Pick a favorite game, and use it as the inspiration for your game night décor. If you love Twister, make your pad Twister-ific by decorating with red, blue, green and yellow balloons and polka-dotted streamers. Or if Parcheesi is more your speed, you could decorate with colorful saris for an Indian theme (Parcheesi, or Parchisi, is the national game of India).
To get in the mood for this kid-friendly party theme, deck out your party room like a teenage bedroom or college dorm room with rock posters, cut-out pictures of celebrity crushes and club flyers. Spread blankets, quilts and pillows on the floor to create a casual atmosphere where guests can spread out and get comfortable.
Visit the Evite Party Store to get more ideas and buy supplies! Board game suggestions for your game night party:
| • Monopoly • Trivial Pursuit • Taboo • Pictionary • Clue • Cranium | • Life • Scrabble • Outburst • Scattergories • Murder mystery game • Apples to Apples |
Keep in mind that you're not limited to store-bought games. For games like charades and the name game, all you need are strips of paper and a good imagination.
To create your own word-definition guessing game, find obscure words in a dictionary and ask everybody to come up with inventive possible definitions for them, while one person writes down the correct answer.
There are various ways to run your game night, and you can make it as casual or as formal as you'd like. Here are some tips for getting your game on:
• If your group is too large or unruly to all play the same game, set up stations for different games or team people up for group play.
• To make games more challenging and help to get people interacting, separate couples and really close friends.
• Playing with a shy group? Start off with a team competition, where people can get more comfortable with one another and with playing games. Also, be sure to choose games with different topics to play to everyone's skills — not just all pop culture trivia or word games.
• If your games require score-keeping, drawing or sculpting, buy lots of pens, extra modeling clay and pads of paper.
Playing Candyland? Then you know exactly what kind of food to set out for your party.
If you're thinking more along savory lines for your game night party, you can't go wrong with pizza. Make your own from scratch, and have your friends add fun toppings (goat cheese, marinated artichoke hearts, fresh basil, etc.) Ordering plain cheese pizzas and adding toppings at home will achieve similar results, with less time away from gaming.
Eating and playing games don't have to be mutually exclusive — it is possible to drink creamy tomato soup from a mug as you roll the dice and move your mice. Bite-size, non-greasy finger foods also work better than those requiring a knife, fork, plate and a table, since you'll want to save the valuable table space for the games you're playing.
Featured Game Night Recipes from Epicurious.com | Shandy
• 1 part lager
• 1 part ginger ale, ginger beer or carbonated lemonade
Combine ingredients and serve cold. |  |
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If music makes the party, get your party rockin'! Instead of just playing tunes at your next shindig, let your guests become the entertainment with Guitar Hero
® as they jam out with the full band to everybody's favorite songs. So if you're looking to crank it up a notch, add some tingle to your mingle and bust out the full rock package of Guitar Hero
® to propel your bash to epic proportions.
| 1. | Back in the Saddle / Aerosmith
|
| 2. | Miss Murder / AFI
|
| 3. | Them Bones / Alice in Chains
|
| 4. | Caught in a Mosh / Anthrax |
| 5. | Beast and the Harlot / Avenged Sevenfold
|
| 6. | Godzilla / Blue Öyster Cult
|
| 7. | More Than a Feeling / Boston
|
| 8. | Mother / Danzig
|
| 9. | Smoke on the Water / Deep Purple |
| 10. | Take It Off / The Donnas
|
| 11. | Through the Fire and Flames / DragonForce
|
| 12. | Hey You / The Exies
|
| 13. | Play with Me / Extreme
|
| 14. | Monkey Wrench / Foo Fighters |
| 15. | Take Me Out / Franz Ferdinand
|
| 16. | Barracuda / Heart
|
| 17. | Unsung (Live) / Helmet
|
| 18. | Stellar / Incubus
|
| 19. | The Trooper / Iron Maiden |
| 20. | Stop! / Jane's Addiction
|
| 21. | I Love Rock N' Roll / Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
|
| 22. | Electric Eye / Judas Priest
|
| 23. | Carry On Wayward Son / Kansas
|
| 24. | Rock and Roll All Nite / Kiss |
| 25. | Laid to Rest / Lamb of God
|
| 26. | Cult of Personality / Living Colour
|
| 27. | Free Bird / Lynyrd Skynyrd
|
| 28. | Shout at the Devil / Mötley Crüe
|
| 29. | Heart-Shaped Box / Nirvana |
| 30. | Bark at the Moon / Ozzy Osbourne
|
| 31. | Cowboys from Hell (Live) / Pantera
|
| 32. | Hit Me with Your Best Shot / Pat Benatar
|
| 33. | Nothin' but a Good Time / Poison
|
| 34. | Message in a Bottle / The Police |
| 35. | Lay Down / Priestess
|
| 36. | Killer Queen / Queen
|
| 37. | No One Knows / Queens of the Stone Age
|
| 38. | Killing in the Name / Rage Against the Machine
|
| 39. | Round and Round / Ratt |
| 40. | Psychobilly Freakout / Reverend Horton Heat
|
| 41. | YYZ / Rush
|
| 42. | Raining Blood / Slayer
|
| 43. | Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart / Stone Temple Pilots
|
| 44. | Freya / The Sword |
| 45. | I Wanna Rock / Twisted Sister
|
| 46. | Cherry Pie / Warrant
|
| 47. | Thunder Kiss '65 / White Zombie
|
| 48. | Woman / Wolfmother
|
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