Day Four : Star of the Wars or the Tiny Games People Play

So it's day Four of my two week 'Pretend to be a game designer' challenge and I haven't made much progress today because I spent most of my hours packing and driving most of my family up to see the grandparents. I'm having difficulty finding the time to make that epic game.

So today I will concentrate on a Tiny Game.

My kids have no trouble at all making little games to play.  One of their favourite games they love to play is played over a meal at the dinner table is this:

BROKEN OR NOT BROKEN

Player One bites/pretends to bite a cucumber or carrot or other piece of food and then shows it to Player Two and asks 'Broken or Not Broken'. Player Two guesses whether the food is whole or has been bitten in two. Player One reveals outcome. Repeat. And repeat.

And while I have had trouble getting started in my game design ambitions, my daughter has no trouble designing games out of anything in front of her:


Part One:

Part Two

But it isn't just little kids who delight in these Tiny Games.  Bigger kids do too. My sister's good friend went to Camp every summer and she seemed to know a million games for a million situations.  Here's one of the games I remember her telling me about.

(Um, it's another game that's played at the dinner table. Also: don't tell my kids about this game!)

COLOURS
Whenever someone at the dinner table yells COLOURS, everyone has to stick their tongue out. The person with the most different colours of food on their tongue wins.

And even bigger kids love these silly tiny games.  In fact, even adults.  For example, I am just one of 1226 adults who backed the Tiny Games Kickstarter because I just love the idea of "an app that gets you playing the perfect game with your friends: wherever you are, whoever you're with, whatever you're doing."

Before the lights are out, I will make a Tiny Game.