Newcastle’s best drinking games

It’s a Tuesday night in December.

Your flatmates have already decided on going to Waikiki – the only way to rescue the night is to inject some fun into pres. But freshers’ was a long time ago, and Never Have I Ever just isn’t exciting now that you know who’s had sex at bus stops and who’s done anal. You’re worried suggesting playing Ring of Fire will be shot down in flames, and anyway you hate that game after ending up in the RVI because you were the one who had to down the dirty pint last week.

So look no further if you’re searching for ways to binge in style.

The Lecture Drinking Game

It’s the last week of term. Back at school, this meant watching Christmas films and kicking back – but at uni it can mean going on a bender. Besides, January exams are next year – that’s ages away. Anyway, it’s the university’s fault for having lectures go on until 6pm when you’ve already made plans to go to Swingers. Use it to your advantage.

This legendary game was developed by the Tab Newcastle’s Olly Clink earlier this year and comes with the following rules:

• Every time the lecturer tells a shit joke that no one laughs at – two fingers
• Reads out a slide word for word – two fingers
• Moves the slide forward before you’ve written everything down – one finger
• Every time a lecturer directs a question to the audience, drink like you do in ‘waterfall’ throughout the duration of the awkward silence.
• Slips into a painful anecdote about their life – one finger
• Two fingers for every 5 coughs from the audience
• Two fingers for every time someone arrives more than five minutes late.
• Everytime a phone receives a notification – two fingers. If the phone is yours, that’s four fingers. Texting other participants to force them to drink is strongly encouraged – so it’s advised you keep your phone on silent. In the words of Olly Clink: “stay on silent or shit gets violent”.

Categories

If your flatmates still insist on playing Ring of Fire, then here are some ideas for Categories:

• Newcastle Metro stations. Once the two Jesmonds and the city centre stations are gone, this shit gets real. You’d better know your Monkseatons from your Jarrows, fella.
• Newcastle University Buildings. You can’t have Barbara Streisand.
• ABBA songs. Time for the grimeheads to show their true colours.
• Shops in Newcastle. Just make sure you don’t say Zara.
• Christmas movies. Frozen isn’t a Christmas film.
• Clubs/bars in Newcastle. 
• Brands of toothpaste. Wait, what?
• Enzymes. Great way to separate the Science students from the Humanities students
• Real Housewives... of Atlanta, Orange County, New York City, Cheshire… how much ITVBe have you been watching recently?
• Types of… Vodka, Gin, Rum….Tesco Value doesn’t count.
• Capital cities. Lets get the Geography students out from under their rocks.

Shops

Everyone picks a Newcastle shop or bar – e.g. Jesmond Waitrose or Eat4less. The dealer turns over cards in front of each player, and if one of the overturned cards matches the one of the previous player, then both players must name something that they can buy in each other’s shop – so if player one is Waitrose and player two is Eat4less then player one should say soFemething you can buy in Waitrose and player two should say something you can buy in Eat4less. The one to shout out last is the loser and has to drink – if you say something which has already been said, or forget which shop your opponent is, you also have to drink.

Guess the song

Nominate someone as a DJ. Everyone thinks they’re a DJ in Newcastle, so this one should be easy. Get them to play a song while the rest of the room guess what the song is. If a player guesses the artist but not the name of the song, that’s two fingers. Guess the name of the song but not the artist, that’s one finger. If it’s completely wrong then down your drink. If the song is anything by Kanye West then the DJ has to down their drink.

Fuzzy Duck

The first player says “Fuzzy Duck”, as does the second – and this continues until someone says “Duzzy?” which is when the direction changes and the phrase to be repeated changes to “Ducky Fuzz”. Anyone can change the direction by saying “Duzzy?”, and anyone who says “Fucky Duzz” or “Duzzy Fuck” (or anything else) has to down their drink as a penalty. Go round the circle as fast as you can.

Save the Queen

Looks like you’re downing that vodka m8

Pick someone you think isn’t sufficiently hospital-bound yet and try and toss a coin into their drink. If they’re patriotic they’ll save the Queen from drowning by downing their drink.

Vodka roulette

Fill as many shot glasses as there are players with water, except for one which should be filled with vodka. Everyone downs their drink at the same time, and the one who got the vodka is out. The game continues until everyone has had a shot (or when the vodka runs out, which lets face it is more likely).

The Name Game

This one’s simple, but brutal for anyone who can’t think on their feet. Player one starts by saying the name of a celebrity, a place, or a song. Player two then needs to name something else which begins with the last letter of the previous name. So for instance if player one says Justin Bieber then player two should say Richmond Hammond. The game reverses direction if the name ends with the same letter that it begins with – e.g. Anastasia. A pause of more than five seconds requires that player to drink while they think of a name, and if the name they blurt out eventually has already been said they’ve got to down their drink.