neutrino.md

Title: New party game: Neutrino slug: neutrino So apparently there are some rumors that Neutrinos don't do time. Of course this has already been refuted in interesting ways and so on, but the meme sticks: Neutrinos go back in time!

The Neutrino game plays off that and messes with time. There are already a lot of known games where you have to reverse the order of actions, such as Sokoban, Halma/Chinese Checkers, Braid, and Chess endgames.

The game

You decide on order of participants. It's not even that important to keep the order, if someone has a great idea for a move they can "do it", but making sure everyone participates, and that no one dominates the game, can be ensured by sitting in a circle and going in the positive direction, that is counter-clockwise when looking down at the group from the ceiling. The following happens:

Game begin: Someone comes up with a fairly neutral statement. For example, "Neutrinos are faster than light". He writes it down on a piece of paper, or in a tablet computer, or burns it out in a leather parchment.

Game play:

1. The piece of paper is given to the next person.
2. The next person comes up with a sentence which could have lead onto the text already on the piece of paper, and writes it down below, together with their name.
3. Repeat

Game end: When a previously agreed on limit happens (e.g. 20 sentences have been written down, 10 minutes pass, Friends starts on TV) you finish adding sentences, and someone has to read all the sentences from bottom to top. That is, the latest one is read, then the one added before that, etc. The point of the game is to create a fairly coherent piece of text that reads as if it were written in a normal fashion. Boring or incoherent sentences get negative points, fun sentences get positive points, normal sentences get no points. No one loses because the points don't matter! Game always ends if politics or religion are mentioned.

One key point is that you have to write the sentences in reverse order. This means that you write the last sentence on the top of the piece of paper, then write the next sentence (that should lead onto it) under it. You are not allowed to change this and play the game by writing the last sentence at the bottom and the next sentences above it.

Variations

Variations on the gamplay:

1. Quick round: sentences are awarded more or less points according to how good/bad they are. Players don't take turns in an order, they add something as soon as they come up with a cool move.
2. Defining order: you add a sentence and get to decide who does the next move. Especially fun if you use difficult topics and the next person has to say something about them, then.
3. Original sentence: you try to come up with a sequence of sentences leading onto another sentence. So, you define the last sentence as "Neutrinos are faster than light" and the first sentence as "Have ducks ever flown in winter?" and try to make a text which, after inverting, starts with the question about ducks, and ends with the statement about Neutrinos.
4. Mathematical proof: you come up with a theorem, and try to work back to something that leads onto it from an unexpected angle. Works best with theorems that have non-trivial proofs.
5. Minefield: you group into teams. Every team has their own piece of paper and list of sentences they create. You start with a final and original sentence, and define a minimum number of sentences that have to be used. When a team mentions a topic from a certain list of topics, they stop playing. At the end the teams who made the goal without "stepping on a mine" win, and the actual winner is decided by counting points.
6. Secret: you're not allowed to say what you put on the piece of paper, so that a person presented with the transcript has to come up with something quickly, as opposed to planning in their head what they will add. This makes the game more difficult.
7. Melody: you write down chords instead of sentences and decide on a key. You play it back and give negative points for false notes.

Variations on game end:

1. Game ends when the time is up
2. Game ends when a limit of sequences is added
3. Game ends when a topic from a list of topics is mentioned (for example, politics, religion, vegetarians).
4. Alternatively only people who mention that topic sit out.
5. The forbidden topics can be arbitrated by a single person who is the only person that knows them
6. Alternatively, every person playing writes down a topic on a small piece of paper and hides in their pocket, and plays it (or doesn't play it) when that topic comes up.
7. Alternatively, you can make it illegal not to play a card, by checking everyone's cards under the topic. If someone didn't play a card when they should have, they get disqualified from having points counted (and get the last place), or get a number of negative points.

Comment!

If you play the game, post your results in the comments! It's fun to read other people's game transcripts. I'm also interested in what other ideas you can come up with for game variation!

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I find it very interesting how taking a trivial activity and making a slight change — maybe even mathematically trivial, such as flipping the sign of the axis of time — can make that activity into a challenge. On the one hand there's a lot to be said about people who have handicaps and still find easy, interesting ways to do things people without handicaps do too; this is a challenge and isn't fun (is there an example of a technique invented by someone handicapped that was then adopted popularly by people without that handicap?). On the other hand there's a lot of fun in forcing yourself to be challenged; don't take the elevator, take the stairs. Don't use google, find your websites by following links. Don't sit in your office, make your desk tall and keep standing while using it. Take the long way home. Exit one subway station before you get where you're going. Try to find yourself in London speaking a foreign language. Compose your music only on 909/808/303/101. This is, I think, how novel ideas can be easily conceived.