Dr. M and I played a rocking three-hour marathon game of Monopoly last night to celebrate our mini-vacation (staying up late! On a Sunday night! Woo!). I was declared the winner when we were too tired to re-mortgage all of Josh's property to see if he had enough money to stay at my fabulous hotel on New York Avenue.There are a lot of games that I like to play that have a tendency to go on way longer than I want to play them (I think I've only legitimately finished a game of Trivial Pursuit once or twice in my life). But what about a game that is designed to never end? That game, my friends, is the totally lame Ungame.
We would play this at my grandparent's house -- even as a kid I realized that this game was pretty stupid. You roll dice and go around in circles, picking cards from a pile that ask you to tell something about how you feel, what your dreams are, or something you lied about or feel sorry about. To your family. In your grandparent's basement. While your mom sits on the davenport at the back of the room and pretends to read the newspaper while rolling her eyes at every card. And the game has no ending -- or rather, it is designed to end when you feel you have expressed enough and are ready to stop playing. Honestly, my mom had to have some serious patience to get through the Ungame.
And apparently this goofy and dated seventies game of self-discovery is still around -- with expansion packs (great for parties!) -- and probably still making grandparents happy and kids bored. Naturally I'm going to order us the couples edition. Could be just what we need to spice up our Sunday night board game throw-downs.
13 comments:
but dr. toy gave the ungame an award! there must be something exceptional about it!
i think you're only supposed to play it under the influence of lsd or ecstasy. otherwise it has the opposite effect of what is intended.
The Ungame sounds like budget therapy to me. The Ungame, from the makers of Point to the Place on the Doll Where the Man Touched You.
Oooh, I just found a link to the Ungame rules with suggestions for creative play at the bottom. My favorites include:
Leave the board game on a coffee table all the time, letting family members know they can suggest playing ever time there's something that needs to be shared.
[Fuck you! Let's play the Ungame! Now.]
Let everyone in the group give his/her answer to the same question, not to discuss, but rather to marvel at the uniqueness of each person's response.
At birthday parties, let the birthday boy/girl be in the limelight as they answer 3 or 4 questions with everyone listening.
[Oh. My. God. What a horrible idea.]
Take a deck of Ungame cards with you when you visit someone who is in the hospital, convalescent home, or jail.
Some of my favorite memories are of hearing my father's hopes and dreams as we played the Ungame while separated by plate glass in his maximum security prison. It's wholesome family fun!
Not to brag, but I once teamed up with a friend of mine and we won Trivial Pursuit in one turn...
The Ungame sounds unfun. Just felt like I should share that.
i am telling you, playing the ungame is just another good reason for me to come back to texas. there isn't anything that sounds more fun to me right now than many beers, friends and the ungame. ooh, that and how you folks wrap hot dogs in tortillas. viva texas!
All of a sudden I am so grateful that game-wise, my grandmother was only interested in drinking a little too much Scotch and kicking our asses at cribbage.
Wrapping hot dogs in tortillas and breakfast tacos are two things about Texas that have seriously changed my life.
Mmmmmm, breakfast tacos....
And my other grandma likes to drink a little too much beer and play cards all night, so I do have a little game balance in my family.
What I love the most about the rules of the ungame is where it says you should leave some time at the end of open sharing. I guess thats just in case anyone needs to cry or share something that has touched them after they have listened respectfully to everyone else's answers.
look at that, the ungame brought me out of lurkdom. making connections already. Love you blog. Came on it randomly about a year and a half ago and read regularly.
friday i played therapy. the game pieces are little couches and the questions involve inkblots and things like, "so, ____, on a scale of one to ten, how cool do you think you are?" and you only win if your number matches the therapist/asker's guess. or collective guess, if it's group therapy and all the other players have to decide on an answer. there's psychology trivia too. i hate it.
i can have jon bring it over on a game night.
I'd play Ungame. Once, at least. And I haven't played Monopoly in ages, but would like to again.
i see why the ungame is on sale. however, i do want to play therapy. i would so kick everyone's ass at it. because i *know* people!
-jennifer
Occasionally we'd play Ungame with the adolescents at the psych hospital where I worked. Lord what a minefield.
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