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Guggenheim

No. of Players: 2+
Type of Game: written
What you need: pen and paper

Goal

To think of words that begin with particular letters and that fall into particular categories.

How to play

This word game is a more complex version of Categories. Players choose a five- (or four- or six-) letter word. This word can be chosen by opening up a book randomly and selecting the first word of appropriate length. Players also agree on four or five categories and write these down the left side of their paper, with the letters of the chosen word written across the top so that a grid is formed. They are then given five or ten minutes to fill that grid with words that begin with the letters of the chosen word and that fall into the categories. Points are given only to players who think of words that no other player has written down. To make the game harder, players can agree that words cannot have any duplicate letters.

Example

Aidan and Briggs each suggest two categories. Aidan selects a book from his bookshelf and Briggs tells him to pick the first five-letter word starting from the 9th line on page 62. That word is HORSE and they write it across the top of their paper, and then write the four categories down the left side. They agree on a five minute time limit to write down their answers. After five minutes, Aidan's grid looks like this:

guggenheim word game grid

Since Briggs also wrote down ORANGUTAN, RABBIT, EAGLE, RADISH, and SPINACH, neither player receives points for these words. So Aidan scores 14 points in total.

Did you know?

The Guggenheim Museum of New York City is the permanent home of works of art by Pablo Picasso, Edouard Manet, and Paul Klee.

Pablo Picasso painting with signature

But the unique spiral design of the building, conceived by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1959, is what arguably makes the greatest impression with most visitors.

Manhattan skyline

No doubt this is the reason why it has served as the impressive backdrop to such diverse Hollywood films like Bye Bye Birdie, When In Rome, Men In Black, Mr. Popper's Penguins, The International and, of course, Manhattan.

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