Empire in the Room

Engage (What you need to know)

• Ages 

  • 13+

• Number of Participants 

  • 10-40

• Time frame 

  • 20-60 minutes

• Necessary components 

  • A bowl and or hat. 

  • Slips of paper

  • Pens

• Purpose. 

  • The purpose of this game is to introduce potentially unfamiliar people with one another while also creating a space where peoples names are repeated again and again. One of the main benefits of this game is that the people who normally fly under the radar of a group will most often be forced into a position where they are brought forward. 

Demonstration / guide

1. First and foremost I am going to have everyone write their own name onto a thin sheet of paper. Once they have written their name the leader goes around and collects them into a bowl or hat. I give it a good shake. Once I have everyone's names into the hat I am going to read them aloud once. After having read all of the names out loud I am then going to fold all of the papers and shake them again completely randomizing them. I am then gonna pass the bowl around again and everyone has to draw out a random slip of paper. So John could end with Jane’s name, and Jane with Josphine’s name. This is where the game finally begins. 

2. Each participant is allowed to ask 1 question per round to try and figure out who the other person has. So Jane might ask John “Are you someone who really enjoys gummy candy?” John would use the information he knows about the person that he has to answer the question. It is like a real person, multiple player version of guess who. If you ask “Are you ____” the person answering only has to say yes if they are that person, otherwise they are allowed to remain silent. Any other question is completely fair game! 

3. If you guess the correct name. John guesses that Jane had Josphine name as her person, if he was correct and Jane did have Josephine as her person, Jane must now join John’s team. The two of them must then work together in order to bring more people into their empire. 

4. This cycle continues on, guessing more people and asking more questions, and more people join other peoples' empires until there are only two people left with everyone in the entire game on one side or the other. These last two continue to ask questions back and forth until one of them guesses the correct name and becomes the ultimate empire. 

Explaining the requirements 

• Everyone writes their name down on a slip of paper

• That paper is placed into a bowl

• The bowl is mixed up 

• Every name is only read aloud once. 

• The bowl is passed back around the circle 

• Each person draws a random name of a different player

• The main game begins 

• One person can ask any other person in the circle any “yes or no question”

  • Ex “Brown hair?” Ex “likes Fruit?” Ex “Is in 9th grade?” Ex “are they _?”

• If the guesser is wrong, the question moves to the person to their right.

• If they are correct when guessing the other player's identity, the other player joins their ‘empire’ and is now out of the game and must aid the person who guessed correctly. 

• The guess then passes to the person to the correct guesser right. 

• This pattern continues until 2 empires remain 

  • As in, every player in the game is now on the team of 2 people. 

• The game ends when one of the last two guesses the other person's identity.