connections
This is a game you play with other people. Any number of people can play.
how to play
Here's how you play. Everyone sits more or less in a circle.
One person is chosen to be the Poser. The Poser starts the game by naming two
ideas. (I'll define this word more closely in a moment. For now, think of an
"idea" as a person, place, thing, or concept.)
For instance, they might say, "elephant" and "September". Now the next person to the left
has 10 seconds to connect these two ideas. If they fail, it's the
next players's turn to try connecting the ideas. If everyone fails all the way
back around to the Poser, the Poser gets points: two points for everyone in the circle
including herself. But when someone successfully connects the ideas, both the Connector
and the Poser get a point for each person who failed.
After this, the round is over and the next person becomes the Poser.
challenges and the jury
Simple, eh? But what do we mean by "idea"? What do we mean by "connect"?
Well, I'll give you some guidelines in a second, but let me first say that
your group is the jury as to what makes a valid idea or a valid connection.
If a Poser states an "idea" that seems too complicated or makes no sense to you,
challenge them on it. If the group decides it's an illegal idea, that Poser doesn't
get to Pose until the turn comes around to them again. Likewise, if a Connector
tries to make a connection that's just too far-fetched, challenge it and let the
group decide. (If members of the group become too particular and accusatory in their
challenges, institute this rule: if you challenge an idea or connection and the group
goes against you, you lose a point.)
idea
An idea is any simple, clear concept that can be evoked in three words
or less. It can be a noun, a verb, an adjective, but it has to be clear and concise.
Here are some examples of ideas a good Poser might offer:
- cornflake
- glance
- chafe
- sad
- evolution
- nose hairs
- Declaration of Independence
- aardvark
- How the West Was Won (ok, not strictly three words but who's counting?)
connections
So how do you make a connection? This is a little trickier.
To connect the two ideas you have to name a series of other ideas which
form a connected series from one idea to the next. For instance, if I was
trying to connect "elephant" and "September", I might name:
- elephant
- Africa
- diamond mines
- Neil Diamond
- September Morn
- September
The idea here is that for any two pairs of ideas in that sequence,
the connection is immediately obvious, assuming of course that you know that:
- elephants live in...
- Africa where are most of the world's...
- diamond mines which is the last name of...
- Neil Diamond who sings a famous song called...
- September Morn which is about the month of...
- September
Here are some good tests to see if a connection is a good one:
- Is the connection immediately obvious or is some intermediate processing
required? (e.g. jumping directly from "Neil Diamond" to "September")?
- Does the connection work both ways? Notice that you can just as easily
understand the sequence going upward. In fact, that's how I came up with this
particular connection.
The crucial thing is that the connection between the two ideas must be
immediately obvious to any person who has the proper knowledge.
Don't allow connections that rely purely on features of the words themselves.
You're looking for connections between ideas, not words. For instance, I wouldn't
allow someone to connect "bear" and "naked", just because "bear" sounds like "bare".
I wouldn't allow someone to connect "fetid" and "tiddlywinks" just because
both contain "tid". You see?
But do keep in mind that just because you don't understand a connection (because,
for instance, you've never heard
September Morn by Neil Diamond) doesn't
mean it's not valid. If other people in the group get the reference and understand
the connection, then it's valid. A connection is only invalid if the ideas
really don't strongly connect, even if you do understand them. "Cheese to trees?"
I don't think so.
who wins?
Before you start the game you should choose what goal to play to. You can play until...
- Everyone's had the chance to be the Poser once; or twice for a longer game; or three times.
- Someone reaches a certain score (3x the number of people in the group would be good for a short game).
skill inflation
This is a fun game to play with friends when you haven't got a great deal to do.
It's not the kind of game you want to play seriously: it's just silly fun.
And human brains like making connections like this, so it also becomes absorbing silly fun.
The Poser has the difficult job of coming up with ideas that seem to be utterly unrelated—something human brains are not naturally good at.
As the game progresses, everyone gets a lot better at this. This makes it harder—and more
fun—for everyone else to try to find strings of ideas that connect these bizarre juxtapositions.
solitaire
Naturally, you can also play a solitaire form of the game. Just set yourself two ideas
that seem to have nothing in common, then see if you can find a connection. I know it sounds
sad to do this by oneself, but hey, that's what solitaire is for.
Just to get you started, I'll play the Poser and offer these ideas for you to try
to connect:
- backrub : the Titanic disaster
- episode : fat
- greed : waltz
- omniscient : moon landing
...back to mind games
|