Play it right

Specially curated and intelligently tweaked board games are now popular at city watering holes. With the monsoons raining on everyone's parade, these fun activities are your best way out

Play it right

The beer Oympics is an annual event

Have you ever sexted your boss?" The only way you can get a friend to answer this question, truthfully at least, is when you have them caught in the grips of a drinking game — a seemingly irrelevant part of our lives that can in fact do so much.

Tresha Guha

Whether it's breathing life into a house party congested with a mix of unfamiliar faces, obnoxious drunks and the quiet types, or catalysing an evening of debauchery with a group of friends at a bar, drinking games can save the night. Perhaps their utility is amplified during these rainy months when most plans are indoors.

Cards against Sanskaar

Community gaming

At the crux of these games lies the concept of bringing people together, and what it simply does is take care of the awkward silences. Tresha Guha — head of marketing at Doolally's, a taproom that hosts the beer Olympics annually — echoes this. "We have been organising this event for the past nine years in Pune, and for two years in Mumbai. Over time, it has become the craziest celebration of beer athleticism.

Shots tray for games

It started with a funny thought of game-ifying beer drinking so as to get teams to come together and compete, but in a faltu way. Now, it's like a yearly tradition, because it helps bring people together. Perhaps, their biggest competition is the phone," she says. The establishment offers a plethora of board games that can be tweaked into drinking ones — like, Jenga and darts, where you play by the usual rules and drink when you drop the tower or miss the aim, or more traditional drinking activities, like beer pong and Cards Against Sanskaar, a desi version of the well-known Cards against Humanity.

Pawan Shahri

Apart from being able to unify people, games also help make things interesting, rather experiential, something many establishments are trying to achieve through different programmes in an era, where it takes a whole lot to get somebody to step out of their homes. This is the other reason why many places today stock or create games for their restaurants/cafés/bars. The newly launched Younion at Lower Parel, for example, offers shots roulette. Similarly, at Oi, a Latin-American diner in Khar, along with board games, which were introduced at the restaurant three months ago, there's also a huge cup (meant to be used for the infamous drinking game, Kings) and a shots tray that comes at a flat R3,000 for 25 portions.

Drinking Ludo

Stay, play

"Honestly, from the back end, we were trying to see how to increase the amount of time patrons spend at our diner. It was important to have something for those who walk in say, right after work," Pawan Shahri, the owner, tells us. Apart from the existing activities, Shahri and his team are looking to start a weekly night modelled around Cantus, a drinking game popular among college fraternities in Europe.

Divyesh Thakkar

It typically involves a large number of people divided into groups. Each team is given a rulebook, which requires you to follow the commands of the game master. "We are looking at starting this in three weeks. We will offer prizes and schedule it for Thursdays. It will have to be invite-only because the idea is to make everyone present participate," he explains.

People playing Spill

And while games, by and large, help foster togetherness and make things interesting, the point of drinking games, particularly, is to almost always lower the guard. This is why so many of them have the tendency to become scandalous, think Truth or Dare and Never Have I Ever. Emulating the essence of such games is Spill, a deck of 500 cards with innocent and libellous questions. Sahil Wadhwa, co-owner of boards game company Binca, explains, "The game has two sides, it will either help you find out things about your closest friends or aid in getting to know people in a unfamiliar setting, like when you join a new school."

Sahil Wadhwa

With sinless questions like "I am a bad patient," to downright racy stuff such as the enquiry about being lewd with your boss, Wadhwa says this is a game that has ended in couples fighting. While that should not be the end of a, so to speak, good evening, it's surely something worth trying as long as you're playing it right.

People playing Spill

Play at

Doolally's At Veera Desai Road, Kemp's Corner, Sanpada and Khar. Call 48931314 (Khar West)
Play — The Lounge. At Chakala, Andheri East. Call 68493249
Oi — Kitchen & Bar At Gabbana House, Khar West. Call 61736253

Stock up

Kreeda Games At Om Shivambika, Santacruz East. Call 65778943
Clue Hunt At Pali Village, Bandra West. Call 26005225
Games The Shop At Infinity II Mall, Goregaon West. Call 42669692

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