Games aren’t just entertainment. Sometimes they can teach us a thing or two as well.
How to lose. How to win. How to, let’s be honest, cheat.
And how to take a hit when your kid tells you they think you’ve let yourself go.
Second cab off the rank in my ‘Nailed It’ challenge is this personalised Guess Who? (Who’s Who?) game.
Growing up Guess Who? was one if my favs. I’m sure it and Battleships, Scrabble, Monopoly, Chess, Mastermind and Connect Four made up the gaming experience for most of my generation. And they’re such easy games to teach and play they’re still selling them.
As I suspected, this spin on the a classic makes it even more fun, although the first laughs came before we even started playing.
“Oh, wow,” said Master10. “You got a photo of Poppy smiling.”
The questions were a lot of fun. Instead of the usual ‘do you have yellow hair?’ we got things like ‘are you a Devereaux?’ & ‘have you ever given birth to a baby?’ & ‘do you like cup caking?’
“Are you good looking?” asked Miss8.
“No,” said Miss12.
Miss8 then took a long time to study each photo. In the end she flipped one face down.
“Who was that?” I asked her. Naturally, I was hoping it was my brother.
“Nobody,” she said, looking guilty. She looked across at Miss12. “Your turn.”
“Hold up,” I said, my suspicions growing. “Tell me who you flipped down.”
“I can’t, Daddy,” she told me earnestly. “That would be cheating.”
“It was me, wasn’t it?” I exclaimed. “You flipped my face. You don’t think I’m pretty.”
“Of course not,” she said. That made me feel better. It must be my brother after all. “Girls are pretty. Boys are handsome.”
That sounded suspiciously like spin.
“So I’m handsome?” I pressed.
“Your go,” Miss8 repeated to Miss12. “Hurry up.”
“I’m waiting,” I said.
Miss8 looked thoughtful for a moment, no doubt trying to think of a way to be diplomatic.
She failed.
“You used to be very handsome, Daddy, before you had kids.” It’s true, they wrecked my body. I used to be so pert.
Miss8 smiled pityingly at me and reached over to where my likeness was lying. “Would you like me to lift your face up?”
A face lift? Would I ever!
So what do I think of this personalised version of an old favourite? I love it. The kids love it. Tracey, judging my the chortles in the next room, loves it.
My ego is fence sitting.
Ultimately, I think you’ll agree I nailed this challenge. It took a couple of hours to pull together – finding photos takes time (I ended up trawling Facebook), as does setting up and printing the stickers – but it was worth it for the laughs.
The game is now packed back in the box ready to come out at the next family get together.
Post diet and anti-wrinkle regime. Obviously.
How To Personalise Guess Who?
STEP ONE: Buy Guess Who? or Who’s Who? or similar. I was going to run with the original game but the cheaper one ($10 in BigW) better leant itself to changing the stickers.
STEP TWO: Buy some printable sheets of labels you can print family onto and cut out.
STEP THREE: Find photos of enough family members to fill in all the spots on the board. My tip is to pick the worst and most embarrassing photos you have at your disposal. If you have one of your sibling with an eyebrow shaved off, that’s the one you want to dig for. Mother-in-law with a bit of lettuce on her tooth? Print. You’ll obviously need enough to fill in all the spots, so you may need to include a few past generations or friends of the family. We didn’t. We had 24 spots and 27 immediate family members. I guess we’re about to find out if Uncle Daz, Auntie Kez and Great Grandma Lawrence read the blog. Don’t worry guys, we can swap you in when you come over.
STEP FOUR: Print out four of each family members face (with their name and/or title under them if you like). Or three sets will do it. We did four because we wanted the chance to be able to pick the same person.
STEP FIVE: Stick one of each family member’s face onto each board and the remaining two stickers of each family member’s face onto some thin cardboard and cut out individually.
STEP SIX: Put the individual cards into a bag for people to randomly pull out, and PLAY GAME.
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“Raising a family on little more than laughs.”
Love this bruce, well done
Thanks Rhiannan, I’m pretty chuffed with how it turned out.
“Did you scare the crap out of Dad but make this the best year every?” Easy guess, that one. *lol* Looks like fun, if a little ego-bruising at times. 😉
Doh! Ever, not every. I can spell the thing, really. And grammar it, too. 😉
What a great idea! Well done Bruce! ?
I’m pretty sure you only need to have one set of cards so you would only need to print out three sets.
you absolutely could, but we wanted to be able to pick the same – as happened with Geoffrey
Kids have been playing this HEAPS! Even took it to Grandma’s today. Grandma liked it too because she knows all the people lol
My husband was dating an emotionally unstable girl before we were married- think stalker (it’s not me I swear ?) and she very creepily made a guess who game ( after they had broken up mind you) of only him. It was absolutely hilarious and we all gave him so much crap for it ? I think he threw it out… Not sure why?!
Because unless you go first, you lose 🙂 my advice – hide your rabbit