Daniel Ari
Off the Grid: New Takes on a Favorite Family Game
My family used to play word games on cross-country car trips, Mad Libs, And-so Stories, and something we called “Three Thirds of a Ghost” among them. One of our favorites was what we called "The Grid Game" or "Categories." To play, draw a six-by-six grid on a piece of paper.The top left square is unused (though my brothers and I used to put our names here). In the first column (skipping the top square), put the letters of a five-letter word in which no single letter is repeated. We always opted for words with common consonants and as few vowels as possible, such as GRIND, STRAP, RENTS, or TORCH.
Across the top, write in categories, general bodies of words or phrases such as Girls’ Names, Animals, Movies, Places, and Activities. Categories can be more abstract like Things You Do with a Ball and Objects Smaller Than a Grape, or more specific like Clothing Worn Above the Belt and Books by Dead Authors.
A typical grid might look like this:
Animals Countries Famous Last Names Foods Plants W A T C H
Set a predetermined amount of time and fill in as many squares as you can with items in the categories across the top, which begin with the letters to the left. On road trips, we set time limits such as "until we get to Tucumcari" or "as soon as the baby needs a diaper change." At the end of the allotted time, the Animals column, reading down, might read “Walrus, Antelope, Toucan, Cat, Horse,” and the W-row, reading across, might read “Walrus, Wonderland, Washington, Wasabi Peas, Wisteria.”
For us, sharing our results was the most fun aspect of the game. Scoring was nominal and uncompetitive: we scored one point per answer, but the extra show of appreciation for a particularly graceful or creative entry was the bonus that made the game worth playing well. An answer like Wonderland for W-Countries would be regarded as a clever solution and earn a point, especially since no earth-bound countries exist that would gracefully fulfill the square.
Collective Additions
Competitive modifications came to us in later years. The first rule said that if anyone else had the same word, neither of you got a point. So if dad and I both put China for C-Countries, and mom and my younger brother both put Canada, then only my older brother, with his unique entry of Chile would get a point for the square.
This rule drove us toward more clever and far-fetched answers. It also precipitated the need for a ruling process that we could apply to iffy entries. For States starting with the letter S, someone might enter Shock. Once, someone tried to use Garp for G-Movies. (The title of the film is The World According to Garp).
We tried entries like these by jury. We put them to a majority vote in which the person whose word it was could also vote. That way a word had to have united disapproval before it was a no-count. My parents made this rule, and I appreciate them for keeping the focus on the fun of the game. Encouraging our creativity was far more important than being hard-nosed about the score. At the same time, we were taught to compete against ourselves and to develop an internal referee. If I felt I deserved a point for Water under W-Foods, my family wasn't going to debate it; but I probably wouldn't have taken the point, my just deserts for not having thought of Watermelon or Waffles.
The next variation reversed what we had been doing. We started taking points only if our words matched at least one other person’s. Now we strove to be obvious and to think like one another. Would my little brother be more likely to put Turtle or Toad under T-Animals? My a-ha moment was realizing that because he loved dinosaurs, he would enter Tyrannosaurus.
We also tried a variation in which players could earn multiple points by using entries comprising multiple words that all begin with the cue letter. For C-Foods, Cottage Cheese would earn two points; Chili Con Carne, three. Some entries in this variation also might require trial by jury (such as Canned Creamed Corn Casserole).
The Grid Game for Adults
At a party not long ago, I told friends about The Grid Game and we decided to try a grown-up version. For one thing, we opted to increase the difficulty of our five-letter cue words. Forget about using 1-point consonants and eschewing vowels. We chose JUMBO, QUIET, and ZEBRA. Now we would have to pay more attention to our time limit and expect to leave some spaces empty.
Our categories were also more sophisticated. We tried Synonyms for Angry, Words That Can Be More Than One Part of Speech, Words Deriving from French, 12-Letter Words, Coastal Cities outside of North America, Fictional Countries/Lands, Political Last Names, Desserts, and Plants We Could Find Within a Mile Radius.
Only the Best
This last category we played as best we could, but it's conceivable that an argument could have begun if one person assumed a kumquat tree grew close by while our host insisted that none did. We might have had to walk around the neighborhood within a mile radius, looking for a kumquat tree.
Laughing over this idea, we hit on the idea of using categories that would require research, and that led us to the idea of superlatives. With superlatives, the only person who scores a point for a cell in the grid is the one who best fulfills the category. Here are some examples of superlative categories:
The First Five-Letter Word in the Dictionary (Starting with the Cue Letter)
The Southernmost City in Asia
The Longest Word That No Other Player Has Written
The Furthest Celestial Body
The Last Name of the Author Who Has Published the Most Books
The Element with the Highest Atomic Weight
The Single Word that, when Googled, Returns the Most Hits
When we began playing with superlatives, we found that we needed a dictionary on hand, then an atlas, and then we realized that an Internet connection was best for the categories we were inventing. The Internet allows for rounds of casual research during the scoring phase of the game. We might have a category such as California City with the Shortest Driving Distance to Boston, Massachusetts. A quick visit to Mapquest.com shows that the driving distance from my R answer (Redding, 3081.5 miles) doesn't score the point against Terence's answer (Riverside, 2955.5 miles).
A favorite Internet-dependent superlative category that's easy to check is The Longest String of Letters (Not Counting the Dot-Suffix) That Leads to a Working Website. We like this category because it involves risk. A player might know that froogle.com is a live site, suspect that freeverse.com will lead somewhere, but risk going with frootloops.com only to lose out to a player who recalls fishtankensemble.com, the Web site of a local band.
A possible drawback with superlatives is that competition for fewer points can lead to quibbling. Solution: refocus on the enjoyment of the game, and when in doubt, award points to all entries that might hold a rightful claim.
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