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Three Games to Break the Ice and Party from Gamely

Do you ever have a need for ice breakers?

Or have you ever gone to a large game night and needed a game that could accommodate everyone?

This past month we’ve recently been using these three games from Gamely in each of these settings and they have been a great way to get everyone laughing, mingling, and having a fun time. Games used as icebreakers are a great alternative to the typical “meet and greet” variety too often found in the workplace or youth groups.

Randomise, Soundiculous, and Jibbergiggle are all new takes on classic game styles. Because they all feel familiar, they make great options for ice breakers, or as large group party games because even those who aren’t familiar or comfortable with modern games can jump in and play.

While these are lighter than what we typically play, they’re a great choice for when you need a game free from strategy with lots of silly, ridiculous fun.

Randomise

This game combines a little bit of everything we all grew up playing: Charades, Taboo, and Pictionary.

Could you draw a Dirty Butterfly Bowling?

How about acting out a Clever Giant Dancing?

Could you describe either of those to your friends without using those words specifically?

In Randomise, players will set up a stack of three cards, stacks A, B, and C.

Stack A features adjectives. Stack B has nouns. And Stack C has verbs describing what’s going on.

Each card has six words or phrases which are split into two sections, easy and hard.

Divide your group into two teams. On your turn select a card from each stack. Have your team holler out three numbers, 1-3. Then use those to know what you have to describe, act, or draw.

For a recent get together with about 20 friends, we brought this along. With this crew, we always tend to start game night with good ol’ classic Pictionary and these cards were a hit and a fun way to spice up the game for everyone.

Soundiculous

Soundiculous is a game where you get points by getting people to correctly guess the ridiculous sounds you’re making.

Can you make a sound that gets people to guess a cat? What about a parrot? How about a trampoline, spaceship, or a microwave?

Cards come in three options, easy, medium, and hard, with each card offering two sounds to make.

Adam brought this to his work to use as an ice-breaker during team training. He works in higher-education and has a group of student leaders that work in his department. Soundiculous was a fun way to get this group of college students interacting and in some cases out of their comfort zone in a fun unique way.

It’s also fun to play with kids. There’s nothing kids like more than getting to make a bunch of noise so there’s no surprise to hear they loved Soundiculous.

Our seven, five, and three year old each loved the chance to try making the sounds of Karate, hairdryers, popcorn, and of course all the animals. We just whispered the sound into the ear of the kids that couldn’t read and it worked out great.

Jibbergiggle

For the total hams in your circle, Jibbergiggle is sure to delight.

In Jibbergiggle you’ll try to creatively communicate random scenarios using only nonsense words and your expressive face.

For instance, you need everyone to guess that you are “doing a reading at a wedding” but you can only say “strudel doodle.” The game is completely ridiculous yet so funny.

Jibbergiggle was highly enjoyed by the students Adam played this with. It was a great way to warm everyone up and make sure no one was taking themselves too seriously. Even after the game was over, throughout the training week, he would hear them saying some of the crazy words to each other.

Final Thoughts

All three of these games offer lots of fun and unique ways to laugh and have a great time with friends. Because they are so easy to teach, you can get playing within minutes no matter how big your group is. While the games all come with rules of play as far as how many rounds to do or points to accumulate in order to win, we’ve enjoyed playing them more loosely until the group was ready to move on. As with most party games, we ended up playing these a lot longer than I would have expected, and that’s great!

The only downside is that if you have any wall flowers they may be a bit hesitant for some of these, especially Soundiculous or Jibbergiggle. We’ve found though that most warm up to it after a few rounds and will play without pressure. If your quieter players only want to guess, that’s fine too! Randomise is my favorite for this since you can choose whether you want to act, draw, or describe and don’t need to stray too far out of your comfort zone if you don’t want to.

All in all, these are some fun games and a great way to accommodate a large group with a new activity that still feels familiar.

A special thanks to the great folks at Gamely Games for sending these to us to review. As always our thoughts and opinions are our own.

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