3 Nostalgia Games That Will Make You Reminisce | Game Rules

Seeing old friends again after a long time always triggers a bit of nostalgia. How much has the other person changed? How much yourself? And of course it’s the perfect opportunity to reminisce about all the things you used to do together. To jog your memory and bring one or the other almost forgotten anecdote to light, we have 3 exciting nostalgia games for you!

1. Nostalgia Game – The Memory Remix

Do you know the popular turning game, where everyone writes a sentence on a piece of paper and then folds it over so that only the last part of the sentence or the beginning of the next one can still be read? At each turn, you pass your sheet to the person next to you, who completes the sentence and starts a new one. It goes on like this until everyone has written a sentence at least once on each piece of paper.

We prefer to play this game with our friends with a nostalgia theme. Especially if you haven’t seen each other for a while, you can also simply set as a basic rule that everyone writes down an extraordinary experience that they have had together with at least one other friend from the round.

By turning over and passing around the notes, your memories are “remixed”, so to speak. This creates new funny or absurd stories. When you then unfold the notes and read them to each other, laughter is inevitable! Of course, you also have to tell the original anecdotes, in case everyone in the group doesn’t already know them anyway.

With this nostalgia game experience has shown that almost forgotten extraordinary experiences come up again and you can conjure up past times. In the case of long-term friendships, you can also specify certain times spent together as a theme from the outset. FOR EXAMPLE: School days, university days, travels together, training or a job you did together.

Variation: Portraits From the Past “Remixed”

Of course, the same method can also be used to paint pictures, such as portraits of people from your common past. These could be former teachers, classmates, parents and the school caretaker from your school days. But also the scolding neighbour next door or the nice kiosk saleswoman from whom you always bought ice cream and comics. And if you know each other from your student days: professors, instructors, fellow students, colleagues, flatmates, ex-boyfriends and party buddies.

If you prefer drawing to writing, or if you want to add some variety to your memory remix, this variation is made for you. First, everyone draws a head and folds the sheet over so that only the end of the neck is still visible. The next person draws the chest and arms, then the stomach, then the legs and finally the feet. Of course, you can also divide the body into sections according to your own ideas and the number of players. For example, hairstyle, eyes, nose & ears, mouth, neck, chest & shoulders, arms & stomach, pelvis, thighs, lower legs, feet….

Also for this version of the nostalgia game: your diaphragm will not be spared! I guarantee you: no eye will remain dry with the funny mixed characters that arise from the persons of your common memories… 😉

2. Nostalgia Game – Guessing Memories

Another cool way to recall your best moments with friends is to guess the experiences. It works like this: one of the group thinks of a particular event or moment from your past. The others then take turns asking questions about it, which can only be answered with yes or no, similar to the game Who am I?.

Example of a Memory to Guess

I once played this game in a round with old school friends. There were four of us and we hadn’t seen each other for a while. I had to think a bit before I had a suitable memory, but then I remembered the following story that we had experienced in 7th or 8th grade chemistry class:

We were supposed to do a practical experiment in pairs. I don’t remember exactly what it was about, but it involved a Bunsen burner to heat the chemical mixture. Anyway, the chemical reaction hissed impressively and produced something like a black caterpillar from the test tube.

Juri and Till wanted to make it a bit more bombastic. So they turned up the Bunsen burner to full blast, which resulted in their test tube bursting and the now burning brew spilling over their desk.

Unfortunately, no one was hurt, but Anita jumped out of the window in fright! However, the chemistry room was on the ground floor, so there was no real danger. In the end, the action caused the greatest hilarity for everyone – except for our chemistry teacher… 🙂

And This Is How the Nostalgic Guessing Game Works

More than ten years later, I sat with Anita, Juri and Till over a cold beer and played “guessing memories”. I remembered this memorable experience. Anita started to ask:

• Anita: ”Did it happen at school?” – Me: ”Yes.’
• Juri: ”In the playground?” – Me: ”No”
• Till: ”Were any of the teachers involved?” – Me: ”Yes.’
• Anita: ”Was he upset?” – Me: ”Yes.’
• Juri: ”Were Till and I to blame again?” – Me: ”Yes.” (Big laughter…)
• Till: ”That was obvious! Was it when we put salt in Mrs Hauser’s coffee?” – Me: ”No.’

As you can see, just by asking and thinking about which memory I might mean, some stories from our school days came up again – pure nostalgia! It actually took quite a while for my school friends to come up with the event with the Bunsen burner, but eventually they found out. Juri and Till also remembered the experiment in even more detail: we had lit Emser pastilles soaked in alcohol, which then become the aforementioned caterpillars.

3. Nostalgia Game – Chain of Associations With Memories

Recounting anecdotes from the past is actually the easiest way to playfully indulge in nostalgia. These do not necessarily have to do with all the people present. This variation of the game is also about telling those about experiences that not everyone knows about yet. A wonderful method to stimulate the memory are associations.

For an example, let’s stay with the round with school friends described above:
I’ll start by telling how Anita and I once missed the last stop on the underground and went to the so-called depot, where the trains are stored when they are not on the move. Then it’s Till’s turn and his task is to tell an anecdote that has at least one important point in common with my story. For example, he could tell something that happened to him in the underground, or something that he experienced together with Anita, or a story about a time when he overslept, etc..

To keep the variety in this nostalgia game, each associated commonality may only occur once as a link! This means: if Till now tells a story from the underground, for example, when he was caught fare evasion and ran away and Juri is next, he is not allowed to tell another underground story. But he could continue, for example, by telling about an experience where he ran away from something or someone.

And now have fun with your nostalgia games and reminisce!

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