三国杀 and other party games

[feihong]

Earlier this year I started playing 三国杀. It is basically a sinofied version of a popular game that we in the west know as Bang!. I enjoyed 三国杀 quite a bit after I got a basic understanding of the rules and strategies. I think it's a good way to practice your Chinese, although the words you end up using are not ones usually found in modern discourse (also, all cards are printed in traditional characters). But I got to thinking, are there any other language-centric party games that are popular in China? When I say "language-centric" I mean games where you have to talk/read/write as part of the gameplay, which would exclude many games such as dice, checkers, mahjjong, etc.

I know there is also 杀人游戏.

[Gleaves]

Good question, I look forward to what people have to say. I was trying to think the other day of word games that could be played by a group of people at happy hour or something like that to practice Chinese (sometimes, simply picking a conversation topic is a bit of a non-starter). 20 questions could be a simple one, where you think of something and the rest of the people ask yes/no questions until they narrow it down and guess. I'm also curious if there are Chinese games that also fit this bill.

[maxdmind]

曹操传is always good,its SRPG 三国 PC game

[murrayjames]

How about drinking games? 划拳, anyone?

[langxia]

Oh I love 三国杀。

(also, all cards are printed in traditional characters).

I am sure that the one I own is not printed in traditional characters.

There are many drinking games that involve talking. (also none drinking games)

One I recently played is there are two teams and one person from one team gives one of the other teams member a word and he then has to act it(without talking). We usualy play that the maximum is 4 characters words (so you can use chengyus) what is interessting is that you can split it up and mime every character.

Another one is that every person in turn gives a statement of something he has done or happend to him. The people that allready did the same don't need to drink. For example one person says : you have never been in a car accident (he himself allready has been in one) so everyone who never was in a car accident has to drink. (this one is also really good to learn some stuff you would never learn in a textbook ;) )

Another taling one is the to which park are you going on sunday. There are 3 choices. The 动物园， 水果园， 蔬菜园。

The first person says ‘It is sunday' then the second one we are going to the animal park and then everyone has to say an animal if you don't know one you have to drink (or if you repeat one)

Good way to learn a lot of fruit, animal and vegtebale translations

As soon as I remember some more I played, I will post them.

[SherryChen]

i would like to say 真心话大冒险

first, you are going to play "stone or scissors", the one who loses needs to chose between "truth" and "action". If you chose "truth" you are obligated to answer one question asked by the winner and you will need to say the truth. If you chose action, you will need to complete the request asked by the winner, it can anything, even something as taking off your pants in the middle of the street...after doing this, the next round will begin!

[feihong]

What is the best way of procuring a 三国杀 set, if you're in the United States? A search on YesAsia yields nothing, but I do get some results from Dangdang.

UPDATE: Oh, let's not forget Bookseed. I'm assuming they're the best choice because they ship within the US, right?

[Gleaves]

I am a big fan of Bookseed, They are based in CA, so they ship around the US for $4. They do take Paypal even though it doesn't come up as a option (they have instructions on the payment page).

Interesting comment on bookseed - 三国杀不仅是游戏，也是学习汉语、了解中国传统文化、寓教于乐的绝佳途径...

[Outofin]

Love the game. I'd long heard of it but never tried until last month when my family visited me and my nephew brought the game. Now I play it online.

I think it's superb and very addictive. Lots of strategies and co-operation among players. I've played it no more than a week and now I'm thinking to write a strategy book about it.

It usually runs no more than 20 minutes. That's important to me too. I used to play weiqi and I loved it. But it just takes too long!

[menyawga]

I am actually thinking of doing my masters dissertation on the value of using board games as a teaching supplication for Chinese. If you're wondering what kind of games are enjoyed among board gamers, go to boardgamegeek.com, click browse, then click games for a list in order of popularity.

Most of the popular games have Chinese non official copies sold on taobao. One good example of a popular board game is "power grid". It involves economics, materials management, bidding and buying power plants, etc. it does a good job of forcing natural interaction while letting people use economic language in a natural atmosphere.

[menyawga]

Another great game that forces a lot of player interaction is The Resistance.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/41114/the-resistance

Menyawga

[Lupeianii]

In China, we have(I am Chinese) a kind of Board Game named 风声（message from wind), it is recompose from the same name movie about WW2. The theme of the game is "sent out the message".

[Lu]

Love the game. I'd long heard of it but never tried until last month when my family visited me and my nephew brought the game. Now I play it online.

I recently heard about this game for the first time and am leaving China next Monday, so not much chance I'll be playing it in the near future. Where do you play it online?

[KaerH]

If any of you have ever played Apples to Apples then you know it's a great language game comprised of culture, nouns and adjectives. Has anyone seen a Chinese version made? This would be a great game for studying Chinese. I'd like to make one with someone since my knowledge of contemporary Chinese culture (celebrities etc...) is still fairly limited. For now I'm going to start translating the deck and then make changes from there (leaving the culture stuff untranslated)