Many of the games under this heading look harder than they really are. But the mere suggestion of a writing game is often enough to frighten away timid players who mistrust their powers of composition—although the result can be as funny when these powers are small as when they are considerable. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
Simple Acrostics
There are "Simple Acrostics" and "Double Acrostics." The simple ones are very simple. When the players are all ready a word is chosen by one of them, either from thought or by looking at a book and taking the first promising one that occurs. Perhaps it is "govern." Each player then puts the letters forming "govern" in a line down the paper, and the object of the game is to find, in a given time, words beginning with each of those letters. Thus, at the end of time, one player might have—
G ravy
O range
V iolet
E sther
R obin
N umbskull
The players then describe their words in turn, one letter going the round before the next is reached, and from these descriptions the words have to be guessed, either by any player who likes or by the players in turn. The player whose paper we have quoted might describe his words like this: G—— "Something that makes hot beef nice"; O—— "A fruit"; V—— "A flower"; E—— "A girl's name"; R—— "A bird"; and N—— "A name for a silly person." If any one else has the same word neither of you can score it, and it is therefore important to seek for the most unlikely words.
Another way of playing "Simple Acrostics" is to insist on each word being the same length. Thus "govern" might be filled in by one player thus:—
G rave
O ddly
V erse
E arth
R ebel
N inth
Double Acrostics
In "Double Acrostics" the game is played in precisely the same way, except that the letters of the word, after having been arranged in a line down the paper, are then arranged again in a line up the paper, so that the first letter is opposite the last, and the last opposite the first. Thus:—
G N
O R
V E
E V
R O
N G