HT Games
Charades
Charades is one of the more popular interactive word party games. Played with teams, each team chooses a member to act out a phrase. The chosen one must use a series of clues while his teammates try to guess the phrase, calling their guesses out until they get it right. The rules are simple, divide the group into two teams with each team writing phrases onto slips of paper. The phrases can include movie titles, book titles, famous quotes, television shows and song titles. Each team exchanges their phrases and the fun begins. The team actor starts with giving basic clues to let their teammates know what kind of phrase and how many words the phrase includes. For example, the type of phrase could be a book and the actor opens their hands like they were to read a book, they would then show the number of words in the phrase by holding up the corresponding number of fingers. The next step would be letting their teammates know which word in the phrase they are starting with by again holding up the corresponding number of fingers. The last basic clue is how many syllables that word has; this is indicated by placing the corresponding number of fingers on your forearm. Once these things have been established, the acting begins. Score is kept by time; the team that solves their phrase the fastest wins the round. Some additional basic clues are song title--open your mouth as if you were singing a song, movie title--pretend like you are using an old fashioned movie camera, quote--make quotation marks in the air and television show -- draw a box with your fingers.
Who Am I
Another popular interactive word party game is Who Am I. You need nothing more than index cards and tape. This party game can be played for hours and is a great ice breaker. The way the game is played can vary, but the rules remain the same. Your guests write on an index card the name of a famous individual, either real or fictional, and then pass it to the person sitting next to them. That person then tapes the card to her forehead (without looking at the card) so that the other guests can see who they are supposed to be. They begin to ask only yes or no questions until they are able to guess who they are or give up. An additional way to play is to have the cards premade and as each guest arrives, the host tapes the card to the guest's back. Your guests can now walk around asking each other yes or no questions throughout the evening until they guess who they are. This party game will create dialog among your guests.
Fictionary
This interactive word party game works well for a small gathering of friends. You need a dictionary, index cards and something to write with. A player chooses a word from the dictionary that no one in the group knows the meaning of. The player then pronounces the word and spells it for the rest of the group. Each person in the group writes on their index card what they think the definition is while the player writes the real meaning on their card. All cards are shuffled and the player reads each definition out loud. A point is awarded to the person that guesses the right definition, a point is given to the person who's made up definition gets voted for and should the real definition not be voted on, the player gets a point. You may play this game for as many rounds as you would like.