Jon-kana-po is the Hawaiian version of “rock-paper-scissors.” Two people would play by putting their hand into a fist and chanting Jon-kana-po as they shook their fist up and down with each word. When they got to the word “Po,” each player had to change their hand into either a fist, a flat hand, or in the shape of scissors. Jon was the name of the fist; kana was the name of the flat hand; and po was the name of the scissor shape. Each hand shape had its advantage. Jon would beat po; po would beat kana; and kana would be jo. However, if each player put the same hand shape out, they would try playing again, but this time they would chant: “Itchy-Itchy-to.” This change in chant did not change the game at all. The hand motions and shapes stayed the same, but the change of the chant made it to stress the importance of the next move as well as show that the round was not over.
Category Archives: Game
Ace
Growing up in Newport Beach, Michael and his family and friends played a lot of beach volleyball. Michael’s dad and his friends used to play a drinking game mixed with beach volleyball that Michael now plays with his dad. The game is called Ace.
In Ace, you start by placing a pack of beers next to one of the poles that holds up the net. Everyone breaks up into two teams on each side of the net. Generally you play with two teams of four or possibly two teams of six. The game is similar to regular beach volleyball, however when someone gets an Ace, the drinking game starts. An Ace is when the ball hits the ground on the other side of the net without anyone on the other team touching the ball. When an Ace occurs, the team who got aced must share a beer. However, once an Ace occurs, a mini game takes place. Both teams try to grab the volleyball and touch it against the pole with the beers under it. Whichever team the person who touches the volleyball to the pole first is on, that team has possession of the ball. During the attempt to get the volleyball to the pole, each team can pass the ball and tackle or hold down other people to try and prevent the person form getting to the pole. The advantage for getting possession of the ball if your team got the Ace is that you can serve the ball the second the team finishes their beer, which is an easy opportunity for another Ace. The defending team advantage for possessing the ball is that they do not need to worry about the other team serving quickly because the other team can’t serve to continue the game without the ball. The game ends when the first team gets to fifteen game points in volleyball, meaning a team served fifteen successful balls over the net and hit the sand inside the court of the opposing team. Ace is just a mini drinking game that is a part of the game of volleyball. Ace just plays off the term used when you get a point where no one on the other team touched the ball. Therefore, the number of Aces doesn’t matter to the score of who wins Ace. Getting more Aces just means that the other team has to drink more and is likely to preform worse.
Fish, Fowl, Animal
My friend Michael described a game that he and his family used to play on long car rides. The game would begin with a person thinking of the name of either a fish a fowl or an animal, and then would tell the guessers which category he picked. The other people in the car would ask yes or no questions that would lead them closer to the name of the fish, fowl, or animal. The people in the car would guess one by one going in a clockwise order. The guessers would continue to ask questions until they guessed the name of the animal. Even though the people guessing would be working together to guess the correct answer, the person who successfully guesses the animal would be the next to pick a fish, fowl, or animal. The game would repeat until they got to the destination or until they grew bored and moved onto another game.
Commandoes
John with his family and friends would play a game they called Commandoes that everyone in their neighborhood picked up and began playing as well. The game involved both parents and children playing. Parents were involved because the “finder” of the game needed to be driving a car or a gold cart, while the “commandoes” ran on foot. The game would work by everyone piling into the car or golf cart. The “finder” would drive the car to any location that he or she so choose, and then he or she would drop off the commandoes. The commandoes would then have to make it from the drop off location back to “home base” without being seen by the “finder” in the car. Home base would be any location that was agreed upon by everyone, but usually was a house. After the finder dropped off the commandoes at the drop off point, he or she would turn the car or golf cart around and drive away. The commandoes would wait until the car was out of site before they could start making their way to home base. The commandoes needed to be as stealth as possible, as they made there way through he streets. If the finder in the car spotted any commando, he would flash his lights and yell that he found you. The commando would hop into the car and join the finder in search of the remaining commandoes. The commandoes who made it to home base would win. The finder won if he or she found all of the commandoes before they made it to home base.
Commandoes was a game invented by one of John’s dad’s friends. They would usually play the game when there was a community beach bonfire. All the kids would want to participate and sometimes multiple parents would drive and be “finders” as well. The game allowed the kids to run around and burn out some energy, while the parents got to relive their childhood of playing hide and go seek, but to a more advanced level.
Drinking Game: King’s Cup
Contextual Data: I asked a friend of mine if there was any particular drinking game that she enjoyed playing, and she mentioned this game “Kings” or “King’s Cup.” I’d heard of the game once before, and I asked her if she could explain to me how it was played and why she enjoyed it so much. The following is an exact transcript of her response.
“Um, okay, so… Kings is like a great game to play with like a whole bunch of people, because, well, you’re drinking, you’re all sitting in a circle, maybe you don’t really know everyone. So first you get a deck of cards, and you—everyone has cups, and of course, various alcohols, so whatever everyone is drinking, um… Maybe different pops or whatever or, like, mixed drinks. So you put one cup in the center of the deck of cards that you lay out in a circle in, like, kind of a fan around the center cup. And… Basically everyone just goes around and picks up a card when it’s their turn. So… I guess like… There’s rules, basically, that correspond with each card. I guess I can go over the rules.
