Twister

...a box containing the game Twister and a card saying “This will provide you with hours of fun honey, love you lots xxx”. “Hours of fun” who was she kidding, I put the box under my bed and that is where it remained until one Saturday evening after a whole day in the pub with my fellow housemates.

(“,) History of the game (“,)

Two American men who go by the names of Charles F. Foley and ...
...since Milton Bradley first published Twister in 1966, which is a long-time before I was born.

When it was first introduced onto the games market it was remarked by competitors as selling “sex in a box”. However, people seemed unperturbed by this comment and it became a phenomenal success as well as a historical success, this was the first game to ever be introduced to include the human body as a fully-fledged playing piece. ... more

When I went off to University my best friend game me a leaving present and told me not to open it until I arrived at the house I was moving into.

Upon arrival, I opened this present to find a box containing the game Twister and a card saying “This will provide you with hours of fun honey, love you lots xxx”. “Hours of fun” who was she kidding, I put the box under my bed and that is where it remained until one Saturday evening after a whole day in the pub with my fellow housemates.

(“,) History of the game (“,)

Two American men who go by the names of Charles F. Foley and Neil Rabens invented the game Twister. It has been around since Milton Bradley first published Twister in 1966, which is a long-time before I was born.

When it was first introduced onto the games market it was remarked by competitors as selling “sex in a box”. However, people seemed unperturbed by this comment and it became a phenomenal success as well as a historical success, this was the first game to ever be introduced to include the human body as a fully-fledged playing piece.

The game became an overnight success when by chance Johnny Carson on a programme called the Tonight Show featured himself and a woman called Eva Gabor playing the game “With Eva splayed out on all fours on the polka dot vinyl mat, Johnny twirled the spinner and took his turn. When he climbed on top of Eva, the studio audience went into hysterics, screaming and laughing” and from there on in it was success.

During its first year of release more than three million copies of Twister were sold and to this day it is still very big on the games market and can be picked up for £7.99 upto £12.99 depending on where you shops for it.

(“,) What is in the box (“,)

Inside the box you will find, one huge squared plastic mat with coloured dots in Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. A Twister board which features a spinning device and then the board is divided into four sections – Left Hand, Left Foot, Right Hand and Right Foot and a mixture of all the colours and the rules.

(“,) Setting up the game (“,)

Nothing is simpler than setting up a game of Twister; you do not really need more than one brain cell.

(1.) Spread the mat face up on a flat surface, indoors or outdoors.

(2.) Players take off their shoes and set them aside. If you are playing outdoors, you may want to anchor the mat corners with something weighty.

(3.) Designate an extra person as the referee. The referee is not considered a player; during the game, the referee will spin the spinner, call out the moves, and monitor the game play.

(4) Position yourselves on the mat according to the number of players.

Now depending on the number of players in your game depends on your starting position. For example:

For a 2-player game: Players face each other from opposite ends of the mat, near the word Twister. Place one foot on the yellow circle and the other foot on the blue circle closest to your end of the mat. Your opponent does the same on his or her end.

For a 3-player game: Two players face each other on opposite ends of the mat, near the word Twister. Each player places one foot on the yellow circle and the other foot on the blue circle closest to his or her end of the mat. The third player faces the centre from the red-circle side of the mat, placing one foot each on the two middle red circles.

This information is all available on the rules card, which you will find inside the box, I am paraphrasing it for the purpose of this review.
Now in my household there was five people, so in order to be able to play Twister, we would use the rule for 2-players, and have one person on each side of the mat (which is square).

(“,) How to Play (“,)

Now everyone I know seems to have their own rules for playing Twister, here are the official rules:

“The referee spins the spinner, then calls out the body part and the colour that the arrow points to. For example, the referee may call out: "Right hand, red." All players, at the same time, must then try to follow the referee's directions as explained below.”

However, in my game of Twister, the referee would spin the spinner for each person in turn and they would move to whatever instruction was given.

*** Further rules ***

·Each player must try to place the called-out body part on a vacant circle of the called-out colour. For [example, if the referee calls out "Right hand, Blue," each player must try to place a right hand on any vacant blue circle – however in my interpretation of the rule, each player would be given an instruction to follow.

·If your called-out hand or foot is already on a circle of the called-out colour, you must try to move it to another circle of the same colour.

·There can never be more than one hand or foot on any one circle. If two or more players reach for the same circle, the referee must decide which player got there first. The other player(s) must find another vacant circle of the same colour.

·Never remove your hand or foot from a circle unless the referee directs you to, after a spin. Exception: You may lift a hand or foot to allow another hand or foot to pass by, as long as you announce it to the referee beforehand, and replace it on its circle immediately afterward.

·If all circles of a colour are already covered, the referee must spin again until a different colour is called out.

*** The Strategy ***

Strategy: Try moving toward an opponent's portion of the mat, forcing the player to go over or under you to place a hand or foot!

*** Kappaslappa’s rule *** putting yourself into an awkward or interesting position to put the other person off or diverting their attention when attempting to move.

