (also known as Last and First, Alpha and Omega, The Name Game, or Geography if played with country or city names.

Once a theme is agreed the first player comes up with a word, then the next player must come up with another word that starts with the last letter of the previous word.

For example, if playing with countries it could be: Ireland-Denmark-Korea-Australia and so on.

Time limits can be set to come up with a word, while limiting the theme can produce infuriating and anger-inducing results.

Where did they come from?

Games like Word Chain have been around for centuries, with variations across the world, including Japan (where it is called Shiritori), Russia and a very popular variation on the theme in Pakistan, Nepal and India called Antakshari that uses song verses instead of single words.