Fifteen Minutes of Fun Trivia Quiz

Answer: Boggle

In the game of Boggle, invented by Allan Turoff, 16 letter cubes are shaken and allowed to fall back into place, however they may fall. Players (at least two players are needed, though one person could play alone for practice) then have three minutes to form as many words as they can out of adjacent letter cubes. Words need to be at least three letters long, and you get more points for longer words. Points are scored if you find a legitimate word that no other player did.

Answer: Sudoku

Sudoku is a logic puzzle; the name, in Japanese, means 'single number'. In this game, published in many newspapers and puzzle books, as well as online, you are given a square grid, made up of nine smaller squares, that each in turn have nine smaller squares.

Some of the smallest squares already have numbers filled in; the fewer pre-filled squares given, the harder the puzzle. When completed, each medium-sized square must be filled with the numbers one through nine, and each horizontal and vertical line also contains the numbers one through nine, without overlap.

Answer: Pictionary

Pictionary pretty much just involves someone picking a mystery word and then trying to create a drawing of that word on paper for other players to try to guess what it is. In the Hasbro board game, designed by Robert Angel and first marketed in the 1980s, there is an actual board game to navigate and categories from which to draw words, but it's an easy enough party game to create at home yourself. Simply have someone (preferably someone who won't be playing, so that they won't know the words ahead of time) write down a bunch of words to draw on pieces of paper (or print a word list from the Internet), grab some drawing supplies, form teams and have at it.

Answer: Jumble

Jumble was created by comic book artist Martin Naydel. It was first published in 1954 and nowadays appears daily in many newspapers in many different countries, and can also be played online. In its most common form, the Jumble puzzle consists of four scrambled words to solve. Letters are then taken from those four solved words to unscramble to find the final answer.

In addition, a cartoon which gives hints as to what the final answer is accompanies the words to solve.

Answer: Battleship

Battleship was first officially introduced into the game market by Milton Bradley in 1931, under the name Broadsides, the Game of Naval Strategy. Each of two players receives a game board and five plastic boat shapes, which they arrange on the game grid in whatever formation they wish (as long as the boats don't overlap). Once the boats are set up, players take turns guessing grid locations. If Player A guesses "B4", Player B checks to see if one of his boats is occupying square B4 on his grid. If there is a boat there, it is a 'hit' for Player A, if not, it is a 'miss'.

The game continues until one player's boats have all been hit and sunk (the other player 'hit' every square occupied by a boat).

Answer: 20 Questions

In the game of 20 Questions, one player thinks of a person, place or thing and the other player(s) ask yes or no questions to try to figure out what the first player is thinking of. Common questions include "Is the person male?", "Is the object smaller than a breadbox?", etc.

A computerized version of this game that can be played by one person alone, called 20Q, was invented by Robin Burgener in 1988. Played either online or with a small electronic toy, in the computerized version, the computer tries to guess what the player is thinking of.

Answer: Go Fish

Go Fish is both a fishing-type card game, as you draw from a pile of cards hoping to get a card you need, and a shedding-type card game, as you must get rid of all your cards as soon as possible. There are a few variations of the game of course, in terms of, for example, how many cards each people starts with and how many cards of each kind a player needs before removing them from their hand.

In some variations, the players may need all four of a particular denomination of card to shed them, in other variations, players may shed the cards when they have two or three of a kind.

Answer: Seven

In Seven Minutes in Heaven, two participants are selected to go into a closet, or another room where they can be alone, and they can do anything they like for seven minutes, usually kissing. There are different ways the two people can be chosen, such as drawing names from a hat, having the party's host choose two people, or by playing a variation of spin the bottle, where the person who the bottle points to goes into the closet with the person who spun the bottle, rather than the two just kissing there in front of the group. Seven Minutes in Heaven was first played by American teens in the 1950s.

It's similar to other games that were played earlier than that though, such as Post Office or Postman's Knock.

Answer: Hangman

In the game of Hangman, one player thinks of a word or phrase, draws a series of blanks on a piece of paper (one for each letter of the word or phrase), and the second player guesses letters until they've filled in enough letters to guess what the word or phrase is.

However, for every letter they guess incorrectly a body part is drawn on the 'gallows'; if there is a whole man hung from the gallows before the guesser completes the word or phrase, the guesser loses the game. The number of body parts drawn can vary; some players play only until the body has a head, torso, two arms and two legs.

Other players may choose to add hands, feet, hair, facial features, etc. It's an extremely versatile game, as easy words can be chosen for young children and complex phrases can be chosen for adults.

Answer: Scattergories

Scattegories comes with cards with categories printed on them, such "Vegetables", "School Subject", "Female Celebrities", etc. In each round, the 20-sided die with letters of the alphabet is rolled and players must come up with reasonable answers for each category that start with the letter rolled.

The key is to come up with answers that no other player thinks of, as you will not score a point if someone else has the same answer as you. The game was first published by Hasbro/Milton Bradley in 1988.