(“,) YOUR OUT (“,)

*** Official Version ***

Any player who falls, or touches the mat with an elbow or knee, is immediately out of the game. (If you feel that a new position is impossible, or will cause you to fall, you may eliminate yourself.)
Right so now you know how to play Twister the ‘proper’ way and it gets a little tedious and a little repetitive every now and then. So here is my version to brighten up those boring Saturday nights when it is too cold to go out, or you have friends over for dinner and the wine has flowed rather freely.

NOTE – if you get embarrassed easily then this game might not be for you, but if you get drunk easily then this is definitely for you!

*** Kappaslappa’s Version ***

Well you didn’t seriously think I would be able to play something as simple as a game of Twister without inventing my own rules and making it even more fun did you!

As I said right at the beginning of this review, one Saturday evening after a whole day of drinking, Ethel, my lovely housemate suggested that we played Twister. So, after a few games of the boys being overtly brash and bullish I decided to get my revenge and make it more fun.

Announcing to my flatmate Mildred to go get as much alcohol as she could find from the round the house, Ethel to go get some paper and pens and I went off to get the baby oil, we down around the dining room table and I told them the new rules.

The Twister mat was to be covered in baby oil, the boys were instructed to cover the lounge floor with newspaper, the last thing I wanted was out lovely Royal Blue carpet ruined, then cover the mat with the baby oil liberally.

Ethel and I then proceeded to write down all the items of clothing we could think of, folded them up, and placed them in the mixing bowl.

Now this is a note to all of those who try this…. Don’t wear lovely nice new clothes to play this game, go and change into something old, or something you don’t really mind getting soaked in oil, because sometimes the baby oil will stain your clothes. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

So the rules of ** Kappaslappa’s strip Twister **

In the official rules it says “Any player who falls, or touches the mat with an elbow or knee, is immediately out of the game”, well in my game if you do any of these, not only do you have to down a shot of whatever alcoholic beverage you have found, but you also have to dip your hand into the mixing bowl and pull out a piece of paper which will have an item of clothing marked on it.

Yep you guessed it; you have to remove that item of clothing, without leaving the mat.

*** Just for fun ***

Now also within the mixing bowl will be 4 pieces of paper with each of the person’s names playing the game. If you pick their name out, after falling down, rather than a piece of paper with an item of clothing on, they will then have to remove the item of clothing you pick out of the bowl. They will also have to drink the shot of alcohol.

Now, if you are rather prudish and are currently sat here shaking your head in total disbelief and calling me all the names under the sun, then don’t read any further… its about to get VERY RUDE…. Take that as your warning.

Now, on this particular Saturday night, which I remember very vividly as I, was the one with the twister board spinning away until my hearts content. I decided to make it even more interesting, well it says on the box "The game that ties you up in knots” and thats precisely what my version does.

Not only were my flatmates nearly naked and totally sloshed (oh and move any object which could cause harm right out of the way, including furniture), I decided that I would make the movements as difficult and as rude as possible by introducing body parts as well as colours as well as other people’s body parts.

So for example, Ethel bless her was on all fours and it was Arfurthis wasn’t too far away, I would say “Arfurthis your pelvis to Ethel’s ass whilst keeping your left hand on blue” meaning that he would now be directly behind Ethel in a rude position.

Then I would get Arfurthat to move between Mildred’s legs by saying “Arfurthat, move you legs between Mildred’s front facing and left leg to yellow, thus meaning that he was in the crab position with Mildred standing over him.

Back to Ethel and she would be made to move forward and reach as far as possible forward to enhance the rude position and back to Mildred she would be made to turn round and end it in the 69 position with Arfurthat and so on.

Now as the game went on, the body parts got more specific and certain hands would have to go to certain places whilst moving one of your limbs to a colour and the more items of clothing that were lost the more embarrassing it got. So for example – Mildred would have to place her right hand on Arfurthat’s ‘bits and pieces’ whilst putting her left leg on yellow and so on.

If Arfurthat made the wrong move, it could either be very painful, especially as the mat was slippy and Mildred would have to grab onto something, or it could be very embarrassing if he got to excited whilst moving into position.

Obviously the boys got to put their hands in certain places as well, I wasn’t totally sexist, well not all the time.
The one thing that the boys would refuse to do was get into rude positions together, they would rather strip off and drink a shot, which added to the fun.

These games would go on for hours on end and sometimes there would be more than four people on the mat because the boys would invite their friends over to play. We would bring our girlie friends back to play and the boys would think all their Christmases had come at once with four or five girls to the two of them.

(“,) Funny instance including me (“,)

One of the funniest instances ever was when Mildred and I were in the 69 position, in knickers and bra only and Arthurthat was spinning the wheel, and Arfurthis, who was only in his boxer shorts had to something get between us, touching various parts to reach a red circle which was unoccupied when Ethel came home from a meal with her married sister and her family.

That took some explaining; luckily, we were all too drunk to care.

Since University we have all met up once and played Strip Twister as a tribute to our Uni House and it was hilariously funny, especially as we were all staying in a travel lodge and very were noisy, I hate to think what the other guests thought with five people in one room.

So there, you have my guide to playing Strip Twister with an added twist to make it more interesting.

SO ANYONE FOR A GAME?
 

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