Charlie Productions : A Simple Game For Complicated People

It has come to my attention that more and more people are playing word head. Many of these people wrongly call it something stupid like "The Word Game" and many of them heard from it Vanessa Hammick.

Not that this is a problem since it soon became clear that there really is little you can do to sell a game that only needs some paper and some pencils. We did think of making special pads with "Word/Head" written on the top and numbers written down the side and perhaps some special pencils that had "Word/Head" written on the side, but really it just seemed like far too much work. Boot leggers would soon set up all over the land and within days we would have nothing to show for our hard work except the knowledge that we'd never be short of paper for phone messages ever again.

However if you've been sitting around your mate's house late one night and they've turned round and said "Oh I know, my mate showed me this great game called "The Word Game", lets play it, it sounds dumb but it's really cool" then take a moment to draw on a wise tooth and say "Yes, lets play Word/Head." And it's up to you if you pronounce the slash or not.

THE RULES OF WORD/HEAD

The rules of Word/Head are very simple, wherein lies their beauty. The game came about because one morning Keith and I were sitting around waiting for Tom to finish sleeping with his girlfriend so we could all go home. We were at Vicky's mum's house in the Oxfordshire countryside and for the life of me I can't remember now why we were all there, apart from the fact that Tom wanted to see Vicky.

It was about nine on a Sunday morning and we both knew that we'd sleep no more and that we wouldn't see Tom or Vicky for some hours. We were in the house of a stranger in the middle of no where and we had nothing to amuse ourselves with except some paper and some pens. Consequences doesn't work with two, neither does Pictionary which had the added downside of not yet being retro enough to be ironically cool and the thought of the pair of us desperately and ineptly drawing to beat the clock was, frankly, more than we could bare.

So instead we invented a game that really shouldn't have worked, but really did. If you want to play it, this is what you do:

1. Write some numbers down the side of a piece of paper.
2. Each player now thinks of a word and writes it down.
3. If any players have written the same word as each other then they each get a point.
4. If all the players have written the same word then the game ends and the winner is, naturally, the person with the most points.

And that's about it. You can write any word, in any spelling. It doesn't have to be in the English Dictionary, it doesn't even have to be a real word. You could, if you wanted, write "MISHMANG", but the chances are that no one else will write this word and so you won't get any points. Unless of course "MISHMANG" is a private joke you have with one of the other players in which case you could really piss everyone else off. Which is part of the fun.

The numbers are only there to make sure that everyone is competing with the right word and the last, but most important, rule is that YOU CANNOT USE THE SAME WORD TWICE.

Basically it's a tactical version of snap with an infinitely varying deck of cards. It works with two players but is more fun with three or four and usually becomes a little uncontrollable by eight or nine (but it has worked). Being so very simple, the games become not only incredibly complicated but often shockingly revelatory as it tends to tap straight into the subconscious responses of the mind.

It is also a lot of fun. No, I know you don't believe me, but seriously, try it - you will never look at pens and pencils in the same light.

Charlie Productions believe passionately in doing things and always trying to stop in time for tea.
Brook House Design Studios, Bluebridge Road, Brookmans Park, Herts AL9 7SX
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