“So when you get an Ace, um… I, I mean all the rules involve drinking. So every time you pick a card, something on that card is going to tell you an instruction on what you have to drink, how you have to drink it, um, who’s going to get stuck drinking, basically. And the point of the King’s cup is that as you go on, people are pouring, like, different things like their drink into that specific cup. And, um… it gets grosser and grosser, and at the end, the person who loses is gonna have to chug that disgusting, like, gross cup. Um, so…
“When you pull the cards—So you get an Ace. And if someone gets an Ace, um…it’s called ‘Waterfall,’ so the person who gets the card can, um, start drinking—whatever time they want—they start to drink whatever drink they have in their cup, and they can stop at any time, and—Oh! Everyone’s drinking at the same time. So everyone, um, in the circle of friends or whoever, starts drinking at the same time that person does, and then they can stop whenever they want, the next person can stop whenever they want, and that means the person next to them gets to stop whenever they want. So, basically, everyone’s getting screwed. Like, everyone’s getting plastered. Um, the second rule—a Two means You, so when it gets to Two, you have to drink. Three means Me, um, so—Oh wait. No. Two means You, so when you pick a Two you can designate someone that has to—so you like point to a person that you…has to take a drink. Three means Me, so when you pick that, um, you yourself have to drink. Four… Drinking games are sexist so Four means Whores, and all the women, um, in the group have to drink. That annoys me [Laughs]. As a side note. Um…Five means Jive. It’s like a really fun one. Um…Every—The person who picks it has to do a dance move, and the next person—in the circle—has to add on to it. And everyone’s probably drunk, so you have to keep building on to those dance moves, and if someone messes up, like the sequence, they have to drink. Um…It’s always fun to watch drunk people try and dance. And…Six means Dicks. More sexism. The men have to drink. Um…Yeah [Laughs]. That’s problematic. Then Seven is Heaven. Um…Everyone—the person who gets the card reaches up and puts both hands up to…touch the sky [Mimes putting both hands straight up in the air]. And the last person to notice and put their hands up has to drink. So if you’re not paying attention or, like, you’re just drunk or like, ‘What’s Seven mean?’ you get screwed and you have to drink. Um…Eight means Mate. So this is where you can pick someone and for the rest of the game when you have to drink—so when you are the last one to do the Seven Heaven thing or something that person has to drink too. And that’s a really good way to… Whatever. Either get back at someone or flirt with someone or whatever. Um, lets see. That was Eight—Eight means Mate. Nine is Rhyme. So…Someone—The person who draws the Nine thinks of a word and then everyone else after them has to, um, think of a rhyme to that word. And if they…The last person to either repeat the—something that someone’s already said or not be able to think of one has to drink. Um, Ten is Catagories. It’s like a similar idea, I guess. Um, so you pick a category, like ‘types of cereal’ or like… I don’t—Anything, really. It…In a party situation people usually pick something like…More vulgar. So ‘types of sexual positions’ or something and just like…Yeah. Interesting ways of getting people talking. And the last person—like the same thing with the rhyme—the last person to either mess up, not be able to think of one, or something else that someone’s already said has to drink. And then Eleven…Oh. No. There’s no Eleven in cards [Laughs]. Jack. Um, people play it differently, I guess. Like, there’s different rules, but when I play it, it just means, like, Jack means Back. I think other people play, like, Jack means, like, ‘Never Have I Ever’ or something. But that’s like a little aggressive to me…I don’t know. Um, Jack to Back is easier. So the person to the…Um, right of where you’re sitting when you pick the Jack has to drink. And… Queen is Question Master. So when the person draws the Queen, um, they kind of, like, don’t tell anyone. They might just say, like, ‘Oh, I got the Queen. I’m Question Master.’ But maybe no one notices and so that person, um, whenever they ask questions from that point—‘till someone else draws a Queen—they’re the Question Master, and if you answer—if someone playing answers the question that they’re asking, um, you have to drink. So, you can really mess with people because you just ask them, like, ‘Hey, is there anymore, like, in that cup or anything?’ If they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah! I can see some—Aww, you made me drink, like [Laughs], fuck you.’ Um [Laughs]. And…The King is like the whole point of the game—the King’s Cup. So when you get a King, you get to pick a rule for the game, like—same thing with the Queen, until someone else gets the King. And, um…The… So you might make a rule, like, ‘No swearing.’ And everyone’s drunk, so that’s pretty hard. [Laughs.] So if you do swear you have to drink. And then—or any kind of rule, basically. There’s like a few common ones, like…Again, like to mess with people, like…Whatever. There’s like…Yeah. Um, and then for the last King, whoever draws the last King, um—we kind of keep track—has to drink the King’s Cup and the game’s over…And they’re clearly messed [Laughs].”
– End Transcript –
When I asked my friend why she thought people played this particular game, she mentioned that it’s somewhat different from other drinking games, like Beer Pong or Flip Cup, because it doesn’t require any sort of “athletic” skill, it’s a game that could be played with large groups of people, and it’s a game that moves fairly quickly. She also mentioned that it’s a good game to get people talking and socializing. She said that she first learned to play it in college, and that it is particularly fun to play with people who have never played before, because when you first learn, it’s difficult to keep track of the rules, and so the “newbies” end up getting drunk very quickly. In that sense, it also seems to be a kind of initiation ritual in the drinking culture that’s often so prominent in the college social setting.
Her answer was fairly thorough and seemed to provide an insightful reason as to way the game is passed on — in particular that it is about getting drunk quickly (which is usually the reason people play these games) and that it does seem like a very good game to play to get people to start speaking and socializing with one another, which is certainly part of its appeal.
Annotation: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.game.card&feature=also_installed#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEwNCwiY29tLmdhbWUuY2FyZCJd
Interestingly enough, the game was made into an app for the Android, for those that don’t have a deck of cards handy. Different versions of the app do offer different sets of rules, which underscores that there are many variations to the game. It’s also interesting to note that the app exists under the name “Waterfall Drinking Game” and that an alternative name is “Ring of Fire,” which both emphasize that it is ultimately a game about getting drunk, which again, is why people usually play such games.