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 Recreational Activities for Year-End Parties (41–50)
Who am I? game
A “Who am I?” quiz where players deduce the answer from hints.
For example, if the hints are “Born in Japan,” “Just add hot water to eat,” and “Comes in many flavors,” then the answer is “cup noodles.” The number and difficulty of hints and the question format are easy to adjust, so it can be enjoyed at any kind of party.
Start with easy questions to get everyone used to it, and finish with a super hard one! Offering prizes to the winners will make it even more exciting.
Create your own original quiz and have a great time!
NG word game
NG word games you play during golf or bowling are so much fun, aren’t they? For example, if you set “no English,” you suddenly can’t use a lot of golf and bowling terms—but as the game heats up, you can’t help blurting out things like “Nice!” anyway.
It really adds to the excitement of the competition.
The type where you stick an NG word on your forehead is great too.
A tip for making it lively is to set the NG word to something the other person says a lot.
Catchphrases really do get ingrained without us realizing it.
Both types are highly recommended party games that get everyone hyped!
Russian roulette with super-spicy snacks
There’s a segment called the “Ultra-Spicy Challenge” on the NTV variety show Ariyoshi Seminar, and just watching it makes your mouth burn, doesn’t it? These days, even super-spicy vegetables like habaneros, which used to be hard to find, are available at large supermarkets.
Let’s get some mildly spicy snacks and play a Russian roulette game with extra-spicy ones to get everyone hyped! There are plenty of fairly hot snacks on the market, like “Maiko-han Hii Hii Curry Senbei” and “Oni-Kara Kaki no Tane & Peanuts.” But even if things get exciting, make sure not to pressure anyone into it!
Shake Shake Kaki-no-Tane Championship
We’d like to introduce a game that uses “Kaki no Tane,” a snack well-known as a staple treat and drinking companion.
Prepare a plastic bottle packed full of Kaki no Tane.
Participants take turns shaking the bottle to pour Kaki no Tane onto a plate.
The time limit is 5 seconds, so once 5 seconds are up, pass the bottle to the next person.
When everyone has had a turn, count the Kaki no Tane; the person with the highest number wins.
They look like they’ll come out easily, but they don’t come out as quickly as you’d think.
Since it’s a game where you’ll want time to think about the best shaking technique to get more pieces out, going later in the order might give you an advantage!
No Katakana Hint Quiz
Figuring out the answer from the hints is the same as in a regular quiz.
However, in this “No Katakana Hint Quiz,” there’s a rule that you must not use katakana in the hints.
For example, if the answer is “supercar,” you might want to say “faster than a sports car” or “has a cool design,” but katakana is not allowed, so you have to rephrase it as “faster than other cars” or “the shape of the car body is cool.” The quiz giver should make full use of their vocabulary and choose words that are easy for the solver to understand!
Pedometer rapid-shake game
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Some of you may be using pedometers for your health.
Since many smartphones now come with a built-in pedometer function, there may even be young people who have never seen a standalone pedometer.
This little game using pedometers seems like something people of all ages can get really into.
You might even see your department head or manager going all out, mindlessly shaking a pedometer or their phone! There are lots of variations: time-attack challenges, matching a target count exactly, shaking two at once, and more.
Just be careful not to get too carried away and accidentally throw the pedometer.
Rating Check Game
https://www.tiktok.com/@artbellangenagoya/video/7484572781951061256We’d like to introduce the “Ranking Check Game,” a perfect party activity to test participants’ discerning eye! The host prepares two options, and players simply choose which one they think is the real deal.
If you’re correct, you stay top-tier; if you’re wrong, your rank drops—a simple yet thrilling set of rules.
Anyone can join, and the unexpected results are sure to spark laughter! It’s great as a team competition too, and the moment you reveal who remained “first-class” at the end is always a highlight.
Give this game a try to instantly liven up your event!
Earphone Loud Telephone Game
You often see this game on variety shows too, right? I think the classic “telephone game” format is fun for all ages.
Preparing the music device is easy nowadays since we have smartphones.
If you don’t have headphones, earphones will do just fine.
For older participants, pick prompts about trends among young people; for younger participants, choose prompts with a Showa-retro vibe—add a little twist in how you select the topics.
The limit might be around 20 characters that people can memorize at once.
Getting some bitter tea ready as a penalty could make it even more exciting!
flash mob dance
Flash mobs that bring unexpected emotion to proposals and parties are a tempting choice for entertainment.
Yamauchi from the comedy duo Kamaitachi pulled off a huge gag by attempting a flash mob all by himself at his partner Hamaie’s wedding.
We wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re very brave… Since it’s mainly dancing, it may require a longer practice period than other performances.
It’s reassuring if you have a few people with dance experience.
For company events, it might be fun to divide into teams—like a junior team and a veteran team—and perform that way!
Telepathy Gesture Game
It’s no exaggeration to say that gesture games have long been a pillar of Japanese variety shows, and they’re always a hit as party entertainment.
Here, instead of a typical communication-style gesture game, we’ll introduce a telepathy-style version that tests whether two people are on the same wavelength.
First, present a prompt.
If the two performers make the same gesture, it’s a correct answer.
For example, if the prompt is “baseball” and one person acts as a batter while the other acts as a pitcher, that’s a miss.
It’s even more fun if you set up a screen so they can’t see each other’s gestures!