Do you know of any good party ice breaker games?

I always thought it was pretty sad, but looking back on it I seem to remember learning a bit about the people with this one: Everyone takes turns stating 3 things about themselves. Only one of them, however, is true. Since nobody knows you, you don’t have much to go on when guessing which story is true. In my experience, this type of thing usually results in people revealing a fair amount about themself.

Oops: @marinelife: “but not something dumb” – sorry.

If you have a large crowd where you can break into groups of 5–6 (several groups), it’s fun to see how many things the random groups can find that they have in common within a certain time period. (examples: play instruments; have broken a bone; hate mushrooms—that sort of thing). All the people in the group would have to share the experience in order to claim it.

You will discover all kinds of things about people pretty quickly ;-)

Apples to apples.

My brother and I, who often go on day long driving trips together, like to play this game in the car called Unfortunate Dinner Companions in which the first person names someone, anyone living or dead and then the next person chooses someone else that would be an unfortunate dinner companion for the first person. Example: Richard Simmons and Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Church.

The second game is called Things That Make You Say Hmm? So one person mentions something whether it’s an object or a situation or a concept and then the second person comes up with something that simply would not work well or just seems like a ridiculous non-sequitur to the first thing, hence you would say Hmm?
Example: Mannerism of the 16th century, and a riding lawn mower. Hmm?

The funny thing about both of these games, is that less creative people tend to mis-understand the rules and do the complete opposite, that’s when it really gets funny because the other players will chastise them.

@sneezedisease What is apples to apples?

@marinelife Awesomeness. I agree it is a great game.(Apples to Apples) How many people are we talking?

@mowens About 30. How does one play Apples to Apples?

@marinelife There are rules for Apples to Apples here.

How long are you wanting the ice breaker to last? That makes a big difference in what suggestions are acceptable.

@bobbinhood Just 15 minutes or so.

Giving people a task to work on often gets them comfortable more quickly than the random get-to-know-you games that usually get pulled out for ice breakers. Team building types of activities can make really good ice breakers as long as the vulnerability level is not too high.

One good one is to split people into groups and give each group a bag of stuff (string, paper cups, popsicle sticks, etc.). Give the groups a time limit, and tell them to build the tallest tower. Or, have a bunch of pennies handy, and have them build a tower that is at least x high and can hold the most pennies. I’ve also seen a variation with toothpicks and mini marshmallows. You have to build the tallest tower with just those two things, but you must have a marshmallow on top.

You could give each group a certain amount of tin foil and a tub of water. Their goal is to build the boat that can hold the most pennies without taking on water. When time is up, drop pennies one at a time onto each boat, and see which stays afloat the longest.

If you want to do something that’s more about getting to know each other and your group is not too large, you can have a bowl of some kind of small food (m&m’s, skittles, pretzels, nuts, etc.) that you pass around. Each person takes as much as they want, but they must take at least a certain amount (usually 3 or 5). After everyone is satisfied with how many they took, you tell them that for each piece, they must tell one thing about themselves. I’ve also seen this done with toilet paper. Each person takes as many sheets as they think they need.