The Floor is Lava and Bored? Games!

The Floor is Lava and Bored? Games are Ivan Brett’s collections that between them total 201 games. I picked them both up at AireCon – I’d not heard of either of them before. (I was only aware of Ivan Brett as he was a competitor in The Traitors, the Werewolf-inspired 2022 BBC TV series. I didn’t know he’d written books of games.)

Anyway, both books are great and group the games into categories – games for the car, games for the table, party games, games played standing up, and so on. I’m considering them together here, although if you were only getting one, I recommend The Floor is Lava, as it feels like a slightly stronger collection.

Many of the games are familiar – Miss H had played The Floor is Lava at Guides, plus there are games like Wink Murder, Sprouts, Boxes and the like, which I’ve played before.

There are also games that have been turned into “proper” board games – in the same way that Werewolf is essentially Mafia and The Hardest Game in the World is like The Mind. (And, although it’s not relevant here, The Great Dalmuti is a reworked version of President.)

And while many of these games can be found on the Internet (the links above all go to Wikipedia), it’s nice to have an easily portable collection. (I hadn’t realised that Wikipedia was such a great store of such games until I wrote this post.)

Plus, there are loads of games new to me.

Inevitably, in a collection of 201 games, there are plenty that don’t appeal. But that doesn’t matter – there are plenty I would enjoy playing.

RPGs included!

The Floor is Lava even includes RPGs and explains them in five pages with an example of play and five suggested settings. Full marks for brevity, although I’d be surprised if anyone uses The Floor is Lava for their first RPG.

Is this even a game?

Some entries stretch the definition of ‘game’. Memory Palace is a trick for memorising lists. What’s that good dog probably called? is making up names for dogs you meet. Talk like Shakespeare is talking in iambic pentameter. Avagat is a made-up secret language. I guess they’re fun things to do, but I’m not sure I’d count them as games. (But then, I’m not trying to fill a couple of books with over 200 games.)

My favourite games

I’ve not played all of these, but they look like games I would enjoy:

From The Floor is Lava:

• Brian! Brian! A silly counting game – you count in Roman numerals but replace I with “Brian!”, V with “Your friend Ian is here!” and X with “He wants to know if you can come out to play!” And then you sound like an exasperated mother – fun and silly. (I have played this.)
• 1000 Blank White Cards where players create their own rules.
• Hangman Mastermind is a simple word game (and a combination of hangman and the old Mastermind game).

From Bored? Games!

• Mao, a legendary card game played over several rounds where you have to work out what new rule the dealer has added.
• My Card, where players trade and barter over coloured cards – the value of which they have to find out. (Could be used as a mechanic for something in a freeform, I think.) It’s based on a Sid Sackson game from A Gamut of Games, which I’ve added to my birthday list.
• Nuclear Apocalypse is a simple wargame.