Simple yet exciting! Recommended games and activities for year-end parties
Many of you probably attend several year-end parties—at work, with friends, and in your neighborhood—every year, right?
Looking back on the past year and chatting with colleagues and friends makes for a great time.
And the entertainment games—like bingo and quizzes—might be part of the fun, too.
But when you’re in charge of the entertainment, it can be hard to decide what games to play.
Ideally, you want something simple that everyone can enjoy and get excited about.
In this article, we’ll introduce classic games that meet those needs!
Once you’ve decided on the games for this year’s year-end party, don’t forget to prepare the prizes!
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Simple yet exciting! Recommended games and activities for year-end parties (61–70)
Oshibori Squeezing Game
It’s a game you can enjoy using items found at places like izakayas! Participants take turns wringing out a wet hand towel once each.
The rule is that the person from whom not a single drop of water comes out loses.
Watching everyone desperately try to squeeze out water is really funny!
Signaling Game
A signal game you can play with four or more people.
First, someone names three colors, and then the next three players each name an object of that color… and you keep repeating this.
You can make it even more fun by narrowing the theme to things like fruits or animals.
It gets pretty exciting because people lose track of whose turn it is, you have to answer in rhythm, and mistakes happen one after another!
Stand-up game
It’s a stand-up game that’s more fun with more people.
You don’t need any items, and it’s super easy to enjoy! Participants take turns calling out a number, trying to guess how many people will stand up.
You can choose any number you like.
If exactly that number of people stands up, the caller wins.
If someone never guesses correctly by the end, they lose.
Since winners drop out as they win, announcing the prizes for early winners in advance might help ramp up the excitement of the game.
Name Bingo
Name Bingo is a great recommendation for occasions like the company year-end party where employees from other departments also gather.
First, ask the people nearby for their names and fill in the blanks on your bingo card.
Then the host draws slips of paper with participants’ names; if the name is on your card, mark it, and when you complete a line—bingo! Since you have to ask many people for their names before the game even starts, it’s an activity that helps build connections during that time as well.
Treasure Hunt Game
It’s a game where you put slips of paper with “winner” written on them inside balloons, and whoever pops a balloon and gets that slip receives a prize (the treasure).
You can pop them any way you like—poke them with something or even pop them by stepping on them.
You can also include dummy slips or ones that assign a penalty game.
Gesture Game
When you think of variety shows, NHK might not be the first thing that comes to mind, but the NHK quiz-variety show “Gesture” might be an exception.
After all, it entertained households for a remarkable 15 years! The simple rule—act out gestures based on a prompt—must have really resonated.
How about playing a gesture game together? You don’t need any special materials, so you can start the event on the spot.
If you have a board to display the prompts, it’ll be even more exciting—so organizers, please prepare one!
Beef Tongue Game
It’s a super fun game that’s simple and requires no props.
Rhythm is key: keep the tempo with “Gyuu-tan, gyuu-tan, gyuu-tan-tan” as the first round, and everyone forms a circle and claps along to the chant.
With hands together, the first person starts on the cue “Gyuu.” The next person claps their joined hands on the “tan” part.
As you move into the second and third rounds, the rule is that the final “tan” claps increase by one each time.
If you throw off the tempo, skip a phrase, or make a mistake, you lose.
Speeding up the tempo raises the excitement and gets everyone hyped! Don’t forget to prepare a penalty for the loser (lol).