Four on a Couch

This one is perfect for groups of 10 or more (I’d say up to 40). We play it every year at our camp Christmas party and its always a huge hit!

To play this game, you must have even numbers. Ask everyone to get a chair and sit in a circle, except for 4 people, who will sit on a couch instead of on chairs. There can only be one couch in the circle!

Go around the circle with some masking tape and place a piece of masking tape on the front of every other person’s shirt. The masking taped people are all on the same team. The non-taped people are all on the same team. The game must start with everyone sitting between two people who are not on their team. This also means that of the 4 people on the couch, 2 are masking taped and 2 are not.

Ask everyone to write their name on a slip of paper. Have each person fold their slip in half and throw it in a hat/box/container. Now go around the circle and have each person draw a name. If someone draws her own name, she must put it back and draw again.

The person to the immediate left of the couch starts the game. This person calls the name of anyone in the circle, except the name she just drew. This means she could even call out her own name. Let’s say I call out the name, “Jessi Linn.” The person who is holding the slip of paper with Jessi Linn’s name on it (not Jessi Linn herself) stands up and switches places with me. We also switch slips of paper (this is important to remember!) Once this interaction is over, the person who I just switched with now gets to call a name.

The point of the game is to try and get only people from your team sitting on the couch. But, of course, the trick is to try and figure out which names the people on the couch are holding so that you can boot them off. It’s also tricky to keep track of who has what name when slips of paper are constantly changing hands. Once the game is over, reset and play again by asking everyone to sit between two people who aren’t on their team.

This is a great memory and logic game and is great when you need a large group game that is fairly low-key. Heck, you could play this with a hot chocolate in one hand and a candy cane in the other!